How To Use Public Transport

[drplokta]

Rush hour may be crowded, but at least most people know where they're going and what they're doing. Having just spent a three-day weekend (in tourist season) travelling around in central London every day, I have a few things to get off my chest.

How To Use Public Transport in London

Note 1: These rules apply to London. There are different rules in other places.
Note 2: Many of these rules do not apply to the disabled and their companions, including those disabled by their extreme youth. Rather than insert multiple exceptions, here is a blanket exception.

1. Stand on the right on the escalators. This does not mean that you stand in the middle and reach across to the right-hand hand-rail -- if you're not getting friction burns on your right hip, you're too far to the left. Your luggage, shopping bags and other chattels have to stand on the right, too. If you want to stand next to your friend and talk, take a cab. You should aim to acquire a severe phobia of standing on the left of any vaguely staircase-shaped object.
   
2. The Theory of Relativity tells us that there's no such thing as a privileged inertial frame of reference. This means that people walking slowly have to look out for faster people coming up from behind just as much as people walking fast have to look out for slower people in front. Fit wing mirrors to your glasses. Or walk faster.
   
3. They're called slam-door trains, not push-the-door-shut-lackadaisacally-with-your-little-finger-trains. There is a reason for this. And if you don't shut the door properly, try again, don't leave it for someone else to do.
   
4. Master the Way of the Ticket Barrier. Aim for the finely-tuned mental state and subtle wrist action that let you insert your ticket, walk through the barrier and pick up your ticket without breaking step. Using an Oystercard is cheating, and is thus highly recommended.
   
5. The magnetic strip on the ticket goes at the bottom. If you try to put your ticket through the barrier with the magnetic strip at the top , it will be automatically incinerated. Meanwhile, several large men with baseball bats will drag you into a back room, beat you up, ban you from London Transport services for life and then throw you out into the street. Well, probably not -- but I can dream.
   
6. Look at the platform you're standing on. Do you see the dense throngs of people around the entrance stopping anyone else from getting onto the platform, and the acres of empty space further along? Does this strike you as a good use of space? Is there anything you could be doing about it?
   
7. Stopping is bad. Even I will concede that it's sometimes necessary, but before you stop, take a good look around, identify the patterns of traffic flow and find somewhere to stop that's out of the way. London Underground don't help matters by situating all of their maps in locations carefully chosen to maximise the blockage caused by people stopping to read the map. So carry a pocket map. Or if that's too much trouble, just memorise the entire Underground map. Tomorrow, you can do the London Connections map.
   
8. The social contract calls for people trying to get onto the train/tram/bus to let people get off first. But the other part of the social contract calls for the people who want to get off to be standing by the door when it opens, so that they can jump off with indecent haste. If you're still sitting down when the people start to get on, then you've missed your stop, and you're going to have to wait for the next one.
   
9. The seats aren't there for your comfort and convenience, they're there to get you out of the goddamn way. Sit down if there are any free seats. If you don't like sitting next to strangers, take a cab. A limited exception may be made for people going one or (at most) two stops who can find a good place to stand that's not in anyone's way (even if the platform is on the other side at the next stop).
   
10. If you can't drag all your luggage with one hand, you have too much luggage. If you can't carry your luggage up a flight of steps, you have too much luggage. If you can't put your luggage into an overhead rack, you have too much luggage. If you're American, you have too much luggage.
    
11. Keep your knees together when you sit down. If your gonads get crushed when your knees are together, you should probably be wearing briefs instead of boxers. Or if female, you should see your doctor immediately.
    
12. The one place where stopping is not acceptable, under any circumstances, is anywhere within ten metres of a ticket barrier. Get your ticket ready before you enter the exclusion zone radius. Assemble your party somewhere else.
    
13. There may well be a queue at the bottom of an escalator, waiting to go up. You will notice that the right-hand side of the queue moves rather slowly while the left-hand side is much shorter. This is because if you join the left-hand side, you will have to walk up the escalator. If you join the left-hand queue, then squeeze over to the right to stand rather than walk, then it is socially and legally acceptable for the person standing behind you to slit your throat with their pocket-knife.
    

Shit. 3½ years living in London, and I appear to have gone native.

Edit: After another morning on the Tube, I added a couple more rules that I had unaccountably forgotten.

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

A very London rant!

[redbird]

Point 10 is all too true of all too many of my compatriots: if you can't wander around the York city walls or the Montreal Jardin Botanique with it for an hour, you have too much luggage.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Good to know that I still don't have too much luggage despite my poofy ways. I walked halfway across San Francisco dragging two suitcases and a shopping bag and I did it with style and ease. How am I able to manage this? I have one suitcase with wheels to which I strap my one or two other bags and years of chores like stacking hay gave me enough strength to pick up all my bags and run like the devil if need be. (Yes I'm being silly.)

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

Oh yes!

I've been living here for over twenty years, and long since gave up trying to be polite to tourists. "You're in the rush hour, tourist cretin!" I routinely snarl as I shove past them on the escalators. Doesn't quite set one up for another day at one's desk, but it does give one a momentary jolt of satisfaction....

[headgardener.livejournal.com]

Aah, the London transport experience, when summer brings out the tourist swarms.

1. 'Excuse me' is the way Londoners pronounce 'Fuck off and die, cur, get out of my way.'

2. Standing on the 'walk' side of a Tube escalator should be a capital crime, with offenders hauled out and summarily shot.

Apart from that, I'm perfectly calm and tolerant.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Oh I think you would like me touristing. I walk quickly even when I have lots of luggage with me and I'm quite thin and stand quietly to the left when I'm not bounding down escalators on the right.

