Brussels has seen a rising number of people getting stuck in the roller shutters of Metro station entrances in recent months.
Amid reports of a crack use epidemic at Brussels stations going up, along with the rising number of homeless people, on Wednesday morning, yet another person was freed after getting trapped in a Metro station's roller shutters.
It is the second time this month and the sixth time in under a year this unusual phenomenon has been reported by emergency services. As suspected, most of the people trying to force their way inside the stations at night are either looking for shelter or a place to consume drugs – or both.
"Unfortunately, this is related to the problem of homeless people and drug addicts who try to enter our stations and force open the shutters," An Van hamme, spokesperson for Brussels public transport company STIB, told The Brussels Times.
STIB does not have precise figures for the number of incidents in previous years to compare, "but it does indeed feel like it has been happening more lately," she said.
Bigger than STIB
While the public transport company has been involved in a number of initiatives – such as opening designated areas in some stations and taking part in the SubLINK project – to assist homeless people and those using drugs, Van hamme pointed out that the Capital Region's problem with drug use far exceeds STIB's powers.
At the end of June 2023, Brussels Mobility launched a plan to replace the shutters of several stations with ones that cannot be forced open in response to these incidents – replacing the shutters in ten stations by the end of the year.
In March, a man was taken to hospital after getting trapped in the shutters of Porte de Namur station. Just two months later, a man was left hanging from the metro station at Parvis de Saint-Gilles, followed by a similar incident at Porte de Hal. Not much later, another man died after becoming trapped in a shutter at Rogier station.
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Almost six months later, at the start of February, a drunk man got his foot stuck in the shutter of Merode station, and on Wednesday morning, the Brussels Fire Brigade freed a seriously injured homeless woman stuck in the shutters, again in Porte de Namur.
Brussels Mobility wants to act proactively by not only replacing defective roller shutters, but also those in the places where other incidents occur. The organisation drew up a multi-year plan to cover more stations with the renovation plan, but requires additional financial resources and personnel to speed up the process.
