"Richard J." wrote in message
. uk...
d wrote:

I've noticed that lots of the overcrowding issues in stations during rush
hour are due to people bunching up and doing, well,
ridiculous things in public. People slowly meandering across
a foot tunnel, causing everyone behind them to stop and bump into each
other. Mothers dragging their kids along side them,
blocking the two-people-wide passageways.

They are not *blocking* the passageway. They just limit your ability to
walk faster, just as in any other crowded traffic situation. Does it
really matter if you get to the platform 5 seconds later? (The chance of
missing a train due to that delay is less than 5%.) How do you expect a
parent to keep a small child safe in a crowded passageway other than by
holding the child's hand?

They *are* blocking the passageway. Just as two cars travelling the same
speed down a dual carriageway block that, too. And, funnily enough, the
delay caused is enough to regularly make me miss trains. I change from the
Victoria to the Circle/District lines at Victoria every morning, and train
frequency is actually pretty good during rush hour for some reason. Getting
caught up anywhere on the few-hundred-metres interchange can most definitely
mean enough of a delay to miss a train. It happens on a regular basis.

I don't have a problem with mothers holding their kids hands. In fact it's
ESSENTIAL on the underground. My problem is with the usual lack of giving
a **** about what's around you. It's a really, really common thing to see
on the underground. If the mother thought about it for 2 seconds, and
walked the kid in front of her, she'd be protecting it a lot more than just
letting it drag slightly behind her through a crowded station during rush
hour, where any stray suitcase/briefcase/ipod/metro/umbrella could quite
easily take it out.

But I guess everyone should just form a queue behind the mother and child,
overcrowding the interchange, blocking the escalators, and eventually
leading to station closures.

dave

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)