Starting this week, the blue line of the metro will be running at six cars at all times.

This is yet another step in the slow rollback of an idea that started many years ago to cut the length of trains during off-peak periods. The blue line would drop to three cars, and the orange and yellow lines to six each. The orange line plan was quickly reversed, and the yellow line is staying at six cars throughout the summer as people spend more time outside and those crazy students aren’t going to school.

While the train-shortening idea does have its advantages, mainly the savings on power, the drawbacks are also annoying: the time needed to split trains up for the weekend and reconnect them afterward, the installation of mirrors and other equipment in the stations, and the problems associated with a train using only part of a platform, for blind people for example.

Of course, for me, the one thing I’ll miss most about the shorter trains is watching people run after them having not realized that they were standing in an unused area of the platform.