Holborn wants you to stop walking. The Underground station is trialling a new system whereby passengers stand on both sides of escalators – which, of course, breaks the rule, gospel to all Londoners, that you stand on the right and walk on the left if you’re in a hurry.
In April, when the scheme was introduced, TfL told us that it was designed to reduce congestion, since few commuters want to walk anyway:
“We get a lot of congestion at the bottom because the majority of customers don’t want to walk. The left hand side empty, while everyone is queuing up to stand on the right. By filling up both sides, we can actually carry more people more quickly and clear that congestion.”
However, your correspondent is a daily visitor to Holborn station, and can vouch for the fact that at 9am, at least, nobody is following this new rule. Everyone stands on the right, and walks on the left as normal – even as announcements blare instructions to stand on both sides. For the first week, station attendants with megaphones shouted the new instructions, but even this didn’t do the trick.
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Now, though, TfL has introduced a new intervention: a cardboard cutout of a station attendant, mounted atop a speaker. When I passed this morning, it sang “Last night standing saved my life!” to the tune of “Last night a DJ saved my life” by Indeep. The fact that the words didn’t scan properly was the least of its problems.
Twitter users confirm that the cutout has a whole repertoire of standing-based puns and songs:
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The Holborn Holograms plea’s are becoming increasingly desperate. Today she was muttering about standing being a virtue.
— mia allers (@miakepia) June 6, 2016
The recorded person at #Holborn station is slightly disturbing when she starts singing ‘I’m still standing’…
— Hannah Osborne (@HitchedSchmitz) June 6, 2016
The holographic host at #holborn is quoting random lines like #makeastand & #standbyme. Sounds like a malfunctioning Stepford housewife
— Anusha Couttigane (@Nush_Couttigane) June 6, 2016
The Holborn escalator hologram crazy lady is now telling jokes and puns around standing. It’s a new hell.
— Trevor Ubdegrove (@Trev71_MUFC) June 6, 2016
And yet, despite its pleas, commuters kept on walking. It seems that the new rule won’t catch on – Londoners just won’t stand for it.
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