While I generally agree with you, I will point out that no one is asking you to move faster. We’re asking you to get out of our way so that WE can move faster. It’s an important distinction.
Not more important. Just bigger.
I lived in Cambridge for four years. I didn’t think of walkers as particularly fast, but it was the Sixties, so I probably assumed they were stoned and gave them a break. And I might have been too busy looking out for Boston drivers to notice.
It’s been forever since I was on anyone else’s subway so I have nothing to compare DC’s Metro to. But i have a tough time with the way lots of people board our trains.
When the subway doors close, they close and they’ll clamp down firmly on anything in the way. Sometimes the engineer will pop them open for the briefest of moments, but they don’t pop open on their own like elevator doors.
So the train stops and the doors open; begin 30-45 second count. People on the platform make a hole (sort of) for people getting off. The exit crowd thins a bit and people start boarding; squeezing by the last of the exiting stragglers. Something like 15 seconds remain on the clock and now it gets “good” 'cause the ones getting on stop dead 2 feet inside the door to gaze around in wonderment for open seats.
The boarding process grinds to a chuck, people back out onto the platform as others do their best to squeeze around the early boarders – who, having discovered there are no seats – stand like drugged cows around the entrance and start latching onto poles and partitions and bars overhead. The recorded message, “When boarding, please move to the center of the car.” has precisely as much effect on these people, now locked in place, as it would on a drugged cow.
Remaining time: zero. And the doors close.
And with the doors closing on bodies, parts of bodies, briefcases and purses what runs through my mind never gets past my lips because, hey, this is DC. And what they say about an armed society being a polite society is something you can take to the bank around here, buckeroo.
Just do it at the ATM with dispatch and FFS keep a low profile.
Oh yeah, same here. And then those same people stop dead outside the train door and stare in wonderment at the train station when they get off. I’m constantly yelling “There are people behind you. Pick a direction and move in it, folks!”
While not really on topic, this reminded me of a flight I took once. You know that moment when the plane is pulling into the gate and the seat belt light is still on, but it’s close enough that some people think they’re special and stand up anyway? Well I was once on a flight where the flight attended announced three times that we should remain seated until we had come to a stop, and when people continued to ignore her, she came on with this super-sweet voice and said, “And for those of you currently standing you should have a nice view of the fasten seatbelt light, which is still on.” Everyone started laughing and the people standing sat down very quickly.
Resume main topic.
I remember the last Gencon I went to in 2001. (Sure wish I could afford to do it again, but whatever) People would walk into the Exhibition Hall and stop dead two feet inside the doors. Of course, I’ve seen the same thing at large Karate tournaments, or at Boat shows, etcetera.
Nowadays I just push past saying “Nobody in your world but you, eh?” or “Wake up!”
Yeah, I’m rude. So is walking in a door and standing there, preventing other people from entering.
Hell, I still remember a friend pulling that crap on me about 25 years ago. We drove down to visit another friend on a night when it was about 30 below. The guy opens the door, my friend gets one foot inside the door and stops to take off his coat and shoes, leaving me and a second friend standing on the outside porch, door wide open, inside air meeting outside air in a blast of fog - the temperature difference being roughly 100 degrees. I said something several times to dumbass friend, homeowner says something, friend just gets pissy about moving when he was done taking off his shit. Finally homeowner said something to me and I walked in, shoving my friend out of the way. He got all bent out of shape about me shoving him and got reamed out in return by everyone present about being a selfish dumbass who should have known enough not to leave people standing with the door open when it was 30 below outside. His weak tit response, “I still don’t like being shoved”. Yeah, fuck you too. Move.
This, this, this a hundred times in New York.
Folks, when they announce “Stand clear of the doors,” “Do not block the doors,” and “Let the passengers off,” it’s for a reason.
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They really want you to stand clear of the doors. The reason for this is, see, they made two doors to facilitate as many people exiting the train as quickly as possible in the time they’ve allotted to keeping the doors open, closing them and moving on. The tighter you crowd around and into the actual two-door space blocking people from getting off, the longer it’s going to take you to get on (see SeaCanary’s time point above). Capisce?
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You really need to not block the doors. I know it’s easy to camp out in that spot and claim a homestead but you are still in the entryway/exit. So, if you must stop there, at least try to turn sideways or otherwise make yourself compact as people enter and exit. Don’t be a Norris Numbnuts like the guy this morning who stood square in the middle of on door’s space and didn’t turn one degree in accomodation and therefore caused people to take loonger than needed to exit and enter.