We sometimes have similar problems out at the Denver airport with certain people piling their luggage around them on the moving sidewalks rather than letting other people in a hurry get by. No summary executions here either, unless those rumors about the secret alien base under the airport promoted by certain conspiracy theorists are true.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

I'm quite thin and stand quietly to the left when I'm not bounding down escalators on the right.

You might want to note that in London, it's the other way around. Stand on the left on a tube escalator and the volume of abuse will quickly deafen you.

Natch ....

[fattyc.livejournal.com]

Could not agree more !
I have to get District from Tower Hill everynight heading Eastbound.
Let's all stand @ the entrance to the platform EVERY night so I miss my train , lets stop for to look @ a map ON THE STAIRS so I miss my train, there 20 of us all in the same brightly coloured mathcing kagoule lets stop @ the ticket gates to round up up stragglers SO I MISS MY TRAIN !

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE ....

That's better , nothing like a vented splean !

maps on stairs

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

That's more the fault of the station planners than the poor, bewildered, befuddled, culture-shocked lost touristy types, don't you think?

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

You missed out:

12. "Move right down insider the car, use all available space" means that once you have got in the carriage, you should continue walking until you further progress is physically blocked either by the end of the car or by sheer mass of people. It does NOT mean "Stop immediately upon getting into the carriage, especially if you are the first person with about thirty more trying to get on behind you."

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

And:

13. Central London tubes run every few minutes. Dashing down the stairs and hurling yourself through the doors as they are about to close is not only dangerous, it is almost always utterly pointless. (Passengers on the Northern Line are exempt from this consideration.)

14. Opening the door on a slam door train in order to board after said train has started to move is only marginally less stupid than walking across the track. On sliding door stock, once the doors have closed and the light above the doors has gone out, you can press the button as often as you like, but it won't make a spot of difference. So don't make yourself look like a moron.

[drplokta]

You know, you seem to be awfully into this. You'd better be careful, or people will get the idea that you're some kind of transport geek.

[spodlife]

Ah, slam door trains. As a kid I did once open and jump on a train just leaving a station. Haven't all those trains been de-commissioned yet?

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Ah, well you see, the Conservative government came up with a great idea - why don't we privatize the railways, and spend a huge amount of money that could be invested in new rolling stock on the administrative costs of setting up the privatized rail network. Then all the Train Operating Companies bought lots of wonderful new rolling stock that was over-complicated and unreliable. And then they stopped buying stock because they weren't sure if they were going to keep the franchises.

In theory, slam-door stock should be gone from the major users, the south-west, south central and south eastern franchises, by December 31st 2004, and new builds certainly mean that their days are numbered. But whether they will be gone by year of the next bloody British worldcon remains to be seen.

Re: 13

[cdave]

The Northern line exemption is valid. In my experience, if you don't fling yourself into the carriage, TFL will detect this and ensure that no trains go down your branch for the next 15 minutes. 14 minutes later there will be signal failure at Camden Town.

{Yes, yes, I know this is an old post, but it's just been referenced elsewhere.}

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

[applause]

Oh yes...

[lproven.livejournal.com]

WSS!

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Ah, Londoners and their centralised public transport system. How quaint.

[(Anonymous)]

If you MUST carry one of those stupidly big golfing umbrellas, remember these handy hints:
1. Hold it PROPERLY. Remember. It is NOT a pretend sword, lance or spear.
2. Do NOT put it in your backpack so the pointy bit sticks out at eye level
3. Do not carry it horizontally and swing your arms so anyone within a metre radius can be hit on the bum with the handle or stabbed in the groin with the pointy bit
4. If the pointy end touches ANYBODY, they have an inalienable right to shove it up your arse so only the handle sticks out AND THEN OPEN IT...

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

when you said
I have a few things to get off my chest.
I assumed it was someone else's luggage/children/newspaper/takeaway

commuting bad karma was a big reason for me working from home; I was body-slamming my way on and off trains and starting your day by loathing everyone you meet is corrosive to the soul

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Huh. On number 7, you should reserve a special mention for the people who stop just right exactly at the bottom of escalators. Or top. Normally to consult a map.

You can also mention the people who nip round the back of the lift queue and go in the out way; though to be fair, those *are* natives.

If you don't buy a ticket regularly, you won't have noticed this one, but there's an entire genre that goes like this: If you're illiterate, don't try to use the ticket machines. Especially not if there's a queue. If you do try to use them, then pay attention. Do what it says. Don't just look gormless wondering why you don't get a ticket. Illiterate includes 'fluent in nineteen languages, none of which are English', incidentally. If you can't follow complex, arbitrary directions, go and queue at the sodding window. In any event, have your money or card ready. The fact that you have to pay for your ticket should not come as a shocking surprise to you.

Don't go through a ticket barrier holding your luggage in front of you as a vanguard. Or, if you do, don't be surprised when the gates shut on your arm, admitting your luggage but shutting you out completely.

On standing on the right; yes, this means that if you're an American who weighs 400 pounds and blocks the entire escalator, you have no choice but to use the stairs. You could probably do with the exercise anyway.

And don't get me started on Covent Garden.

Yet another corollary

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Re: 3 - "slam-door trains"
(I had never heard them so called, but do know what you mean)

Before slamming the door, do check to see whether anyone else is currently passing through it.

The nice lady ahead of me (a native Londoner) was very apologetic, and tried to help, and kept asking if I was hurt. ("Fine," I said. "It's nothing really. I'll be quite all right.")And the bruise only took eight or nine weeks to go away. And I only limped for the first few days. And I did make the train. And it was a long time ago. But still.