Metro to get pushers at rush hours
The STM is going to equip pushers on metro platforms with yellow vests at busy stations during rush hours. A pusher (押し屋 oshiya) makes sure people don’t slow down operations by hesitating to join an overcrowded car.
Ian 13:43 on 2019-02-01 Permalink
Cleary the solution to bad STM service is to make driving a private vehicle more expensive and inconvenient!
…did I do that right?
nau 14:40 on 2019-02-01 Permalink
Assuming your intention is to make up for the recent dearth of posts by Bill Binns, yes.
Blork 15:32 on 2019-02-01 Permalink
Well, the TVA article gives them a wider scope of responsibilities (“pour qu’ils interviennent rapidement en cas d’incidents comme des portes bloquées ou encore une personne malade”). If we get to the point that we need full-on pushers on a regular basis then that’s early retirement for me. The only thing worse that being packed into a subway car like a sardine is being overpacked into a subway car.
I find it dehumanizing and also dangerous. Many people suffer from anxiety and/or panic attacks, and WTF happens when you’re on a moving subway and the person next to you starts hyperventilating and freaking out because they feel trapped with no way to escape? Also, we’re people, not canned fish.
EmilyG 16:14 on 2019-02-01 Permalink
I am one of those people who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks, and I am often that person hyperventilating and freaking out. So I’m not at all keen on this idea of “pushers.”
There’s also the fact that sometimes I’ll wait for the next bus or metro if the current one is too crowded, and I don’t know if the employees would consider that “acceptable” behaviour.
Also I sometimes need to sit down in the metro, and I probably won’t board a metro car that doesn’t even have room to sit on the floor (which is against the rules, but sometimes I end up having to do it.)
If only they could run the metros more often so there’d be less cramming. Having people crammed in also contributes to spreading sickness, as it’s more difficult to cover your mouth when you cough.
DeWolf 17:12 on 2019-02-01 Permalink
Are they really pushers? I don’t see anything in the TVA article that describes them as such. Sounds like they will simply be keeping order and preventing people from blocking the doors, which is the opposite of involuntarily pushing people onto overcrowded trains.
Also, pushers disappeared in Tokyo along the 1980s boom. There are still station attendants but they don’t push people onto the trains, and the trains aren’t even that crowded anymore.
ant6n 23:39 on 2019-02-01 Permalink
I had the impression these are the opposite of pushers, trying to prevent you from getting onto the metro, and making you walk down to the end of the platform etc.
Kate 23:45 on 2019-02-01 Permalink
I think the guards are meant to encourage people to move further into the train and not cluster around the doors, among other things, since that’s been blamed for the sardine effect, which is sometimes fierce on the orange line coming down from MoMo at rush hour. A few times this week I’ve been so compressed I’ve had my face in someone else’s hood or backpack and been unable to take out my phone, but at the same time unworried I can’t reach a handhold because I’m so tightly packed in by bodies that if the train suddenly stopped I wouldn’t fall over.
I just shut my eyes for awhile, but then I’m fortunate not to mind too much.