This initiative probably will help to make the restrooms cleanlier as long as people don’t throw the toilet paper on the ground instead:
Trash bins are set to vanish from public restrooms in Seoul subway stations in phases from Aug. 1, according to Seoul Metro Friday.
The men’s restroom trash bins will be removed first. The women’s bins will be removed from Sep. 1 to allow sanitary waste bins to be installed.
The project, “Trash bin free restroom,” aims to make public restrooms cleaner without the bad odor. It is already in effect on subway lines five to eight and will be extended to all Seoul subway lines except nine.
Seoul Metro is positive that after a trial the project will reduce odors and make the restrooms more welcoming. [Korea Times]
This whole incident is very unfortunate, but it seems what happened was caused by Mr. Han being drunk and harassing Mr. Davis in the first place thus influencing the jury’s decision to acquit him:
Naeem Davis, right, was acquitted of murder
A man accused of pushing a stranger to his death by shoving him on to the tracksof a subway has been acquitted of murder.
Naeem Davis, 34, was cleared on Monday of murdering Ki-Suck Han, 58, after he shoved him on to the tracks at the 49th Street station near Times Square in New York on December 3, 2012.
Mr Davis said he was defending himself when he pushed Mr Han off the platform. At least a minute passed before a train pulled into the platform and it Mr Han, killing him.
The scene was captured by a photographer for the New York Post, who controversially put a picture showing Mr Han on the tracks, seconds before his death, on its front page.
Mr Davis said that Mr Han, who was drunk at the time, had picked a fight with him after the pair bumped into each other accidentally near the subway turnstiles.
A court heard that Mr Han then followed Mr Davis down to the platform, shouting obscenities at him – including death threats – and grabbing his shoulder.
Mr Davis said Mr Han shouted at him, ’I’ll kill you!’, and that he was slurring his words and staggering. [Yahoo News]
You can read the rest at the link, but Mr. Davis spent four and half years in jail before being acquitted of the crime.
An Australian, whose identity is unknown, has been arrested for defacing a subway car, according to Suseo Police Station Sunday.
According to police, the man, 22, and his girlfriend arrived on Mar. 27, and stayed at a hotel near Hongik University.
The man broke into Gangnam Subway Depot and drew graffiti on a subway car on Apr. 1, after being told wrongly he could do this.
He left for Japan the next day, but was arrested on Sunday after stopping at Incheon International Airport for a flight back to Australia. [Korea Times]
Another death caused by the security doors in Seoul’s subway system:
The victim, circled, collapses after coming through an emergency door on the platform. He died in hospital. / Yonhap
A man was killed after being caught between subway safety doors and a train at Gimpo International Airport Station in western Seoul, Wednesday.
The passenger, surnamed Kim, 36, was on a train heading for Banghwa Station of line No. 5. As the train arrived at Gimpo station, he was getting off but got caught in the 30-centimeter gap between the train and the platform safety screen door.
As the subway engineer closed the train doors and screen doors to depart, a passenger reported through the intercom on the train that a man was caught between the two sets of doors, according to Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corp.
The engineer re-opened the doors and closed them again 27 seconds later and started moving the train, apparently failing to check whether the man got out of the gap. [Korea Times]
It looks like there could be some serious gridlock if the subway workers strike as planned to stop the implementing of performance based pay:
The Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union will enter an all-out strike from today, while metros in Seoul and Busan also announced a strike from today, which comes as worrying news for many commuters who fear they may have to contend with nationwide paralyzed underground and railroad traffic.
The announcement on Monday heralds the first time in 22 years that the transport workers’ union and public metro companies in Seoul decided to hold a simultaneous strike.
The transport workers’ strikes follow a general strike by the Korean Financial Industry Union since Friday, and will be followed by another from Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union on Wednesday and by the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions on Thursday.
The unions are protesting the central government’s plan to extend the performance-based salary system to more employees of public companies and organizations. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
I hope this one western trend that some Koreans will not think is cool to take up:
On June 26, a vending machine inside the Express Bus Terminal Station on subway line No. 3 was found defaced with graffiti. [SEOUL METRO]Graffiti has been spotted in at least 20 subway stations over the past two weeks. Unlike the elaborate work of graffiti artists – with a distinct aesthetic or message – the recent graffiti were mere scribbles done in less than a minute.
Stations with graffiti problems include Jamsil, Gangnam, Konkuk University, Hapjeong, and Sangsu.
