First thing to note about the MRT, every station has been strategically placed inside, beside, atop or underneath a mall or shopping center of sorts. So when leaving or coming, you have to brave the crowds of both shoppers, transients and everyday populous going about their day. At first it can be worrying trying to get up onto the platform for the East-West Line at Tampines Station, getting lost in the torrent of bodies as they surge in every direction, trying not to worry that every backpack, shoulder or elbow is going to smack you as it passes.
Yet the system has been designed to be as seamless as possible, so that riders can get through as fast as possible with as little Human supervision needed. The turnstilles are automated, only needing a 'credit-card' like pass to be passed over the reader, you don't even have to take them out of your wallet as you pass through. These cards are so much more economical and efficent than the paper/cardboard MTA cards like in New York, even transit tokens like in Philadelphia .. seriously SEPTA you're the last in the United States to still use that dated system and all your stations smell like pee so we know you're not using the taxpayer dollars for janitors.
Eventually however we get up atop the platform and the first thing you see coming up the escalator is the giant fans. These massive propellers are what provides air-conditioning to the otherwise open air station, swinging with four great blades that each have to be 10-feet long. Just standing under one in the hot and humid air, gives you a nice chill that otherwise would leave you sweating to dehydration.
Overall the stations appear clean, save for the little dirt or grim that daily foot-traffic inevitably creates. Singapore has incredibly strict litter laws, even new laws passed on smoking in non-smoking zones are intense. Between S$500 to S$1000 if you're caught on either!
Yeah, a lot of people have commented when I say that one, that it's so draconian and unfair to charge so much for simply littering or happening to smoke too close to a building. But you have to remember Singapore is an island, independent and significantly smaller than its much more massive neighbors. It is just a bit smaller than New York City, that's Singapore's 710 km² against NYC's 1,213 km² (that's with Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx and Staten Island). Also you have to remember that New York, with its 8.3-million people, has the entire United States to support it... Singapore's 5.3-million just has itself.
They are strict with their laws because the nation can't afford to waste important and finite resources on otherwise trivial things like people being too lazy to pick up after themselves. Take one stroll down a street or through a park in Singapore and you very rarely find trash lying about... walk three-feet in NYC and I guarantee you'll trip over ten empty plastic bottles, an overturned trash can and at least one piece of furniture... walk into a Manhattan subway station outside the tourist areas (like Harlem or East Village) and be ready for your nostrils to be assaulted by the smell of urine, gasoline and milk so bad its a day or so away from being good cheese. And to point out, such laws are rarely broken because after so long with it, most Singaporeans have a very clear image that you'd have to be outright stupid to do something like litter when trash bins line almost every avenue and street.
Oh and for you smokers out there, the weather is 80F and sunny all year round, so you literally won't be left out in the cold!
Back onto topic and into the MRT station, the next thing that will catch your attention is the gates that line the platform, a chin-high glass barrier of sorts that separate the waiting commuters from the incoming trains. Now in NYC, all the MTA gives you is a painted yellow line down the ledge of the platform, with a warning if you cross this barely-there line you're pretty much playing with fire when the train rolls into the station. To say it is cheap negligence is an understatement when you see these high-tech glass barriers and automated gates that open and close, to allow the commuters to board the trains in what many would consider a minor 'suburban' station. You quickly realized how criminally cheap the MTA is, how many people each year are killed, victims of accidents, fate or stupidity when they are struck by oncoming trains in the subway... how much an investment now could protect the most predictable problem trains have faced since the beginning of their invention... Human bodies do not fare well against a 25-mph train... they are obliterated when you add in how fast the express trains run.
No New Yorker wants to remember the horrifying picture of Ki-Suk Han mere seconds before the Q-train killed him, all because a drunken argument that ended with a homeless man by the name of Naeem Davis shoving Han off the platform and into the path of the incoming subway train. Or barely a month or so later when a mentally disturbed Erika Menedez shoved Indian-immigrant and long time New York resident Sunando Sen onto the tracks of the oncoming Queens #7 train, all because "he looked Muslim".
But I digress on another tangent, one that would flare in the face of any MTA-riding New Yorker when they stand on the platform at any MRT station. As the train rolls in and the glass doors that separate the commuters and their vehicle slide back silently, the rush of people again seems to overpower us. It is a miracle we find seats though honestly inside this giant machine its surprisingly easy. MRT trains are like the 'caterpillar' design, meaning that other than metal hings that move and mold as the cars coast around corners, the interior is just on long, cavernous hall with seats lining the sides, hanging straps for those standing and the occasional metal pillar for groups to cluster around. I have quickly vowed that if I can, I would love to one day sit at the front or back of one of these endless cars and watch as the white, blue halls before me warp and twist like some haunted fun-house. However given the high usage rates since owning a car in Singapore is very difficult, this is going to probably only happen if I get on at the end of the line AND at the very least, at 5:00 AM in the morning... yes, there is a 5:00 AM now!We arrive in VivoCity (a slight detour to meet with a friend in Tanjong Pagar) and again we find ourselves climbing the endless escalators upward. Seriously, up three stories into the ground level, with another two stories of mall over us (seeing a theme here with Singapore transit), it creates a endless rising feeling, as if you are about to step off and right into the clouds.
VivoCity is probably one of the largest malls in Singapore and before you think of it, other than the food court, you could actually convince yourself you're standing in any mall back in America. The stores are almost identical, from GAP to Forever 21 and the prices are none too different from home. The way I understand it a lot of foreign travelers love to stop in cities like New York for the clothes shopping but seriously, I could not find any notable difference between the stores in Singapore and the ones back home like Oxford Valley or Neshaminy Mall.
I mean other than the high prevalence of Asia dining establishments and some weird choices of window display, again see Exhibit B, an American let lose in this mall without knowing he's in Singapore probably wouldn't register anything... yeah, I know, I nearly didn't register it!
Well more for next time, Ang Moh out!
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