Moscow Subways

In response to “Moscow Metro: Tunnels of Death,” Oct. 3:

Carol Williams leaves the reader with the impression that the Moscow subway system with its “steel doors” that “slam shut in seconds” is inhospitable and downright dangerous to the “slow and the weak and the elderly.”

What she fails to add, is that the reason the doors close so quickly is that another train will be in the station at that same spot in a matter of two or three minutes. Anyone that misses the first train will easily make the second or third, without having to wait the long stretches of time that are so typical of American metro systems in big cities like Boston. If anything, the ridiculous waits for subways in Boston show a far greater “indifference to passengers,” than the incredibly fast and efficient Moscow system.

While it is indeed a tragedy that the Moscow subway seems to be the venue of choice for local suicides, Williams’ wholesale condemnation is not warranted.

LUCILLE A. HARRISON

Corona del Mar