A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
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Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#2As the article points out, letting people walk up should probably be faster. What causes the block is people misbehaving. Blocking the left line because they want to go on the right line. Stopping for directions at the end of the escalator. Blocking the left line with bags or packages. But the solution should be better education, not slowing everyone down.
It's like letting people out of a car before getting in. In most tube stations, londoners are very courteous and the process is very fluid, even at peak hour. In touristic hot spots in the summer, you pretty much always have a crowd pushing in like a scared cattle. Some poster to remind passengers how things work in the UK would probably do the trick.
Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#3Maybe someone could explain why it is necessary to reach the top of an escalator before everyone else. Is your work so crucial that 5 seconds is going to make so much difference or is it that you just don't like standing still?
Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#4I really feel like more effort should be put into tube automation. In Singapore, all the lines are automated. Each platform has those safety double-elevator type doors the trains line up with (The Jubilee line is automated in London and has this same setup at most platforms).
This allows Singapore to run a lot more trains. I don't think I ever waited for more than five minutes. Automation is possible in London. The DLR and Jubilee lines are automated. There's push back from unions; jobs lost and such -- but overall a fully automated tube system would reduce congestion by quite a bit simply due to increasing the volume and frequency in trains safely.
Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#5Maybe someone could explain why it is necessary to reach the top of an escalator before everyone else. Is your work so crucial that 5 seconds is going to make so much difference or is it that you just don't like standing still?
Some of the escalators are very long and very slow, you can save a couple minutes, combined with less congestion at the ticket gates (because you just beat most of the people flooding the station from your train)
Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#6They do that in Moscow as long as I remember.
During rush hours, it's "please take both sides of an escalator", during calmer hours, it's "please stand to the right, walk to the left".
Mostly works.
Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#7I wonder if it would make more sense to tell people "please consider walking up the left side of the escalator instead of standing". It would probably improve congestion, but even if it didn't, people might get a little bit more exercise out of their commute.
Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#8I really feel like more effort should be put into tube automation. In Singapore, all the lines are automated. Each platform has those safety double-elevator type doors the trains line up with (The Jubilee line is automated in London and has this same setup at most platforms). This allows Singapore to run a lot more trains. I don't think I ever waited for more than five minutes. Automation is possible in London. The D…
There are two problems with this.
(1) Unions. (The tube driver's union is able to stop London and they are not afraid to do so.)
(2) It's not actually very easy to do for several of London's tube stations. Several of the tube stations have curved platforms making it rather harder to install the safety double elevator doors.
Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#9>Walking anywhere in London or navigating the subway during rush hour means having to make a mad, dodging, aggressive dance against an oncoming tide of people, many of whom seem oblivious to Britain’s long tradition of walking on the left.
I feel obliged to point out that this 'long tradition' only exists on escalators in the London Underground. Anywhere else in the country (or London for that matter) we walk on whichever side we feel like.
Re: A London Subway Experiment: Please Don’t Walk Up the Escalator
#10Maybe someone could explain why it is necessary to reach the top of an escalator before everyone else. Is your work so crucial that 5 seconds is going to make so much difference or is it that you just don't like standing still?
5 seconds makes all the difference when you're running for a train.