I often have stupid ideas that could actually be applied to make real world every-day-people-related systems better, but I never write them down. I had this idea a few months ago, but forgot to write about it, hopefully someone on the New York MTA will read it one day and will have the power to propose it to their executive board.
If you travel on the subway like me, you can travel forward in time if you use the correct doors from train to train, I think you actually travel forward in time, instead of wasting time, if you for example need to Switch to L on 14st and you’re at Canal St, all you need to do, is take the express Yellow Line (I think it’s the R), but to make the best of your time, you need to walk to the very last cart of that platform, you make use of your “waiting time” to travel forward in time (or save time) once you get to 14st, since you get off, and the stairs to the L transfer will be right on the end of the track, then you go down stairs, and if you’re lucky enough, you can make it to the L without waiting.
I say you travel forward in time, cause if you get on the first car of the R, you will loose all your “waiting time” sitting at the beginnnig, and then you will have to do the walk you didn’t do in Canal St, when you get to Union Square…
so… in short, after this absurd, but “clear” example (yeah right), what’s the solution?
Make everybody travel like this…
If you do, and you have a well designed system, based on mining patterns on how your metro users travel every day, you could design the metro system to have people ride in certain cars.
You could either… mark cars of the train to say:
“This car will give you an optimum get off time if you get off at:
- station blah, blah, blah
or if you need to transfer to: L, 1,2,3″
So, you don’t stand in the way for people that actually need to get off and run for their next transfer…
anyway… just the thought of a maniac of traveling optimally on the subway.
Not sure if this made any sense gramatically, and I don’t think its even worth revising it… just ventilating my frustration with slow people…
Oh, and another thing, there should be “Staircases for People in a Hurry”, or “Fast Lanes in Staircases”, not just Up and Down directions, but actual, fast stair cases, so we don’t have to smell people’s asses going up the stairs like they’re doing a walk on the zoo on a sunday, please move your ass on the stairs people, you can make people loose transfers.
