For a long time, “walking on the left and standing on the right” has been a civilized custom that urbanites are proud of. Anyone who stands on the left side blocking the pedestrian passage will definitely get a few hard looks on the back and a country bumpkin comment.
However, for thirty years in Hedong and thirty years in Hexi, “civilization” is definitely one of the most fickle things in the world.
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“Running left and standing right” on the escalator seems to be becoming a “new bad habit”.
When traveling in Japan, escalator rules are definitely one of the things to do before traveling. In Tokyo, you have to stand on the left and walk on the right, while in Osaka, you can walk on the left and stand on the right. Uneasy tourists should always check in advance to avoid being temporarily timid.
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However, what is little known is that 55 years ago, Osaka people tried their best to promote the “walk left and stand right” on subway escalators. 55 years later, they are risking their lives to promote the completely opposite rule.
Before the 2025 Osaka Expo has even arrived, an eye-opening civilized farce has already been staged.
In order to welcome friends from around the world and show new trends in civilization, the Osaka Expo specially produced a batch of special escalators.
The escalator was developed by Hitachi Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Hitachi Building Systems. It adds special green LED indicators, which are like a mind map. It bifurcates left and right, with one endpoint on the left and one endpoint on the right, suggesting that passengers should not just stand on one side, but better follow the instructions. Stand side by side.
What’s funny is that it was Osaka that pioneered the idea of “walking on the left and standing on the right” in Japan, in order to present a “civilized Japan” at the World Expo.
The last time Osaka hosted the World Expo was in 1970. At that time, many returning elites felt deeply ashamed of Japan’s “backwardness”:
“Every time I come back to Japan from the UK, I get annoyed. In London, on the subway or in department stores, people who are not in a hurry always stand on the right side.”
As the first major international event in Kansai after the war, Osaka people attached great importance to the World Expo just as we looked forward to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. From top to bottom, we are working hard to learn English, and all walks of life are thinking about how to show the best spirit of Japan to foreign friends.
It must not be looked down upon, it must be clean and tidy, and it must be civilized and polite!
So three years in advance, Osaka Metro began to advertise “Please leave space for pedestrians on the left side.” This is to learn from British gentlemen. It is said that old Londoners have been so “polite” since the 1940s.
It happened that the super hub Hankyu Umeda Station was relocated at that time and a new 41-meter long escalator was built. The most advanced escalator was naturally equipped with the most advanced rules. This rule for the longest escalator in Japan at the time became “civilized” synonymous with.
To put it in a very Japanese way, it is: “To improve traffic efficiency, of course we can install more new escalators. But one-sided traffic is for the convenience of foreign friends, and it is also a seed that can help us cultivate 'thinking about others' heart of'.”
Since then, Japan's strict rules and common sense have been added to the list, and they have been meticulously implemented to this day. Even during the busiest morning and evening rush hours, people still queue up to one side.
Why, 55 years after the same Osaka World Expo, did the new trend of civilization become a bad habit that needs to be changed urgently?
In fact, this matter has already begun to be overturned.
In 2021, Saitama Prefecture issued a decree requiring that escalators are not allowed to move whether they are standing on the left or right side and must be used in a stationary state.
In October 2023, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture also introduced a new law requiring the suspension of escalator walking.
Even Osaka began posting “Don't walk” signs in subway stations as early as 2010.
Safety is the main concern on the surface.
Researchers compiled reports from the Bureau of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the Fire Bureau and found that since escalators began to give way, the number of people injured due to falls or contact with escalators has been increasing year by year.
In 2014, 1,443 people were sent to hospital by ambulance due to escalator accidents within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Fire Department alone.
Because escalators were not designed for people to walk on since they were originally designed. Japan's Building Standards Law stipulates that the width of escalators must be less than 110cm. At the same time, the law stipulates that the width of public stairs must be at least 140cm.
In other words, if public stairs are comfort standards based on human walking data, then escalators do not meet the standards. It is not only narrower than ordinary stairs, but also taller: ordinary step height needs to be below 18cm, and escalator step height is usually higher than 20cm.
Escalators are inherently unsuitable for walking and are constantly moving, so escalators are naturally even more dangerous. The elderly, children and disabled people who are unsteady on their feet are more likely to be knocked down by speeders passing by.
Perhaps you have also heard that standing on one side of the escalator itself is also harmful.
You can't sit on the side of a boat, and the same goes for taking the escalator. Some people believe that if a large number of passengers only stand on one side for a long time, the load on that side will be too heavy and the left and right will be unbalanced, resulting in unbalanced and excessive wear of parts.
