On the Way Home, Oh Se-hoon Finds Myeongdong Bus Stop and Apologizes Amid Snowfall

Posted a 2-minute 40-second apology video on YouTube
"Restoration... Waiting for citizens' opinions to improve again"

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon apologized to citizens after visiting the Myeongdong Entrance express bus stop, where a rush hour chaos occurred due to the 'queueing signboard.'

On the 6th, a 2-minute and 40-second video was uploaded on Mayor Oh's YouTube channel 'Oh Se-hoon TV,' showing him inspecting the Myeongdong Entrance express bus stop amid heavy snowfall and offering an apology.

On the evening of the 6th, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited the Myeongdong Entrance express bus stop in Jung-gu, Seoul, where a major disruption occurred during the evening commute, inspected the site, and apologized to the citizens.
[Photo by YouTube@OhSehoonTV]

Mayor Oh explained the reason for installing the queueing signboard, saying, "Recently, as more people have been commuting from Gyeonggi Province, the bus routes entering Seoul have exceeded capacity because we accepted the routes as requested." He added, "During rush hour (5 to 9 p.m.), about 550 buses enter, making it an extremely crowded place."

He continued, "The bus stop is about 30 to 40 meters long, and when a bus stops in front, passengers have to run from the back, and when a bus arrives at the back, they have to run from the front." He said, "There have been multiple complaints about congestion causing collision accidents and safety issues."

In response, Seoul City installed a 'queueing signboard' on the sidewalk at this location on the 27th of last month, displaying the numbers of 29 express bus routes. This was due to concerns that safety accidents could occur during the process of passengers moving to board buses.

About 9,500 passengers use this stop daily, and express buses that could not enter the narrow 35-meter bus stop space sometimes stopped arbitrarily in front or behind.

After the installation of the queueing signboard, passengers lined up in long queues in front of the signboard displaying the bus numbers. Even when buses arrived at the stop, they had to wait to stop in front of the signboard where passengers were waiting, causing a severe 'train effect' with buses lined up one after another. It was pointed out that it took an hour just to pass through the section where buses lined up from Seoul Station.

Mayor Oh said about the situation after the queueing signboard installation, "It has caused a lot of inconvenience. I sincerely apologize."

He added, "For now, we have restored the original system. We look forward to receiving many good opinions from you. We will improve it again in the direction of the many opinions we receive."

Seoul City plans to collaborate with Gyeonggi Province and transportation companies to prepare countermeasures such as changing turnaround points by the end of this month. It is expected that measures such as changing the stopping locations of several heavily used routes will reduce the daily number of passengers at the Myeongdong Entrance express bus stop by about 30%.

Furthermore, since traffic congestion caused by express buses is also occurring at the Sinnonhyeon Station stop near Gangnam Station as well as in Myeongdong, Seoul City explained that it plans to request the Metropolitan Area Express Transit Commission to change express bus routes, disperse stopping locations, and reduce the number of buses.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.