They finally decided to do something about the old and non-aircon 151 buses.
These days, I no longer board a non-aircon bus to school, to my delight. And apparently, they have New buses catered for this line as well. But have you seen them yet? Those new buses, that have interiors like the Sentosa's internal shuttle. Where the lower deck is full of standing place and the upper deck are constructed with seats. Getting from the lower deck to the upper deck requires you to take two steps.
As mentioned, those structure seems like its adapted from the internal shuttle of Sentosa. Whoever proposed this idea and whoever agrees to it deserves a smack on their head. For goodness sake, those interiors are designed for SHORT distanced shuttle buses that carries a large number of passengers who travel for less than 30 minutes. 151 is a LONG distanced bus. No doubt it'll increase capacity which is needed during peak hours as most of the passengers will be standing (and squashed to each other). But, imagine this, students from NP, UniSIM and NUS will be taking the bus from the East during peak hours. It is definite that the number of seats are not enough for the number of students. So are these students going to stand for the journey that is going to be for more than an hour? The bus is different from the train as it less smooth. Standing for 1 hour would definitely not be comfortable for commuters isnt it? Trying not to fall is already a big problem.
Next, the steps. When the buses that caters for the handicapped and elderly were introduced, one of the main features is the lack of steps. Now, we have an additional two steps just to get onto the 'upper deck' so that we can sit. Like hello? Whats the point? Have they considered the safety of their passengers? What if there was a sudden jerk while we were on the steps? also, have they considered the ease for the elderly?
It was good that there was a change, an upgrade. But when a change doesnt make sense, it just shows that we're back to square one, arent we?