There’s a history to Korea’s subway graffiti problem. In May 2016, a subway car idled in a garage in Incheon was found with two drawings spraypainted on it.
In May 2015, a Latvian graffiti artist and three others were arrested for defacing Seoul Metro subway cars. In February 2015, a group of four Australians fled Korea after covering subway cars in Wangsimni, Anam, and Sinnonhyeon stations in graffiti.
The Korea Railway Police feared that foreign graffiti artists were targeting its cars – and circulating information on how to penetrate certain stations with lax security.
Current law states that graffiti corresponds to property damage described in Article 336 of the criminal code. Guilty parties can be imprisoned for a maximum of three years or fined up to 7 million won ($6,290).
Additional punishment is possible if multiple people were involved, according to the Law on Punishment of Violent Acts.
However, it is not easy to track down graffiti aficionados, since they work stealthily.
“We have found through CCTV footage that there was one culprit involved, but it is difficult to detect the identity of the suspect,” said a police official in charge of a recent graffiti case at Jamsil Station on subway line No. 2. “The person in question committed the crime and fled within a minute. Obscure scribbles 30 cm (1 foot) wide and 50 cm (1.6 feet) tall were written in marker on the walls of a passageway.
“Foreign culprits are more difficult to arrest since many have left the nation when investigations have started,” said Kim Hyeon-mo, an investigator of the Korea Railway Police. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
This is just an example of why Korean youth have such a hard time finding employment when retirees over 60 with no job training are given jobs they have no skills for:
Seoul Metro, which has been outsourcing maintenance work to reduce costs, pressured subcontractors to hire its own retirees at triple the salary of regular mechanics.
And many were hired to do mechanical work for which they had no training.
The influx of untrained Seoul Metro retirees over the age of 60 resulted in the real mechanics being forced to work alone, as was a teenaged maintenance worker who was killed by an arriving train at Guui Station on May 28.
Internal records of Eunsung PSD, the subcontractor who employed the 19-year-old accident victim, showed that Seoul Metro has been pressuring such subcontractors to hire its retirees. (……..)
“The situation today is no different to and perhaps worse than the social hierarchy of the Joseon Dynasty,” said the Saenuri Party’s floor leader Chung Jin-suk. “How is it possible that a 19-year-old young man receives 1.44 million won while a Seoul Metro retiree rakes in some 4 million won per month?”
The history of so-called revolving door appointments – the finding of cushy jobs for people retiring from government corporations – between Seoul Metro and the subcontractor does not end there. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
It appears that another incident involving safety has claimed more lives in South Korea:
Four workers were killed and 10 others were injured Wednesday, when a subway construction site near Seoul collapsed due to what is believed to be an explosion of an oxygen cylinder, police said.
The victims, who were trapped under debris 15 meters underground, were transported to nearby hospitals for treatment, according to authorities.
The accident, which occurred in the city of Namyangju, east of Seoul, around 7:20 a.m., took place when a total of 17 workers were doing welding work.
A witness said there was a huge blast, but the police said they believe explosives were not being used at the time of the collapse.
The number of deaths could increase as some of the injured are in critical condition, the police said.
Police and firefighters said they are investigating the exact cause of the accident. [Yonhap]
Considering some of the drunken and mentally unstable incidents I have seen happen on the Seoul subways this is a job I have a lot of respect for the people working it:
Wearing stab-proof vests over their uniform shirt, they patrol underground during duty hours. Their mission is to help secure safety of people and keep peace.
Policemen? No, they are Subway Guards helping prevent crimes and incidents and establish order at more than 300 subway stations in Seoul. (……)
Although guards do not have the power to arrest, unlike police officers, most of them are well-trained professionals, each mastering several martial arts.
“I majored in security science. I am a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo and fourth in Hapkido. Many guards here have similar backgrounds,” Han Ji-yong, Lee’s partner, said.
The number of guards for Seoul Metro has increased from 40 in 2011 to 133 this year. According to Seoul Metro’s data, the guards were involved in 53,448 cases of violations in 2015, up 20 percent from three years earlier. The daytime shift workers take on the job from early morning — 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. — and from then come nighttime shifters to work until the last train arrives at 1 a.m. Ten guards work each shift per line.
The work becomes tough when they have to face violent drunken passengers. “They are usually typical patriarchal men in their 50s and 60s,” Lee said. [Korea Herald]
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