Over the years, I’ve often returned to the theme of underground etiquette. It’s always entertaining to think about future subway expansion plans, ongoing construction projects and the things we would do if money were no obstacle. But on a more immediate level, the way we ride and interact with each other lends more to our day-to-day subway rides than any theoretical transit expansion does.
By and large, New Yorkers are considerate of each other on the subway. Rare are the days when someone is stabbed simply for staring, but lesser violations can mar our days or our weeks. Those lesser incidents too are usually minor. Someone will not get out of the way; someone will hug a pole or block a door. Some subway preacher will interrupt an otherwise-peaceful morning commute or a bunch of kids will insist that it’s showtime. We’ve all been there.
This week, Gawker, in a way only Gawker can, reminded us of the bad times. Their post — The Ten Worst People on the Subway — has been making the rounds in every possible format. It’s been shared countless times on my Facebook timeline (including by me); it’s been on Twitter; and it’s even been included in an email my dad sent me on Thursday afternoon. With 650,000 pageviews as of this writing, it is a viral sensation and one that seems to ring a bit too close to home for many New Yorkers who ride the subway each day.
So who are these ten terrible straphangers? I’ll urge you to read Gawker’s snarky commentary on them all, but here’s the top ten:
- The person standing in front of an open seat on a crowded train.
- The people standing in front of the door who don’t move when the doors open.
- The people who get on before letting everyone off.
- The people who lean on the pole.
- The people who try to make you let go of the pole before the train stops.
- The people who act like they’re the only ones who are going to get off at a major stop.
- The people who stand on the narrowest area of the platform.
- The people who stop hurrying down the steps once they see it’s not their train coming.
- The people who eat cooked food.
- Teenagers.
It’s hard to disagree with much of this list though I’m not sure No. 7 belongs. I’d also add the people — like my seat neighbor this morning — who insist on spreading their legs for no good reason and the more active interrupters such as the aforementioned breakdancers. Riders who put bags on empty seats deserve our scorn as well. Subway riders who can’t remove their backpacks on crowded trains get an honorable mention.
Whenever I run across these situations or posts like Hamilton’s on Gawker, I always wonder why we care so much. I think we care so much because riding the subway is a collective experience. Over the past six or seven decades, America has been a more individualistic country where we guard our space, and travel by car is a very solitary experience. But the subways are the opposite. We have no space, and we have to share it with millions of other people every single day.
And so we expect everyone else to be courtesy because it’s a shared experience that’s less than ideal. If I’m going to keep my legs closed, my bag contained and my body within its allocated space — if I’m going to move into the middle of the car and get out of the way when someone needs to get by — everyone else should do. Yet, New Yorkers also like to think the rules don’t apply to them. They bike against the flow of people in the running lane in Prospect Park; they speed through red lights to save 5 seconds of travel time; they block doors; they hop turnstiles; they don’t stand to the right and walk on the left. And that’s why we get the popular senstation of Gawker’s list.