Results tagged “public”

News from the subway in the past couple weeks:
• "Can't the city give some street performers some space?" - Street performers in Shanghai are often lumped together with beggars as public nuisances, but often they are just free spirits chasing a musical dream. One cited example are Tuotuo and A-qing, a couple of guys who play the guitar and sing every evening at the City Plaza Mall in Jing'an, often attracting a crowd of mostly young women and foreigners before being "politely" cut short by the city beat patrol. Street performers are often cited under Article 25 of the "Regulations for the Management of City Appearance & Environmental Sanitation", which assigns fines to and confiscation of the equipment of businesses and individuals obstructing public walkways to set up stalls, sell merchandise, or otherwise affect city's public image. The author of the piece consults sociology Professor Gu at the University of Shanghai, who suggests that the city set aside certain allowed areas for use by street performers.
• "World Expo mascot makes an appearance on escalator handrails" - OK, so we lie. The actual headline names the mascot by his real name, Haibao, but who actually remembers that? (As opposed to the much more clever, literal Sea Baby, or ) Anyhow, he's showing up on escalator handrail covers at Zhongshan Park, which will eventually spread to other stations in the Shanghai Metro.
• "Metro pickpocket team scooped up by police dragnet on a dark and stormy night" - Last week a team of 80 special police agents arrested a team of 20 pickpockets living in homes and hotels near the Zhenping Rd subway station on Line 3. The group targeted mainly young women wearing backpacks on Lines 2 and 3. The police also seized nearly RMB 160 thousand in stolen property, including cash, gold jewelry, digital cameras and MP3 players.

Last night's Shanghai Evening Post contained several meaty public transportation related articles covering the following topics:

Two recent stories from the Shanghai subway system might be worth your notice:
• A score of news reports are heralding new measures to alleviate passenger load on Line 2 trains on the Pudong side, where Zhangjiang High-Tech Park station has become one of the metro system's highest trafficked stations due to what the Xinmin Evening Post calls “白领客流”, the "white-collar passenger flow". More trains are being added to both the morning and afternoon rush hours, and morning hours at Zhangjiang are being extended to match Zhongshan Park's early hours with a first train at 5:55 in the morning. The changes are already reflected on the Shanghai Metro company's website. Also, Zhangjiang Station has begun to use both platforms to send passengers off to Puxi and now has the option of restricting passenger access to the station during overly crowded periods.
• Just like last year's Trojan ads, a new but more risqué Durex ad featuring a woman in hot pants and a construction worker that is being shown on subway and office building LCDs has offended passengers and white-collar workers, and is on its way to being banned within the next week for not passing inspection by the State Food and Drug Administration as an ad for a medical product. A popular editorial titled "Sex Ed is not going to fall from the sky" by SHEN Ruoyu opposes the possible ban and argues that the ostrich approach to sex is not appropriate in this day and age.