Thanks for that – makes plenty of sense given the location above the railway tracks.

I know this is an old post , however let me give you a proper run down as to how these glass panels get repaired.
A) report gets lodged from station staff and on forwarded to glass company
B) glass company goes to site and makes safe the area , measures for new glass and orders
C) custom made toughened laminated safety glass is ordered from a glass merchant with lead times generally 30 days
D) glazier arranges with Metro trains to shut down train lines due to OH and S legislation which can take upwards of 2 or 3 months to arrange full shut down , including turning the overhead train lines off relevant to that platform
E) replacement organised between hours of 1am-5am

So , as you can see , it’s not as straight forward as turning up to replace within a week of damage.
I know this because my company does a lot of work for metro trains.
Hope this information helps

Wikipedia agrees with you on that front:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baluster

A balustrade is a row of balusters, which are turned wooden, or metal, or cast concrete, or other materials, in the form of decorative posts which support some kind of rail on the top.

“Scrotum bins” is my favourite name for them:

https://twitter.com/ryansheales/status/593543603370205185

Spot on – a week could be considered acceptable to fix the issue, but three months!

The balustrades should be safety glass – when broken it forms small granular chunks instead of splintering into jagged shards. But there is still the risk of the glass falling out, and someone falling down to the ground below.

I’d suggest the problem isn’t that it was taped up. The problem is it was taped up for 3+ months.