Maintenance data quickly supported this claim. This situation has been found not only in Japan, but also in every country in the world where yield rules exist.
During an inspection by the Nanjing Metro Operation Company, it was discovered that 95% of the escalator's right step chain was more worn than the left side. As a result, the steps are tilted slightly to the right, causing increased wear on the baffles and comb teeth on both sides.
A subway inspection in Xizhimen, Beijing, was even more intuitive. The maintenance staff saw that there was a difference of up to 6 mm between the right and left step chains.
The reason why Nagoya wants to write the ban on giving way into the law is because it has suffered a big loss. In 2008, a moving escalator suddenly stopped, causing 10 people to fall and be seriously injured. Later investigation found that it was standing on one side that caused the equipment to wear out, and then the vibration from the walker's stride caused a cascading failure.
Since then, the station's slogan has been changed to extra-large font size: “Escalator walking produces vibration, and the vibration will cause the elevator to stop emergency!”
What’s even more worrying is that unilateral yielding, which is considered to improve traffic efficiency, may not actually improve efficiency.
On the contrary, it also reduces passenger flow.
In London, the birthplace of “yield civilization”, public transportation strategy analysts are also reflecting. In 2015, they conducted a three-week experiment involving more than 10,000 people a day at London's Holborn Station to verify whether bilateral or unilateral traffic was more efficient.
The results found that when one-sided traffic was changed to two-sided traffic, the number of passengers passing the escalator increased by 27% in the same period of time.
A survey by another British consulting company showed that after the stop of “yield”, including the queuing time at the bottom of the escalator, the average time for passengers to pass the escalator dropped by 79 seconds, a drop of as much as 43%.
According to the “human ellipse” theory, most people are not used to the presence of strangers in close proximity to each other, so on subway escalators, people usually stand one space apart, which reduces the transportation capacity by one-half. , capacity was halved again.
The only people who can benefit from this are the poor office workers who wake up late in the morning. By running across the escalator, they can save nearly 50% of their time.
So it is obvious that the “civilized etiquette” of giving way seems to be increasingly untenable, no matter in terms of safety, machinery, or the “efficiency” that was most praised at the beginning.
However, as the saying goes, it is easier to go up the mountain than to go down. Some things are obviously absurd, but once they start to gain momentum, they can no longer be stopped.
It's easy to set rules for escalators when no one has ever seen one. Once the rules are established, it is difficult to change them.
In recent years, operators around the world have made a lot of efforts to “correct” escalator usage habits.
Japan Subway Corporation modified the station announcements as early as 10 years ago, deleting the guidance of “Give way to the left aisle” and replacing it with “Please do not walk.”
In Shanghai, China, the “Latest Edition of Escalator Riding Instructions” contains a total of eight prohibitions. The first one is “It is prohibited to walk and run while riding the escalator.”
But as we saw later, inertia is still inertia. I looked down at my phone and walked to the right.
In London, stand on the right is a pun. Standing on the right means standing on the right side.
During the experiment at Holborn station, staff were almost scolded for being depressed.
“I know how to use the damn escalator!” The angry man pushed the child in front away, strode forward, and raised his middle finger to the staff.
“No walking on escalators, this is a charter for lame and lazy people!”
“We are happy, but can't you let us go?” Another person shouted: “This is not Russia!”
At this time, the staff was extremely lucky that they did not adopt another more radical proposal when performing this experiment. At first, they planned to hire someone to put on a coat with eye-catching slogans and stand in the left aisle to act as a human barrier.
Considering that they might get beaten up, they finally chose a milder solution: holding a small loudspeaker to guide the flow of people at the escalator.
The inertial rubber band seems to be easy to pull, but every time you let go, it immediately springs back to its original position.
After Japan's Saitama Prefecture announced a ban on giving way, a research team from the University of Tsukuba conducted an investigation and monitoring of a major station in the city. It was found that three months after the decree was promulgated, the number of people walking on the escalators dropped by 20%, but a year later, the proportion that had finally dropped had returned.
“People may be 'used to the ordinance' because there are no penalties, so they don't understand that walking is not allowed.”
Experimenters at Holborn Station in the UK also found that after three weeks of induction, passengers became docile and followed the new system. But just a week after the induction, everything returned to the way it was before.
The host said helplessly: “This is like child psychology. You need to spend four days to make your children understand that they should go to bed on time and develop a habit, and it only takes one day for them to start staying up late again, allowing you to start again.” One time he was sitting there beating his head against the wall.”
Other than arranging “civilized supervisors” to hold placards, various countries seem to have no better way to hedge against powerful habits.
