Having lived in the 'burbs for the majority of my life, I had never really relied on public transportation until about 6 months ago. To my surprise, public transportation - in Toronto at least - has been more or less tolerable and reliable. To an extent I even enjoy it.
However, increased exposure to the lemming-like movement of the masses has made me acutely aware of some of the annoying quirks of human traffic.
If you haven't guessed already, I'm talking about escalators. More specifically, I'm talking about people standing still on them. This in itself is not a problem; the common courtesy is to stand to the side and let people pass if you're elderly, physically afflicted, or just fucking lazy. This is slightly less annoying than when the person walking directly in front of you stops without warning and, often, without valid reason.
While this sounds like common sense, and indeed most people understand this social convention, there are inevitably those (and you know who you are) who couldn't give a fuck, creating bottlenecks and delaying everybody. The most likely culprits are lovey dovey couples, immigrants, and crack heads.
These delays are probably miniscule time wise - I'll be overly generous and say maybe a minute's worth of lost time per day - but often that is the difference between me catching a subway or standing on a lonely platform for another five minutes while the world laughs at me.
Why not harness the power of technology and use these devices to enhance your speed rather than slow yourself and others down to save that one calorie that you sorely need for later? Just because you've stepped on an escalator doesn't mean your legs have stopped working.
there is nothing more soul sapping than going up that subway escalator during rush hour, like a motherfucking lemming being led to the slaughter.