We Delhiites take utmost pride in saddi metro! We can’t stop obsessing over how amazingly the metro has managed to connect the entire city and still continues to reach out to the far recesses. We may sometimes complain about the crowd, but then it’s functional when it comes to getting us from one end of the city to another in under an hour.
It’s cheap, air-conditioned and quick, and that’s why the Delhi Metro is awesome!
But here’s another reason that makes the metro a little more awesome.
If you have traveled by metro, then you would’ve come across a number of announcements. Like the one where we’re told to stand behind the yellow line on the platform. While this announcement is made to ensure the travellers’ safety, it turns out that the yellow line serves an even bigger purpose.
The yellow lines that run across the platforms on the metro stations are actually tactile pavings. The purpose of these tactile pavings is to guide the visually impaired metro users. These tiles are specially designed with a distinctive surface pattern and texture (bar-like pattern, in the metro’s case) so that the path can be easily detected with the help of a walking stick or by simply walking over them.
They connect platforms to the exit gates, lifts, staircases etc.
The Delhi Metro is India’s first public transport system to be fully equipped with facilities like these for the differently abled. It is also one of the few from all over the world to have such an advanced structure of tactile pathways in place.
Apart from this, elevators at the metro stations have buttons with braille symbols, right under the button descriptions, set at a low height in order to be easily accessible by children and adults alike.
Isn’t it weird how we never realized that these plain, old tiles are put there for such a great purpose?