The reason for ladies-only coaches on trains existing is to prevent women from being sexually harassed by male predators yet there have been men who took advantage of those coaches. Earlier this year, it was announced that the MRT Kajang line will be introducing ladies-only coaches soon.
While this may be good news to women as they’d feel a lot safer taking the public transport to commute during peak hours, many other MRT users apparently believed that this was a misplaced priority. Here’s why:
Earlier today (Wednesday, 6th September), RapidKL released a notice on their social media to inform the public that they have begun the process of installing the women’s coaches stickers and operational testing at MRT Kajang Line. The process is expected to be completed by 17th September.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke once said that it was one of the initiatives to provide a more comfortable environment for women when travelling as many do not feel safe during peak hours. However, changes will be made according to users’ feedback. After announcing that the process had begun, many netizens, especially men slammed RapidKL for not prioritising the train frequency issues that have been going on.
While most female passengers were happy about the news, there were also some who agreed with the men that the ladies-only coaches would only reduce the number of coaches available, thus making peak hours more inconvenient for everyone.
There were also those who believed that the men were simply overreacting to the news as there’s a reason why these designated coaches exist. Since this is only a trial period, RapidKL has yet to address people’s feedback and concerns regarding certain issues. Guess we’ll just have to wait for the company’s response once they collect enough data.
What do you think of this situation? Is the ladies-only coaches a good thing or should RapidKL focus more on the train frequency issue instead?
