Today’s Peeves
We interrupt this program for two annoyances:
- People who stand on narrow escalators (where there’s no room to pass) so that everyone else has to wait for them. I make exceptions for people who obviously have trouble with stairs, but watching someone walk 500m and then stand on an escalator really bugs me.
- People who are perfectly able-bodied using the elevators on the subways and GO train platforms. Those elevators are supposed to be for people in wheelchairs; I’ve also seen people with strollers and carts use them, which is ok by me. However, I’ve also seen a mother with a child in a stroller have to wait for three or four elevators, because they are full of selfish S.O.B.s who are too lazy to take the stairs (or even worse, the escalators).
WALK, PEOPLE! IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
posted at 2:04 pm on Friday, December 13, 2002 in Rants | Comments (3)
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Gee, I didn’t know you took the subway. Are you using the new Sheppard line at all?
As for walking 500m and then standing on an escalator: Well Toronto isn’t so bad (except for Spadina station) for it’s inter-line transfer stations, but when I was in Osaka (and Tokyo), after 500m of dodging crowds, standing behind everyone on the escalator was a welcome rest. and actually, I’m pretty sure there is an 800m walk inside Tokyo station to get from the main body of JR lines to the line that goes to Tokyo Disney world. Worse yet, we had to do it twice, since I misread the map and did not realize that the line shoots right under Ginza without connecting to any of the subway lines above it. and duh, that’s what I get for trying to use a JR pass. The subway connection in Tokyo station does actually go right to Ginza. Now here’s a subway system:
http://www.tokyometro.go.jp/network/print_english.html
That purple line is super-deep. At shinjuku station there are something like 5 levels stacked on each other and O-edo sen(line) is the deepest, but keep in mind the JR line is elevated above street level, so you only have to worry about going down 3 to level 5. I’ll bet you’d rest on the escalators from O-edo sen. Btw, here’s a diagram of the O-edo platform at “Tochoomae” (one left of Shinjuku on that map).
I’ve lost the link, but there used to be 3d diagrams of the O-edo stations somewhere.
Hm, I seem to have gotten off topic… So have you tried Don Mills station yet? That thing is about 5 storeys down. Walking on the escalator could be tiring for some there. I have a nit to pick with that station. It is officially on 4 levels (subway,mezzanine,bus bay,street) but the fricken elevators only take you up one level at a time! Taking Megan on a stroller through that station requires walking all over hell’s half acre taking 3 different elevators (Well, if you’re going shopping that is… There is yet another elevator closer to Sheppard which goes from the mezzanine to the street).
More curious still, is the elevator in Sheppard station. It has two buttons “Level 4” and “Level 5”, but (for newcomers) you have no idea which level the Sheppard line is on (you can tell from the button placement which level is the lowest). Only a complete nerd like myself who read the station design plan would know that they actually built the Yonge station above the Sheppard station bringing it within inches of the surface. Building it below would probably have been most people’s assumption. (FYI, you come across the elevator before you get to the escaltors and their signage telling you which way to go for Yonge trains)
$1 billion and they can’t even get the elevator buttons right.
http://www.kotsu.metro.tokyo.jp/util/sitemap_index.html
Article explaining depth of O-edo sen (15-48m) Hm, at 3m/storey, that’s 16 storeys down in places. It also lists the cost at $13 billion (approx — I converted it):
http://www.jrtr.net/jrtr28/pdf/f22_fuc.pdf
Slight correction from http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/%7Ezq8a-kaz/shinjyuku.htm (in Japanese, if you want a laugh, cut and paste the lines with the “36.6m” into babel fish.. brutal). Shinjuku O-edo line station is on level 7, 36.6m down.