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Guess what. The more you crowd around the door, the more you’re blocking passengers trying to actually get out of your way. If you crowd around the door so much that there is barely enough space for one person to exit, I’m going to either (i) put up elbows or my bag and shout “You have to let me off before you can get on,” or (ii) make myself as wide as possible, slow down and announce “You can’t get on until I get off.”
Some may want to call me an asshole for #3 above, but I’m not doing anything outside of what the MTA is constantly asking you to do, nor anything outside the normal rules for facilitating the flow of human traffic.
And don’t get me started on picking a lane – any lane – while walking down the sidewalk.
Totally agreed about Eau Claire (hey, bikers, in a totally congested path, it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that you obey the low speed limit so you don’t kill anyone), but this was around the Glenmore Reservoir.
I’m sympathetic to the speed limit there and I don’t expect to breeze through, so crowds don’t bug me (except for when buskers set up right by the bridge and create congestion - hey, there’s a giant performance space right there set up for you guys, just off the path!), but it’s past there that people always seem to be stupid, walking five abreast like some mobile game of Red Rover.
So you’re saying it’s not just the blue line, then? 
The sidewalks around here are usually pretty empty, so I don’t have many problems with people blocking them. But a week or so ago there was a group coming toward that that had two people in wheelchairs and several walkers, all spread across the sidewalk. As we got closer I prepared to step off the sidewalk on the assumption that they weren’t going to make room for me when suddenly the guy in the motorized wheelchair, who had been on the far left of the group with no one behind him, sped up and pulled in front of the others, leaving me a clear space to continue on the sidewalk. I smiled at him as I passed, and he smiled back.
Reminds me of a time when I was flying Southwest and as we were taxiing to the gate the flight attendant made the usual “please stay in your seats until the captain has turned off the seatbelt sign” announcement, then followed it with, “unless you’d like to volunteer to help unload the luggage compartment.”
Exactly so. Today I was walking behind four surly youths who walked four abreast across the entire footpath, they saw me coming and still carried on dawdling and not making room for me to get by. Basically they were just being gits. Eventually I got by them, although I got some abuse as one accused me of standing on his foot, which I have no recollection of doing. The little shit saw me coming and actually moved into my path to spit on the floor, luckily he didn’t spit on me.
So yeah, I blame the dawdlers who do it on purpose to piss people off.
Surly youths have a tendency to do that - they’re quite lucky that there are laws against mowing them down as they amble slowly across the road, blocking traffic as they jaywalk, studiously not looking at any cars.
Just today a single surly youth managed to make quite a clusterfuck of traffic at Brigham Circle. Just aimlessly wandering about the middle of the intersection, hat pulled low, earbuds in, blissfully oblivious to the havoc he’d created. IMO, it ought to be perfectly legal to run people like that down.
And to continue my earlier MBTA rant, it should also be legal to kill anyone who doesn’t understand that the time to search for your subway pass is NOT while you stand in the gate with people piling up behind you.
No - I can deal with the guy buying for his office - but paying for the meals individually and taking 20x the normal transaction time is what I object to. If he ordered 20 burgers and fries, they’d charge him and ask him to step to the side and wait for the food while they service the next customer. But making a clerk do each burger and fry meal individually - there are no words.
Yes there are. It goes like this:
Waaah! Someone’s in front of me making me wait! Get outa my way, because I’m more important than you (and the 20 people in your office)!
You can quote me, next time it comes up.
Roddy
I remember I once went and ordered doughnuts for the entire office one morning using the drive through. They filled my order, but then the manager came to the window, handed me her business card, and said that if I ever needed to make a large order again, to call her when I was on my way and they’d have it ready for me when I arrived, since that would save me AND everyone else time. This makes so much sense, I’m not sure why people wouldn’t do this.
I had this happen once. Except it was a teacher/escort for a WHOLE school bus full of children.
Oh, and one other time the same thing, except this time it was for a WHOLE school bus full of children at a snow skiing resort.
If the little shits are old enough to be out and about and skiing, they are old enough to stand in line.
Mind if I paraphrase?
WAAAHHHHH!!! I’m gonna inconvenience everyone in my path, and tough shit, people. I have a right to be an asshole!
And you do. But own it, asshole.