Subways They Are a Porno
Some subway tips from James. I'll start with etiquette and then include a few helpful tips.
1. The first etiquette tip stems from the asymmetry between people heading away from a train and people heading toward it. If you have just gotten off a train, and you are heading for the exit, a 15 second delay costs you 15 seconds. If you are trying to board that train, then a 15 second delay costs you at least several minutes, and at some times of the day it can cost you as much as 20 minutes.
The result of this asymmetry is that it is improper to block incoming train passengers in your haste to leave the station. If, for instance, there are roughly 4 "lanes of traffic" on a staircase leading to the train platform, the exiting people should take at most 2 of them, and strong consideration should be given to taking only 1 of them. It's very selfish to save yourself 15 seconds at the cost of imposing several minutes of delay on someone else. (Sometimes people exiting the station block all the lanes of traffic into the station, a serious moral error.) The same goes for the turnstiles. You must check to make sure no one is on the other side, waiting to get to the train platform, before you push your way out.
The rule reverses once the train's doors have closed, or once it's a foregone conclusion that they will close before people entering the station can get there. In those circumstances, there is absolutely no hurry to get to the train platform, but people leaving the train platform may be in a hurry. However, this is not nearly as sharp an asymmetry as the 15 seconds vs. several minutes asymmetry, so it's not as big a deal.
Final point: sometimes people leaving one train are headed toward another train, and so they are also in a hurry. However, unless they know that the other train is about to leave, then they shouldn't really be in a particular hurry—quite possibly when they reach the other platform, they will wait several minutes for a train anyway. On the other hand, people crossing a platform to a train that is waiting on the other side generally have a rightful claim to priority.
2. The second tip is really obvious and yet people flout it all the time. If there is room in the middle of the train car, you are obligated to go stand there, away from the doors. The only exception is if you are getting off at the next stop (in which case you have an obligation to move toward the door so as to expedite the process). So my question for people who stand right by the subway door is: Where do you get off?
3. Train conductors are always in the same place on the train, and they try to stop the train at a particular point in the station, so that all the doors can be used. To facilitate this, each platform has a sign facing the train with black-and-white diagonal stripes (the sign is generally overhead but occasionally it is on the wall). The conductor is actually supposed to point at this sign when the train stops, as a way of bringing to the conductor's attention whether the train is well positioned.
The relevance for you is that if you will be exiting at a particular station frequently, you can memorize the location of the exit relative to the black-and-white sign, and then you can position yourself correctly at any other station on the same train line by walking a uniform distance from the black-and-white sign. So for instance, if the train station near your apartment has an exit 15 feet in front of the sign, then that is where you can stand at any other station along the same line, and when you exit the train you will be right at the turnstiles. But before you go through those turnstiles, remember tip #1 above!
4. Not really that helpful, but I've run a stopwatch app a few dozen times while waiting for trains, and I've found that the clocks telling you when the next train will arrive are quite accurate.
1. The first etiquette tip stems from the asymmetry between people heading away from a train and people heading toward it. If you have just gotten off a train, and you are heading for the exit, a 15 second delay costs you 15 seconds. If you are trying to board that train, then a 15 second delay costs you at least several minutes, and at some times of the day it can cost you as much as 20 minutes.
The result of this asymmetry is that it is improper to block incoming train passengers in your haste to leave the station. If, for instance, there are roughly 4 "lanes of traffic" on a staircase leading to the train platform, the exiting people should take at most 2 of them, and strong consideration should be given to taking only 1 of them. It's very selfish to save yourself 15 seconds at the cost of imposing several minutes of delay on someone else. (Sometimes people exiting the station block all the lanes of traffic into the station, a serious moral error.) The same goes for the turnstiles. You must check to make sure no one is on the other side, waiting to get to the train platform, before you push your way out.
The rule reverses once the train's doors have closed, or once it's a foregone conclusion that they will close before people entering the station can get there. In those circumstances, there is absolutely no hurry to get to the train platform, but people leaving the train platform may be in a hurry. However, this is not nearly as sharp an asymmetry as the 15 seconds vs. several minutes asymmetry, so it's not as big a deal.
Final point: sometimes people leaving one train are headed toward another train, and so they are also in a hurry. However, unless they know that the other train is about to leave, then they shouldn't really be in a particular hurry—quite possibly when they reach the other platform, they will wait several minutes for a train anyway. On the other hand, people crossing a platform to a train that is waiting on the other side generally have a rightful claim to priority.
2. The second tip is really obvious and yet people flout it all the time. If there is room in the middle of the train car, you are obligated to go stand there, away from the doors. The only exception is if you are getting off at the next stop (in which case you have an obligation to move toward the door so as to expedite the process). So my question for people who stand right by the subway door is: Where do you get off?
3. Train conductors are always in the same place on the train, and they try to stop the train at a particular point in the station, so that all the doors can be used. To facilitate this, each platform has a sign facing the train with black-and-white diagonal stripes (the sign is generally overhead but occasionally it is on the wall). The conductor is actually supposed to point at this sign when the train stops, as a way of bringing to the conductor's attention whether the train is well positioned.
The relevance for you is that if you will be exiting at a particular station frequently, you can memorize the location of the exit relative to the black-and-white sign, and then you can position yourself correctly at any other station on the same train line by walking a uniform distance from the black-and-white sign. So for instance, if the train station near your apartment has an exit 15 feet in front of the sign, then that is where you can stand at any other station along the same line, and when you exit the train you will be right at the turnstiles. But before you go through those turnstiles, remember tip #1 above!
4. Not really that helpful, but I've run a stopwatch app a few dozen times while waiting for trains, and I've found that the clocks telling you when the next train will arrive are quite accurate.
posted by James | 1:56 PM
1 Comments:
There is one exception to the first point, also frequently flouted: people getting off the train should have priority over those getting on.
Post a Comment
<< Home