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"How to Deal with Slow Walkers" Solution for Common Urban Woe

By Rain Noe - December 30, 2011

[image via RoadTrafficSigns]

[image via RoadTrafficSigns]

Urban pedestrian traffic is all about flow, and those who interrupt the flow cause a ripple effect of irritation around them. Here in New York I've seen people board a subway car and stop just inside the door, despite the four behind them who'd also like to enter; have seen the same happen at the bottom of moving escalators; but by far the biggest offenders are the slow-moving texters staring into their phones, or the oblivious tourists walking four abreast on the sidewalk, moving about as fast as a crying child. I always want to ask them to interlock their arms and have the two on the ends hold their arms out to the side, making it totally impossible for anyone to get around them.

In this video undoubtedly bound for the YouTube stratosphere, one clever Tokyoite has discovered a way to clear a path without having to push anyone into an open manhole (the chief solution in my sidewalk fantasies):

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"How to Deal with Slow Walkers" Solution for Common Urban Woe

Daniel

8 years ago

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Very clever video. I also live in NYC, and I hate when I get on the subway and everyone is crowding the area near the doors while there is so much empty space in the middle of the train. Thousands of people every day would have a shorter commute if people weren't so lazy as to move a few feet inside the train cars.
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Coyoty

8 years ago

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Better than Alice's solution in Dilbert: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-09-30/
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Ian

8 years ago

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@cobyrne Actually, in London I'm sure it's stand on the right, even though they drive on the left.
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Noripink

8 years ago

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Would it work at a concert?
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Travis

8 years ago

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Someone should make a phone app that does this... it would be very handy
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cobyrne

8 years ago

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In London, escalators have signs which say "Please stand on the left" and it is almost always observed. Here in Toronto, it's more of an unwritten rule. The majority of people observe it, but there are large enough minority who do not to regularly cause blockages.
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Lmo

8 years ago

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The Japanese are sooo polite. It would be a freon horn here in the States.
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dave

8 years ago

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I always catch the same train as this one guy who gets off at my stop, ahead of me, and READS THE PAPER as he is walking very slowly along to work. And I always want to kick him out of the way or tell him to wait until he gets to his desk, (If he can wait for it to be put into print he can wait ten more minutes, it will still be news.) or set fire to his paper.
Anyone else seen the fuelledbycoffee cartoon of the escalator with two lanes marked 'self-important assholes' on the right and 'lazy fucks' on the left? This is a good idea, people like me, and Hipstomp need to be separated from fool_who_reads_newspaper for our mutual benefit.
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Rain Noe

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.