Thank You For Riding Metro

Ever run to board a train before the doors close, only to have the person in front of you inexplicably slow down as they pass into the car? As though the "door closing" chime is a signal sounded just for them, telling them they've made it and can relax? Not even because the car is packed--the car may, in fact, have ample standing room and a few single seats to spare--but because they can?

Good news: it turns out you're allowed--nay, encouraged--to push them. Just shove 'em out of the way! Kids, too? Sure, kids love to learn. Old people? Of course! After all, if anyone needs to hurry it along, it's those with pressing time constraints. After all, you have places to be and you'd have been there quicker, but you really needed to rub one out before you left your house this morning and that's other people's problem now.

So remember to push the douchebags and thank you for riding Metro.*

The DC Metro system sucks. I spent a long time trying to defend it in a country that sorely needs better public transport options, but I gave up that ghost a while ago. The delays, the single tracking, the myriad safety issues, the rising costs; indefensible. I won't catalog all of the infrastructural failings and institutional incompetence/apathy. There's a perfectly good blog already doing that. Although: the green line meltdown last week? Metro cares not for meltdowns.

And the riders help nothing. It's not just the anecdotal incidents I've witnessed, such as the tourist family posing for a photo in front of open train doors at Metro Center during rush hour. Or the group of a dozen or so grown-ass men and women (we're talking mid-to-late forties) taking turns indulging one another with their horrifying, music-less, pole dancing techniques. It's the little things, the things that should be eliminated through basic observation and consideration and yet remain universal.

For example, people sitting on the outside of the 2x2 row seating when both seats are empty. And then, when that person is asked to move--a rarity, it seems--they simply swing their legs around to allow the new person some ten inches of maneuverable room through which to access the inside seat, only to be squashed in by Lazy McSelfish-Ass' freely swinging legs.

And then there's the blatant disregard for the Escalator Rule. Most of you immediately know what I'm talking about because you've likely seen an escalator in action. For the rest of you, the Rule works as follows: on two-person wide escalators, the left side of the escalator is reserved for people walking up or down. One may also walk on the right, assuming no one is occupying that space, but standing on the right is acceptable, so one may need to move around them. Once practiced, it proves remarkably simple.

And yet many never master it. See the group of teens who can't bear to be apart for more than a few seconds and so cluster into tight, inward facing packs for the length of the ride (one wonders how restroom visits work). Or the lone fighter of uniformity, leaning against the left handrail, like the American Hero his mother told him he was. Or the ill-advised, if merely unfortunate, soul who, having missed the elevator, brings luggage onto the escalator, inconveniencing everyone, including himself (extra points if they're on the Wheaton, Rosslyn or Dupont escalators).

I've been on subway systems in seven cities on two continents and the Escalator Rule works the same in all of them. Amazingly, it's the same rule that's used by malls, museums, hotels, government buildings, and other large, public and private structures that have escalators. And even if you've never personally experienced a ride on these automated miracles of sharp, interlocking metal teeth, it's easy enough to understand this rule just by watching. As you step on, simply look up/down and study the natives. If you follow their lead, you'll be in the right 99% of the time.

As with most societal niceties, most people have no problem following standard Let's Try Not To Kill Each Other Today procedures. The rules are only in place because a very few people can't or won't put the brakes on their Special Snowflake train for the few minutes it takes to get from one place to another with other human beings. And because those few simply cannot help themselves, the rules become overarching laws, governing us all to a degree that no one really wanted, but that we all asked for. This is basic John Locke Social Contract shit.

If you visit the District of Columbia, or any city with a public transport system (however faulty), please follow the procedures your fellow passengers are quietly demonstrating. They know what they're doing, have places they're trying to get to, and have done this before.

*I've seen this happen. And having been at the would-be pusher end of the engagement, I understand the urge. But it's a helpful reminder that there are just enough thoughtless people riding the Metro during rush hour that there are very few win-win scenarios.