When I worked my graduate assistant job, it was on the second floor. I took the elevator because the stairs were dark and deserted and I worked funny hours. Sometimes I got Looks from other people on the elevator. I didn’t care; I didn’t feel the stairs were necessarily safe.
Or, the people that see the closed doors figured that if the doors were open, people would already be going through them rather than queueing, but since they aren’t they must be locked. When there’s only a line of 2 or 3 people waiting I usually wait depending on the geometry of the situation rather than risk trying to open a locked door.
So lazy, that they don’t even
Now don’t talk crazy now
My dad taught me to do this. He postulated that one door open for a little longer would exchange less air than two doors open, and therefore lower the AC bill and be better for the environment. Don’t know how true that is, but there it is.
Hey, we’re in the same neighborhood, I think.
The thing is, Addison to Belmont is actually only the distance of one “city block” in Chicago, which is just half a mile. I don’t know why you’d take the bus that distance. Then again, since I got a car I find myself driving lots of places I could walk or take transit. So it’s not just teenagers.
And how many adult people drive around for 5 minutes looking for a parking space near the door of the gym so they can get some exercise on a treadmill? But of course the couple minutes that could be spent walking across the parking lot don’t “count” since they’re not toted up on the little calorie-counter thingie. Don’tcha know.
Exceptions of course are made for logical reasons. We all know (don’t we?) that there do exist people who look perfectly sound but are not. One can have a bad knee that can’t take much stress or strain but still be able to walk short distances without limping. Been there, done that.
What I agree is plain silly is moms waiting for their kids to get off the school bus on a bright, sunny afternoon, in a neighborhood where there hasn’t been a murder in, oh, 20 years or so, to save them a five blocks’ walk. And they wait with the engine running. I see it every frickin’ day.
And actually, when I had to walk an entire quarter mile to kindergarten I did have to walk up a hill both ways. Not the same hill, but the valley of a little brook was between home and school, so of course we had to walk up a hill both ways. Fighting off tyrannosaurus rexes with our looseleaf notebooks, which we carved ourselves out of tree bark left over from dinner.
No one’s mentioned parking lot vultures yet?
Yesterday I saw a perfectly able-bodied man park his BMW along the curb - assumably because it was a whopping 20’ closer to the door than the nearest available parking spot.
In my old job, the managers in my department worked in two buildings that were about three hundred yards apart. One was in the main traffic area of a university campus, and the other was just outside the traffic gate. Whenever it came time to meet, whichever group was travelling to the other building always drove. Even though it meant waiting for five minutes or more to get through the single en route intersection because of the sea of students crossing between classes. Even though it meant fighting for a parking space on either side. There were many times when I was asked along to a meeting in the other building. In most cases I would refuse the ride, claiming that I needed the excercise, then walk to the other building and be the first one there for the meeting.
And I was the only one of this group under thirty-five.
It ain’t just the teens. Though I daresay most that I’ve encountered tend to be incredibly spoiled.
Ugh… like some of the parents in my home town who drive theirs kids down to the bottom of the the driveway, where they can get on the school bus.
A guy I know drives the 2 blocks from his house to the gym to work out. He learned from his mother who drives 3 blocks to the park…so she can walk.
I think people are conditioned to be lazy from a young age these days. If I want to get to work for 7:30 (which I hate anyway) instead of 8, I can leave at 7 or at 7:10. Why? Because if I leave at 7 I get stuck behind the middle school bus up the hill from my house, so it takes another ten minutes to drive down town. The bus stops aren’t even a 1/10th of a mile apart!
Until I was at the end of high school, the nearest stop for middle and high school kids was over 3/4ths of a mile away, and I walked back and forth without a problem every day. When my brother was six, his bus stop was also almost mile away - my parents walked him, or drove him in bad weather. Now kids aren’t expected to walk more than two yards over? It’s not a matter of the road I drive on having more traffic, either. We lived on a major route through town when I was a kid, and this road now is in the back beyond. :dubious:
You had feet?!?
Lazy yeah, but could they be getting transfers to the Red Line there? On reflection that only makes sense…no, it doesn’t make sense either.
Carry on with the pile on.
Quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of people picking on Group X, when really it’s Group Y that’s responsible for all of our society’s troubles. Wake up and smell the alphabet, people!
I remember in high school, the entrance/exit was a bank of five doors. Every single day, you could count on only one door being in use and a massive throng trying to inch its way through it. Even those right next to one of the other four doors would just be standing there, attempting to worm into the line for the open one. It was absurd. And once you made it through the crowd and went through one of the others, people would stare in awe like you had just performed some kind of incomprehensible feat of magic, while they continued waiting for the Chosen Door.
Now I know I, Claudius isn’t entirely a factual account, but if I recall the book correctly, somebody in it says something to the effect of “KIDS THESE DAYS!!” In. Ancient. Rome. 
Nowadays, schools will sometimes lock all the doors but one, or close of all the entranceways but one, as a security measure.