Posted May 31, 2014, 7:06 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto
Posts: 52,200
|
|
The Real Rules of Engagement on the Subways of Europe
Read More: http://www.citylab.com/navigator/201...europe/371623/
Quote:
.....
Push your way onto a subway train in Copenhagen and you blend in – according to Danish friends it’s the one place in Denmark where mild social aggression is tolerated. Try the same thing in Glasgow and … well, just try it and see. In London, dumped newspapers on trains are a form of courtesy. In Vienna, they are treated like something dead that the cat’s dragged in.
- Manners on London’s Tube system are a typically British brew of tension, tolerance and passive aggression. In some ways, rules can be surprisingly lax. You can eat food, even stinky food, without being reprimanded, though if you’re a woman you risk being shamed for it on social media. Drinking alcohol has fairly recently been banned, but it used to be the accepted rule on weekend nights (as these 1980s photos show). As for littering with newspapers, it’s actually considered polite to dump reading matter for other passengers to pick up, even though it leaves cars looking like a junkyard.
- In the German capital, subway rules are the opposite of London’s. Riders tend to be freaked out by untidiness or disorder, but they aren’t in as much of a hurry. Leave a paper behind on the seat, and you’ll often get barked at – I’ve been snapped at for leaving papers I’d never even touched. Eating food is also a no-no, which is fair enough. If you break the rules, don’t be surprised if Berliners are vocal about it. This is partly because low-level grumpiness is more socially acceptable in Berlin but mainly because, with a moderate crime rate, people just aren’t as scared as each of other there.
- If jamming the doors is taboo in Berlin, in Paris it’s mandatory. Metro doors stay open so briefly before they buzz and slam that it can be nigh impossible for a crowd to get on without someone using a foot as a wedge. This extremely short board time could explain the air of persecution on Paris’ metro: you feel as if the entire system is hectoring you, basically because it is. At the same time, it gives you a chance to show good manners. While officialdom strongly discourages it, it’s considered polite in Paris to hold the doors so everyone behind you has time to jump on too. Fail to do so, and you may pull out of the station watching someone’s shaking fist fade into the distance.
- To a northern European like myself, the Roman metro seems to be a place of no taboo. In London’s rush hour, subway riders stand crushed together in silence. In Rome, they stand crushed together talking at the top of their voices. No one does hushed whispers here, which could explain why no one feels the need to pretend they’re not eavesdropping on each other’s conversations. If it’s considered rude to push onto a Roman metro train before all passengers have alighted, then it’s a rudeness so widely tolerated as to be almost ubiquitous. Getting off a car can be a struggle: so great can be the press of people who can’t be bothered to let you off before they get on. Escalators, meanwhile are stately and almost exclusively for standing on. This might all sound like hell, but Italians sometimes feel the same about London’s Tube, wondering what intense psychic pressure must be in place to enforce all that queuing, shuffling and silence.
- Are you worried about the younger generation’s lack of manners? Then take a ride on the Athens Metro and have your assumptions shaken. In Greece’s capital, it’s younger riders who are generally the more patient and well behaved. Find yourself jostled while getting on a train or notice someone pushing in front of you at a ticket office, and the likelihood is that your antagonists hair will be salt and pepper at least. So why are older Athenians pushier? A possible explanation is that, in a country that became overwhelmingly urban only after World War II, an etiquette system designed for making metropolitan living smoother took a generation or two to develop.
.....
|
Going off the rails: The Edinburgh trams saga
Read More: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...-fife-27159614
Quote:
Trams will return to Edinburgh's streets for the first time in almost 50 years, when the service begins on Saturday. However, in the decade since the first money was allocated to the project, the price has doubled, the network has halved and it has taken twice as long to build as was first thought.
Edinburgh's tram "network" is now just part of one of the original lines, stretching from the airport to the city centre. It had been intended to reach the waterfront at Leith and Newhaven, and there were to be other lines too, but they fell away as the troubled project rumbled on. The idea of bringing back trams to Edinburgh's congested streets goes back many years but the current saga can be said to have begun in September 2003.
.....
|
__________________
ASDFGHJK
|