Now, whoever can take the lead in getting rid of the “bad habit” of giving way has become a symbol of advanced civilization.
The strange spiral of history seems to have returned to its original point – after twists and turns, the ideal state is still the initial state.
But coming full circle, one thing is different: fairness.
In fact, people have probably already raised the disadvantages of “giving way” when the giving-way rule was introduced.
Some people say that giving way is unsafe, especially for disabled people, the elderly and children.
People's response at the time was: We Japanese just like to “blame others who allowed accidents to happen.” If an accident occurs, shouldn't you be held accountable first?
Escalators are not barrier-free facilities. Disabled people should use the elevator if they need it.
In that society where the economy is developing rapidly and efficiency is paramount, “efficiency” is justice. Of course, individual needs are also recognized, but they need to give way infinitely to collectivism.
Those who refuse to give way are “insensitive scarecrows.”
In the 1990s, Shoichi Honda, a famous reporter from the Asahi Shimbun and known for his empathy, wrote in the article “The Spirit of the Escalator”: “As urban areas become more and more developed, the number of escalators has increased dramatically, and their lengths have become increasingly variable. The longer it goes, the more serious the nuisance becomes from the insensitive ‘standing scarecrow’ that refuses to leave the passage.”
He concluded that this act of standing blindly without looking around was an irrational and unprogressive act of a poor mind.
Even if two-sided traffic allows more passengers to circulate faster, impeding individual efficiency is seen as a greater sin.
What could be more precious than the dozens of seconds spent by office workers rushing by? They are the pillars who work hard for the future of Japan with energy drinks in their mouths and heavy bags under their eyes every day!
Just as London's yield etiquette originated in wartime, it's all about efficiency.
More than half a century later, we still talk about fairness, but society’s stance has changed.
Those Heisei cadres who once ran vigorously on the escalator will have gray hair and bent spines. He has become an old man who has been left behind by them countless times and can no longer walk on the escalator.
At this time, people began to re-examine the meaning of “fairness”.
For a public facility, the first and most important thing is of course to consider fairness. But whose fairness is fair?
Is it for society as a whole, or for each individual? Does it fully support the social elite, or does it take care of the weak?
The long economic downturn has ruined future ambitions, but slowing down has also given humanity more relaxation.
More than half a century later, efficiency and justice have lost to humanistic thinking.
Although the footsteps are always pulling to the side involuntarily, the balance in people's hearts has long been leaning towards the side of “not giving way”.
A 2022 survey by the Japan Elevator Association found that although 70.6% of people have engaged in “escalator walking” behavior, the majority of people (83.8%) still believe that walking on escalators should be stopped.
But why does the mind think one thing but the body does another?
Maybe it's because of coordinative pressure.
“When I stand on the left side, I sometimes hear impatient clicking sounds behind me.”
“Yesterday I was scolded by an old man when I was standing on the left.”
When the prohibition of giving way on escalators has not yet reached the level of common sense, those who implement it first will always fall into the dilemma of being disliked.
Coupled with a walking ban without any penalties, an environment that is very unfavorable for the implementation of new regulations is created: business as usual will not be punished, but implementation of the new regulations may face social pressure.
No one wants to get into trouble when they go out for a walk. Seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages, maintaining the status quo is undoubtedly a better choice.
A young girl in Tokyo said: “Sometimes, during rush hour, if a person standing on the left appears in front of me, I will secretly cheer for him and stand behind him. I don't have the courage to do it myself. , this kind of person can be called an ‘escalator man’!”
Some people say that if we want people to stop “walking on the left and standing on the right,” perhaps we can only do something about it.
For example, making the steps of the escalator higher and narrower, or increasing the speed of the escalator, will make it impossible to walk even if you want to.
The addition of guide lines to the escalators at the Osaka Expo this time is also a gentle escalation action.
More people expect generational change to solve the problem—since one generation has developed inertia, let those without inertia change it.
In Japan, “Stand on both sides of the escalator” is being included in children's teaching materials, and new escalator rules are also included in safety lectures for children.
Like those children who advise their parents not to spit or speak loudly, more and more young people are appearing in the empty left aisle, straightening their backs.
Adults always like to say to children, “The world is ours, but ultimately it is yours.” There are few details that can confirm this old saying so clearly.
One-sided traffic may not be so fatal, and standing on both sides may not be so necessary.
But changes in the rules of civilization are just a reflection of changes in civilization itself.
Standing on the left or right side can be a simple action, or an action of trying to change the world, and every small action will constitute a young person's claim to the world.