wrote:
Last night at about 1830 I was at Tottenham Court Road. Of the three
escalators which lead up to the ticket hall, two were coming down and
only one was going up, which is in itself unusual. This meant that
there was a big crowd building at the bottom of the one up escalator.

At Tottenham Court Road, when you get to the bottom of the escalators,
you're meant to go straight ahead for the Central Line, or left for the
Northern Line. However, if you go right, you can also get to the
Central Line, but you're walking against one of the exit routes from
the CL.

As I said, last night there was a big crowd at the bottom of the up
escalator, which meant that loads of people who were trying to cut down
this way were shoving their way through an already large crowd. I said
to one woman who was screaming out "Excuse me! Let me through!" that
if she'd go the signposted way it'd be much easier on everyone.
Needless to state I got a mouthful of abuse.

There was a member of staff at the bottom of the escalators. He had
one of those temporary barrier things partially erected. All he needed
to do was extend it out slightly further and the problem would have
gone away, as people would have been forced to walk straight ahead for
the Central Line, thus creating two clear pathways, one in and one out.

Which leads me to the question in the thread header: why don't tube
staff enforce the one way systems properly? It's not just at TCR,
although the example above is one of the worst on the system; I've
almost never seen barriers in place to enforce the routing, only
signage. Is it something to do with fire regulations, that you can't
"block" any entrance or exit?


Just as well, the one-way system at Tottenham Court Road for the
Northern Line is totally biased for Southern-based passengers. As when
I'm heading for that platform I am generally going North I totally
ignore the signs. After all, I might miss my train by 3 seconds then
have to wait 8 minutes for the next one.

"Earl Purple" wrote in message
ps.com...

wrote:
Last night at about 1830 I was at Tottenham Court Road. Of the three
escalators which lead up to the ticket hall, two were coming down and
only one was going up, which is in itself unusual. This meant that
there was a big crowd building at the bottom of the one up escalator.

At Tottenham Court Road, when you get to the bottom of the escalators,
you're meant to go straight ahead for the Central Line, or left for the
Northern Line. However, if you go right, you can also get to the
Central Line, but you're walking against one of the exit routes from
the CL.

As I said, last night there was a big crowd at the bottom of the up
escalator, which meant that loads of people who were trying to cut down
this way were shoving their way through an already large crowd. I said
to one woman who was screaming out "Excuse me! Let me through!" that
if she'd go the signposted way it'd be much easier on everyone.
Needless to state I got a mouthful of abuse.

There was a member of staff at the bottom of the escalators. He had
one of those temporary barrier things partially erected. All he needed
to do was extend it out slightly further and the problem would have
gone away, as people would have been forced to walk straight ahead for
the Central Line, thus creating two clear pathways, one in and one out.

Which leads me to the question in the thread header: why don't tube
staff enforce the one way systems properly? It's not just at TCR,
although the example above is one of the worst on the system; I've
almost never seen barriers in place to enforce the routing, only
signage. Is it something to do with fire regulations, that you can't
"block" any entrance or exit?


Just as well, the one-way system at Tottenham Court Road for the
Northern Line is totally biased for Southern-based passengers. As when
I'm heading for that platform I am generally going North I totally
ignore the signs. After all, I might miss my train by 3 seconds then
have to wait 8 minutes for the next one.

And how many people do you put out by doing that? Remember - just because
something is beneficial to you, it doesn't mean it's beneficial to others.
What if you saving 3 seconds makes 40 other people delayed by 1 second each?
You would have selfishly exchanged 40 people/seconds of other peoples' time
for 3 people/seconds of your own. The signs are usually there for a reason.

dave

d wrote:

And how many people do you put out by doing that? Remember - just because
something is beneficial to you, it doesn't mean it's beneficial to others.
What if you saving 3 seconds makes 40 other people delayed by 1 second each?
You would have selfishly exchanged 40 people/seconds of other peoples' time
for 3 people/seconds of your own.

Unless they are changing onto the Central line and miss their train as
a result of my action then I'm not really delaying them, whereas if
there is a train there then it's more urgent that I need to get through
to it. It doesn't help the fact that at Tottenham Court Road you then
have to walk quite a way up the platform you don't wish to use to
switch over to the Northbound one.

If there are people it's probably because there's a train there and I'm
not saving 3 seconds, I could be saving 8 minutes or more knowing the
Northern Line.

The signs are usually there for a reason.

To convenience those from the South. Probably the person who designed
it travelled in from the South.