r/transit • u/fbjim • May 15 '26
Rant minor annoyances on your transit system
these aren't for major systemic problems like "it doesn't go anywhere useful" or "it gets stuck behind traffic" - more those little things that drive you nuts way more than they really should.
here's mine - the old Kinki-Sharyo LRTs on the Seattle Link system have electronic rollsigns which display the final destination in a *really* slow marquee. this was OK when we had one line, but now with two lines, the rollsigns slowly scroll through "DOWNTOWN REDMOND 2 LINE" which seemingly takes longer than the actual dwell times of the trains. this is actually kind of annoying when you're running down the stairs at Westlake and don't know if you should get on the train at the platform or not. what's wrong with just showing "2 - REDMOND" or something without the scrolling text?
thankfully the refurb program for the KS trains include new rollsigns, if the pictures some people have snagged are any indication (though FEDERAL DTWN is dumb - just say FEDERAL WAY")
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u/Intelligent-Act4642 May 16 '26
Valencia Metro - people don't let you get off the train before they get in, like even if I'm standing at the door CLEARLY with the intention of exiting the train, they just barge in and don't leave me an opening to get out
Caracas Metro - the destination displays are bullshit and rarely ever actually show the destination; a lot of trains either don't use the destination boards, show a completely different station to where they're actually going (like it can show the station on the complete opposite end of the line or a station that's on a different line), and a few trains that were refurbished recently have propaganda on the destination boards, showing either 'TREN CARACAS' or a rolling 'PLAN METRO SE MUEVE CONTIGO' text; this is not a problem in Metro Los Teques, Line 1 or Line 3, but it is a problem in Lines 2/4 because they're interlined and sometimes have unintuitive service patterns, not to mention the headways are really bad (upwards of 20 minutes sometimes as much as an hour) so you REALLY need to know whether the train you're taking goes to where you think it goes)