Sydney goes Tokyo: Move to ban mobile phones from train carriages
Should people stop talking on this CityRail train at Circular Quay?Anyone who has caught a train around central Tokyo knows the biggest cultural taboo is to start yapping away on your mobile phone.
Vomiting salarymen on late night trains aside, Tokyo journeys are largely a silent experience.
It seems this cultural trend is spreading southward.
Queensland Rail has already introduced quiet zones on the first and last carriages of all trains. In Sydney, CityRail is considering following suit.
The New South Wales Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, told smh.com.au she will “definitely consider” introducing quiet carriages on CityRail services.
If it follows the Queensland initiative, quiet zones would ban music and loud conversations -- as well as mobile phone conversations. No fine would be issued for those not adhering to the ban.
Cynics might see the move as an attempt to divert political attention from Sydney’s notoriously late, under-funded and unreliable train network.
But could it possibly work? Would youths stop drinking beer and holding spray-paint cans, and choose the eastern way to fulfillment? Are Sydneysiders that Zen?
Or is the search for serenity overstepping the mark when conversations are banned on trains?
