During my new commute to work there is a bit where I need to walk from one tube line to another and it’s a walk that simply does’t flow. It’s made me think of the bicycle lanes in Copenhagen but also how having to walk slowly sometime is probably a good thing.
In Copenhagen there are split bicycle lanes. The inner one is the slow one and the outer one is the fast one. It works and the cycling traffic flows without the fast cyclists getting annoyed with the slow once and vice versa. At least it did 7 years ago when I last lived there.
This week I’ve started a new freelance contract down by London Bridge and that means changing at Green Park station from Picadilly line to Jubilee line. For those of you who don’t know Green park station that means a walk which is split with barriers between the two opposite directions that people walk in, as you can see in the picture above. I like to walk at a good speed and therefore tend to catch up with the slower walkers. However, unlike like in Copenhagen, or the escalators in the tube where there is a side for the people standing still and one for the people walking, there is no system in place for the slow and fast walkers to make it smoother to go between the tube lines. You can comfortably fit two people walking next to each other but for some reason some people like to walk a bit in the middle. Or next to each other. It makes it incredibly difficult to get past people who walk slower than yourself and yes, I did get a little bit annoyed by it at first.
Had there been a system in place where the slow walkers stayed to the right it’d be easier for those in more of a hurry to walk on the left. But, it doesn’t exist so if you are in a hurry you have to excuse yourself, ask repeatedly to be let past, cross over and walk against the flow of the people walking in the opposite direction, or simply just accept it. And the latter is what I’ve chosen to do. After all I’m not in a hurry and though I’d rather get out of the unhealthy air of the tube station as quickly as possible, trying to get past people is just causing unnecessary stress and annoyance, both for me and others. And that’s not worth it for getting to the platform 30 seconds quicker. For all I know I might just end up standing there waiting for the next train anyway.
Tomorrow – Day 321 | The one thing I’d like to see change in the workplace
Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/tim166/313132784
