[Jalad]

> For example, last week the blog pointed out that the new trains take an extra 8-10 seconds after stopping at a station to begin opening the doors

Anecdotally, this is also true of the San Francisco Municipal subway. The subway cars take a long time to open and close doors because there is a mechanical bridge that closes the gap between the train and the platform. This is also a pretty big time sink for the subway system

[pikma]

In contrast, in the metro in Paris, the doors open a few seconds before the train stops, so that the doors are fully open by the time the train is stopped - and passengers in a hurry can jump out while the train is still moving.

[cogogo]

Not sure if they still have the wooden cars on the A (blue) Subte line in Buenos Aires. I lived in Caballito for a little while in 2007 and got a huge kick out of opening the doors early, hopping off the train and sliding on the platform with my crappy slippery shoes.

[piva00]

In Berlin (and probably other German subway systems, can't recall) you can trigger the open doors handle/button a few moments before the train completely stops, similar concept to Paris.

[immibis]

I experienced a few German S-Bahn systems. Berlin's seems to be the only one that doesn't use trains similar to the regional ones, which have the delay.

[gamblor956]

Is this a new feature? None of the metro trains in Paris did that a few weeks ago.

[deredede]

It's an old feature. You have to open the door manually, and the new trains (especially on automated lines) don't allow this.

[creer]

> because there is a mechanical bridge that closes the gap

No. It's because the whole thing is crazy slow. Fear of lawsuits? I don't know. The door warnings on Caltrain, Bart, Muni are often comically offset compared to the door motions. That is, too late to be useful as legal warnings.

[inferiorhuman]

That delay wasn't an issue with Muni's previous trains which also had moving stairs.