Lesson On Good Manners

In a place like the Tube, always busy and overcrowded, politeness and commonsense are crucial, but some people sometimes forget about that.

Every time I take the escalators I ask myself what's wrong with those who seem not to be able to stay on the right!

Another thing, hard to understand for me, is why, when the doors of the train open, people on the front take ages to get on!

They stay on the edge of the doors, looking around inside the train, maybe to choose the seat with the most beautiful view in the dark tunnel, making other passengers wait behind till the very last second before the doors close.

I would like to spend a few words on the lifts issue. Now, maybe it is just me, but I wonder why people do not go further when they enter the lifts, leaving a lot of space unused.

Going back home from university, I saw this poster on the Westbound platform in Holloway Road station.



I felt treated like a naughty child when I read it...

Wheelchairs in the Underground

Being on a wheelchair can be a serious problem when you need to move through the Tube stations as many of them have long and steep staircases, which are really annoying.

Some of them are really good and skilled in this kind of "extreme sports" as "climbing" the stairs when you can't use your own legs can be a serious and challenging "adventure"...like this brave boy did:



and even if it could be easier in the case of an escalator, thing for wheelchair users are still too difficult.

Just some Tube stations can provide good access for wheelchairs users, and they are signed on the map with this symbol:



The number of step-free stations is now 48, but it going to grow as Transport of London is working on several stations to make them more accessible to disabled passengers especially now that the Olympic Games are coming here in London and the efficiency of the transports is need to be "impeccable".

Sometimes is not only a fact of inaccessible staircases, sometimes is a problem of politeness and selfishness as the London Evening Standard titles talking about how people in the tube care only about themselves, not respecting and counting the needs of people on wheelchairs or with nay other mobility problems.

Anyway, if you don't trust your athletic skills in climbing stairs with your wheelchair, there is a very useful link through which you can check the accessibility of the stations.