Bravo! Until I have a mechanism to invoice people for my time when they waste it, let me join in the shouts of “get out of the damn way!”

Oddly enough, I wrote a screenplay back in 1982 about a guy that was peeved off at all sorts of things we see day to day. One of the scenes involved him approaching an escalator and having four people arrive just ahead of him from different directions and starting a conversation/meeting going up the escalator. The scene was shot at the Wilson subway station (yes, we had a TTC property permit, and I still have it as a souvenir!) and starred Mike Meyers as they guy peeved off (I really have to get a video transfer of this and start selling it on Ebay!).

Getting back to the main topic, I flew back from a business trip on Saturday and couldn’t help but notice the announcements at T1 for people on the moving sidewalks to stand to the right to let others move past on the left. Yea, it isn’t climbing or descending a grade, but the motion is still there which, I susect, is the root of any dangers.

Old signs are all over the place. At Yorkdale, signs (still visible) direct passengers to the Airport Express and Caledonia buses. At Spadina station, there’s a board that has a system map that dates before the opening of the Sheppard Line (which actually exist throughout the system), next to a neighbourhood map that shows the Route 77 Spadina (at Spadina Station!). At Wilson, there’s still a TimeLine sticker on the sign for the 104 Faywood bus.

I will broadcast the location of two “stand right, walk left” signs if only because I am sure they aren’t going to be removed, and are positioned next to an inoperable escalator – the Wilson Station North Terminal, which is temporarily opened at this time. The escalator is blocked off with “closed for maintenance, completion [blank]” which isn’t going to happen.

The speed of removing these signs is similar to the speed the solid garbage bins were removed (leaving stains) and replaced with those ugly open bags installation (and where I doubt anything can be recycled), in the name of “security”.

This couldn’t be more true, where even in England and places they drive on the left, its STILL “stand right walk left”

As for fun, what ever happend to riding on the escalator handrails?

When I lived in Warsaw, everyone just stood on the escalators.

I was glad to see someone remembered the tread-ramp at Keele. Why was this ever taken out of service? There is no escalator at this entrance. Speaking of the rear entrance at Keele, a short while ago folks were met one morning with a sudden and complete closure of that access. There was no warning and no signage posted. A few days later a sign appeared stating that the entrance would be closed for months in order to modernize the automatic turnstiles. They claimed the turnstiles were too small, but this seems odd to me because when I was little my mother would get her, me and my brother together through the things on one token. We only ever got yelled at once! (I always pay proper fare these days, proving that kids shouldn’t have to rely on their parents to know the difference between right and wrong!) The TTC must have received a flood of complaints about the closure because they’ve actually put a collector in the booth during the rush period. Does anyone know if this was ever a regular occurance in the past?

Steve: The ramp at Keele was intended to handle the flood of transfer passengers off of the Bloor West shuttle streetcar to Jane before the extension to Islington opened in 1968. Once that was open, the volume coming through the east entrance dropped a huge amount, and there was no point in maintaining the ramp. I think also that this was a one-time experiment and that any added devices will be escalators, not ramps.

The quote I mentioned is from a Globe and Mail article, which is now archived behind a pay wall. I referred to it in a comment to a BlogTO post here.

The full quote, from Dexter Collins, TTC’s ‘Acting Superintendent of Elevating Devices’:

“The intent is for the escalator to carry the people up the escalator. If they are capable of walking, they should be utilizing the stairs.”

Notwithstanding the current situation where you can see dozens of evidently able-bodied — but lazy — riders squeezing into elevators at rush hour, imagine how badly the traffic flow in stations would be distorted if everyone defaulted to stairs? In many places the de facto procedure is ‘stairs down, escalator up’. Stairs simply do not have the capacity to carry all up and down traffic in most stations.

The best one is at the end … that if you’re in a wheelchair you should use the elevators instead. Going down an escalator in a wheelchair is a lot more fun.

Bring back the Keele speed ramp!