Escalator wars: The walkers vs. the standers

Photo by Arthur Edelman on Unsplash

There’s an unwritten etiquette for riding escalators: stand right, walk left. (And yes, oddly enough, it’s the same in countries that drive on the left side of the road as those that drive on the right.)

The origins of this global custom are lost in the mists of escalator time, which dates back to the first prototype at Coney Island in 1896. However, researchers have found that the stand-right-walk-left approach is not only inefficient, but unsafe and can lead to terrible accidents.

There’s a better way, recommended by escalator manufacturers and public transit officials — but repeated attempts to change our behaviour have failed.

So what is the right way to ride an escalator, and why is it so hard to get everyone to do it? I spoke with the smart folks at Cheddar, a millennial-focused business, tech and pop culture TV network, as a source for this great little video on the subject: