Weirdly Cozy
February 14, 2017 10:17 AM   Subscribe

 
I hate it when people upgrade. Like seriously, you need an entire island for yourself despite getting off in a station or two? JUST BECAUSE OF THAT IMMA SIT NEXT TO YOU - CHOOO CHOOO!!
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:23 AM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


i dunno if this is true for the subway in nyc but on bart if it's a packed train with people standing but you still see one open seat it's probably a really good idea to avoid finding out why it's still empty
posted by burgerrr at 10:26 AM on February 14, 2017 [31 favorites]


also i 100% support upgrading unless you're like getting off at the next stop then it just seems silly
posted by burgerrr at 10:27 AM on February 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


I have one, it works. Miss the last step going down into the subway and probably sprain your ankle. Limp into the car while your neurons are still in shock. When the pain finally hits you, pass out and hit the floor. People will be jumping out of their way to give you a seat.

Ask me how I know.
posted by Liesl at 10:28 AM on February 14, 2017 [12 favorites]


They left out: when approaching Chinatown, stand in front of a elderly, seated asian. They will be getting off (at Spadina) and you will take their seat. Works every time.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 10:32 AM on February 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


Thanks to my choices in neighborhoods, the trick that's worked for me nearly all my time in Chicago is just to hover near a white person for the pick and roll. We both know you're not going that far south.
posted by phunniemee at 10:44 AM on February 14, 2017 [24 favorites]


I wish there was something here about the importance of limiting to A seat. I once witnessed a dude (or maybe it was a bro, or possibly even a DudeBro) wearing a Yankees cap on a red line train in Boston (offense number 1 for some Bostonians, but I was willing to let that slide). This DB had his knees spread wide enough that he occupied 3 seats, and he was leaning way forward with his bag on the floor, taking up at 2-3 people's worth of standing space. So basically one person who felt the entitlement to occupy the space of 5-6 people. He drank an energy drink and ate chips loudly for several stops, and then proceeded to throw the bag and the empty bottle on the floor of the train.

This made me angry enough to remember it over a year later and recount it in this internet thread where it is, at best, only marginally on topic. Thank you for your patience.
posted by cubby at 10:45 AM on February 14, 2017 [64 favorites]


cubby, next time you see something like that just sit your ass down on top of one of his legs and wonder loudly about the state of his poor, bloated testicles.
posted by phunniemee at 10:49 AM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


Or just point at his crotch and make a face like Donald Sutherland in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" whilst screaming "LAVA BALLS!!!!"
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:53 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Be very fat. Wear an empire waist dress. People will assume you are pregnant and offer you seats.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:05 AM on February 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


I don't know about other cities, but in Toronto there are a lot of able-bodied people who apparently prefer to wait for the (unreliable, inevitably packed-to-the-gills) bus in the freezing cold rather than walking one or two stops to the subway, which would actually be faster and more comfortable for a) them and b) everyone else on the bus. Might as well get full value out of Toronto's insultingly expensive metropass, I guess they're thinking.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:08 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


I used to commute via the North London Overground line which has particularly fierce seat tactics. This link has a comprehensive destription with appropriately martial language.

Interestingly after moving house I ended up on another branch with more seats and initially deployed the same tactics. However a very British eyeroll quickly informed me that these tactics were not acceptable on the new commute and I've had to just go back to taking my chances...
posted by *becca* at 11:09 AM on February 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


I'm pretty sure that upgrading is the polite thing to do. HEY IT'S JUST ME AND YOU LEFT ON THE TRAIN NOW, SITTIN' TOGETHER LIKE OLD BUDS, HEY STRANGER? IMMA KEEP SITTIN' HERE.
posted by clawsoon at 11:13 AM on February 14, 2017 [29 favorites]


This made me angry enough to remember it over a year later and recount it in this internet thread where it is, at best, only marginally on topic. Thank you for your patience.

Hey, a chance to share my anti-manspreading endeavors again!
I thought I was alone in my crusade. I am approximately 120% the width of a standard subway seat (as I stand six and a half feet tall, and have enormous shoulders), so as a matter of course, I always stand when the train is crowded. Except when I spot a manspreader, at which point I flop onto the adjacent seat like Barcelona's forward trying to draw a red card. Then it's not a bony ass crushing the offender, it's 18 stone of irritated dude, accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2. I've never encountered a repeat offender.
posted by Mayor West at 11:15 AM on February 14, 2017 [29 favorites]


In winter, nobody can tell you're pregnant. I've started wearing my maternity coat even though the other coat can still fit, just to make it a little more obvious, specifically so I can get a seat. This seems to be working as long as it's not too full. But when it's really full you get on and are crammed by the door where no one with a seat can even see you to offer it.

Also, I feel like this video doesn't give enough attention to pre-boarding strategy. If you know a route then you know that different parts of the train empty out at different points, since everyone sits in the car closest to exit at whatever station they plan to get off at. So yeah, you could do the same and get on the car that will line up with your exit, but if your station is the first you pass with an exit there, then you might not get a seat. Think about the busiest of the next few stations and where the exits are for that station and go get on that car. Sure you'll have to walk a bit to your exit when you get where you're going, but at least you'll sit in the meantime.

Upgrading is the polite thing to do, especially if you're the middle person. Those two people on either side of you would like a little more personal space just as much as you would. When you upgrade, you upgrade everybody.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've done that train in the opposite direction thing.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:24 AM on February 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


I like the music!

I do a variation of "the migration" sometimes, when I'm desperate, by walking one station further up the line. Problem is I'm not one of those assholes who likes to stake their claim to the seat next to me, my draping a knee over it, so somebody sits down next to me anyway, but for a single stop at least it's quite lovely.
posted by turbid dahlia at 11:36 AM on February 14, 2017


When the pain finally hits you, pass out and hit the floor. People will be jumping out of their way to give you a seat.

Kinda late by that point, no?

It drives me bugfuck when someone is sitting next to me and doesn't do the upgrade when the train clears out, so that we wind up sitting shoved up next to each other even though there's no one else in the car. This is New York! It's already insanely crowded! You don't have to be sitting on top of me! Move over one or two seats, for fuck's sake! This has, at times, led to my doing a lot of eyerolling and sighing and stomping across the car to give myself some space. My attitude pretty much sucks.
posted by holborne at 11:38 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


I frequently do the migration. Without shame. One frustration about the migration strategy are all the people who are using this strategy one stop earlier than you who are now part of your competition. Also - everyone's consternation that it takes the train conductors so effing long to open the doors at the 8th Ave L train terminus. Why? So many times I've been held captive until just after we've all watched the Brooklyn bound train leave the station. Sometimes I think it's just to screw with us.

Upgrading is fine and normal. If you are sitting next to me - please feel free to upgrade. I welcome your ability to critically think your way away from me.
posted by rdnnyc at 11:39 AM on February 14, 2017


It drives me bugfuck when someone is sitting next to me and doesn't do the upgrade when the train clears out, so that we wind up sitting shoved up next to each other even though there's no one else in the car. This is New York! It's already insanely crowded! You don't have to be sitting on top of me! Move over one or two seats, for fuck's sake!

???? I...but...

you can move?
posted by phunniemee at 11:42 AM on February 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


It drives me bugfuck when someone is sitting next to me and doesn't do the upgrade when the train clears out

And they sit there thinking the exact same thing....
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:42 AM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


"...We both know you're not going that far south."

Roosevelt.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 11:48 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


i dunno if this is true for the subway in nyc but on bart if it's a packed train with people standing but you still see one open seat it's probably a really good idea to avoid finding out why it's still empty

New Yorker here. You would be surprised.

(the thing I hate is when people stand in front of an empty seat, and there is visibly nothing wrong with the seat, they just feel like standing in front of it and no one can get to it....)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:48 AM on February 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


I hate it when people upgrade. Like seriously, you need an entire island for yourself despite getting off in a station or two? JUST BECAUSE OF THAT IMMA SIT NEXT TO YOU - CHOOO CHOOO!!

Who the hell doesn't upgrade? Why on earth wouldn't anyone choose to do that?

I also do the 'look for people picking up their bags' thing, and put myself on alert when we're approaching stations with lots of other train lines, because a lot of people will be getting off to transfer.

I also make it a policy to go right up to pairs of manspreaders taking up a three-person bench and asking them if I might sit. They never say no. I encourage everyone to do this.

I used to live right at the end of the A line. Now that was luxury. At least one train is always sitting in the station and there is practically no one on it, no matter the time of day.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:51 AM on February 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


"(the thing I hate is when people stand in front of an empty seat, and there is visibly nothing wrong with the seat, they just feel like standing in front of it and no one can get to it....)"

Chicagoan here... THIS. So often there will be a few empty seats, but there's always a horde of "I must crowd near the doors as I might not be able to exit 7 stops from now!" people. Just sit down and get out of everyone else's way.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 11:51 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


(the thing I hate is when people stand in front of an empty seat, and there is visibly nothing wrong with the seat, they just feel like standing in front of it and no one can get to it....)

In this situation too (like the manspread thing), I'll just say "excuse me!" in a real sweet voice and gesture to the seat. I've never had anyone refuse to move. (Obviously this doesn't work in a true nuts-to-butts situation because they wouldn't be able to move even if they tried.)

Additionally, in more of a passive-aggressive move, if someone is committing the unforgivable crime of standing still on a busy stairwell, I will bustle past them closer than is probably necessary and chirp an "excuse me!!!" in the absolute politest voice I can muster. Best case scenario, they Think About What They Did and change their wicked ways; much more likely scenario, they learn nothing and think I'm the asshole but I at least managed to burn off my irritation.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:57 AM on February 14, 2017 [10 favorites]


you can move?

Sure, but if I'm sitting on the end seat and they're sitting one in from the end immediately adjacent to me, it makes a hell of a lot of sense for them to move, since now there are all sorts of lovely end seats they can upgrade into. This is especially true if we're sitting in one of those three-seat-across things on the IND lines (yes, showing my age) and I'm in the end seat and they're in the middle. In both those cases, it actually kind of feels weird and rude to me to move if I'm in the end seat. I am not saying this is rational.
posted by holborne at 11:57 AM on February 14, 2017


Interesting about the standers. I am a stander. Unless it is after midnight and the car is empty, I will never sit. Something about having all those people above me and the two on either side of me that gets me. I try to stand either in the middle of the car or against the door opposite the side that usually opens. I will upgrade my standing position at a stop when I see people moving.
posted by AugustWest at 12:01 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I am just now remembering that when I first moved here, I came down to the platform and saw a bench with a homeless guy sitting at one end and no one else on the bench, even though the platform had dozens of people on it. How rude, I thought. Why are they all avoiding this guy just because he's homeless? Jerks. So I sat down at the other end of the bench and then immediately realized that it was not because he was homeless, but because he smelled incredibly, amazingly bad, far outside what one normally encounters in NYC's homeless population. Even a couple yards away it was pretty much overwhelming.

And because I had just moved here from the south, I thought it would be beyond rude to get up and move away again, so I just sat there for like seven minutes until the train came.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:01 PM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


i dunno if this is true for the subway in nyc but on bart if it's a packed train with people standing but you still see one open seat it's probably a really good idea to avoid finding out why it's still empty

Occasionally true with the MBTA as well, but thankfully not all that common on the lines/times that I ride.

We make up for this on the Green Line and buses by having a smattering of seats at the back of the vehicle that are cut off from the entrance by an impassibly tight crowd of people standing together in the middle for no discernible reason.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:04 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've picked and rolled, perched and upgraded on many occasions. Sometimes the upgrade is because either I'm uncomfortable or I get the impression that the person next to me is uncomfortable. Other times it's because, well, who doesn't want more room?
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:11 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


The Shitbird
Stand right at the center where the sliding doors join, and when the doors open, plunge your body into the middle of the outgoing crowd before anyone has even got out. It fucks up egress for everyone, but you get on before anyone else, guaranteeing you a seat.
posted by OrderOctopoda at 12:16 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


"The Shitbird" can also be called "The Singapore" because that is what everyone does (or at least did in 2008) on the MRT. I missed stops because of it.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:19 PM on February 14, 2017


OrderOctopoda: The Shitbird

The Shitbird is correctly met by The Phalanx, in which a solid wall of bodies rightfully pushes you back out again.
posted by clawsoon at 12:26 PM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


This is off-topic, but: Here in Toronto, the TTC is engaging in some sort of twisted psycho-social experiment with directly facing seats on the new streetcars.

The are the essence of awkwardness.
posted by clawsoon at 12:29 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


i dunno if this is true for the subway in nyc but on bart if it's a packed train with people standing but you still see one open seat it's probably a really good idea to avoid finding out why it's still empty

Usually you can smell why.
posted by howling fantods at 12:34 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't know about other cities, but in Toronto there are a lot of able-bodied people who apparently prefer to wait for the (unreliable, inevitably packed-to-the-gills) bus in the freezing cold rather than walking one or two stops to the subway

Yes! Spadina streetcar, last stop before the subway station (a 2-3 minute walk) *always* had people waiting when that was my commute.
posted by howling fantods at 12:39 PM on February 14, 2017


This is off-topic, but: Here in Toronto, the TTC is engaging in some sort of twisted psycho-social experiment with directly facing seats on the new streetcars.

This is nothing new on the commuter GO Trains. It's pretty easy to ignore your "seatmates." And that looks like more legroom than we get.
posted by howling fantods at 12:43 PM on February 14, 2017


seats at the back of the vehicle that are cut off from the entrance by an impassibly tight crowd of people standing together in the middle for no discernible reason.
Those same people hold the door for you when you are way too far away and they also stop when they have the right of way and insist that you go even though you both would have been long gone if they had just ignored you. It is like Performative Politeness.
posted by soelo at 12:44 PM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


He drank an energy drink and ate chips loudly for several stops, and then proceeded to throw the bag and the empty bottle on the floor of the train.

I knew I was approaching the end of my bus-riding career when I found myself saying to some dude in a baseball cap who was eating a sandwich in a seat across the aisle from me and a couple of rows back: "hey pal, eating on the bus is prohibited -- and that goes double for people who haven't learned to chew with their mouths shut."
posted by jamjam at 1:13 PM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


I've done The Migration in various advanced forms.

One of the more advanced forms of this involves the bike/bus commute and it's a seriously major dick move. I had a really shitty two hour commute in LA at the time and leaving the bike home wasn't an option, and there's usually only two or three spots on the bike racks on the front of the bus.

You bike to your normal closest bus stop. If you find one (or more) people with bikes waiting, you keep biking upstream to the next earlier stop, repeating as needed.

Another move is to just be so damn wide (and perhaps surly looking) that no one wants to sit next to you. While I'm a conscientious rider and try to take as little space as possible and keep my bag in my lap and refrain from manspreading and such, I can't really make my shoulders and ass any narrower. I've actually had to apologize to seatmates at least a dozen times with some variation of "Sorry I'm so wide, I can't help it."

On a really crowded bus or train I'd rather stand anyway. I take up a lot less room that way, especially if I have a bag with me, which I almost always do.

The downside to this is that any long haul travel be it bus, train or plane is a gigantic pain in the ass. On bus and plane coach seats there's almost no way to wedge me into a normal coach seat without having a significant part of my legs and elbows impinging across the shared armrest, no matter how much I try to wedge myself against the window or overhang into the aisle. My gigantic thighs and long leg bones never fit, either, so I really have no choice but to wedge my knees hard up against the seat in front of me and push my butt back so far in my seat that I'm worried I'll break the seat I'm sitting in or the seat in front of me, and if someone in front of me tries to recline we usually have to have a conversation about them not breaking my legs.

And middle seats are basically non-starters for everyone involved. There's basically no way for me to take a middle seat without impinging on both arm rests without either detaching my arms or folding them so tightly around my chest that I'm basically hugging myself to death. I've only had to do this a few times and it makes me horribly self conscious about being such a space hog.

Long distance bus rides in particular are lots of fun. They're only enjoyable because I like traveling so much and I could sit and watch the landscape roll by for days on end, but it's much more enjoyable if I don't have to share a seat with anyone.

Which usually happens unless the bus is completely full, because people usually look at me and how much space there is left and they rightfully decide "Fuck everything about sitting next to that particular wookie. I'll sit by the bathroom."
posted by loquacious at 1:17 PM on February 14, 2017


Yes I am the cranky lady who tells the oblivious teenager to get their damn feet off the last seat on the bus, I mean really.
posted by Space Kitty at 2:08 PM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


People who don't upgrade might as well be another species from me, I understand them so little. WE ARE NOT FRIENDS, PAL.
posted by praemunire at 2:12 PM on February 14, 2017


Once while mostly asleep on a packed morning train my Spidey-sense tingled and I quickly and smoothly upgraded only to quickly realize based on the displeasure of literally everyone around me that I had upgraded into a seat a man was giving up for a lady.

Turns out I actually could fall back asleep while being more embarrassed than I had ever been in my life though, so I didn't have to spend the next hour pretending to be asleep.
posted by griphus at 2:19 PM on February 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


A few years ago when I had plantar fasciitis, I thought it was worth taking a chance that not all man-spreaders were jerks because my feet hurt so much at the end of the day. I started sitting down in the empty seat next to a man-spreader while smiling, making direct eye contact, and gently pushing their knee back where it belonged to make space for myself. Surprisingly, every single person was immediately contrite and brought in the other side too so someone could sit there. I am a small, middle-aged woman living in Boston. YMMV
posted by pangolin party at 2:44 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I get lots of space on the "L" in Chicago by having a hobo beard. It's kind of magical. Also people, including most beggers, leave me alone because they are not sure where I fall on the homeless to hells angel beard spectrum.
posted by srboisvert at 4:22 PM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


I presume the quality of the rest of your life is such that it warrants these commutes.
posted by notreally at 5:39 PM on February 14, 2017


I presume the quality of the rest of your life is such that it warrants these commutes.

Can't read or zone out while you drive, plus a metrocard is a lot cheaper than car payments+gas+insurance+maintenance.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:50 PM on February 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


also don't have to deal with people reading or zoning out while they're driving
posted by griphus at 5:53 PM on February 14, 2017 [12 favorites]


I would ninety million times rather spend an hour on the subway than an hour driving, especially in city traffic. I genuinely do not understand how people can stand to do that twice a day every weekday for their working lives. Today I spent the trip between work and home immersed in the squabbles of musicians just prior to WWI. (Well, except for the stretch where some dude was preaching at the top of his lungs, but he only stayed on for one stop.)
posted by praemunire at 6:12 PM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


I presume the quality of the rest of your life is such that it warrants these commutes.

I can't speak for anyone else, but... God, yes. My coworkers who drive have it a lot worse.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:25 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


For me it depends on the subway. I'd rather drive than take an LA bus or NYC subway (lack of cleanliness, peoples attitudes, etc) unless the bus/subway was much faster. In Tokyo however I'd take a 2x longer subway ride over driving anyday (only unpleasant thing that happens there is just crowding, and being taller than 99% of people makes that more bearable, at least I can always breathe).
posted by thefoxgod at 6:32 PM on February 14, 2017


The inverse to avoiding that one empty seat is finding yourself as the only person with a seat open next to them.

did I forget to wear deodorant today is there something weird about me that i literally never noticed and everyone was too polite to mention oh god
posted by Emily's Fist at 6:34 PM on February 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


Oh, and I upgrade, downgrade, or just plain old go stand somewhere else when a smoker sits down or stands near me. Some things aren't worth sitting through. I often wonder if they notice or are hurt that someone just picked up and moved to an essentially equivalent or worse seat when they got on. Hopefully they don't because I don't want to be hurtful, I just don't like the smell them. If there are no seats I try to go stand by a door so they will think I'm preparing to get off, rather than moving away from them.

Uh, yeah, so if you want my seat, one way to do it is to smoke and then come stand near me. I will soon be moving and you'll be in position to pick and roll.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:56 PM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


If all seats were like the 7000 series in DC ( yeah we have a Subway system, best in the country!) I'd sit more often. The older style, unless it's one of the one's open are all too close together, built back when Americans were apparently shorter?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:09 PM on February 14, 2017


Can't read or zone out while you drive

The guy in the grey SUV ahead of me this morning clearly disagrees.
posted by madajb at 7:23 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Be very fat. Wear an empire waist dress. People will assume you are pregnant and offer you seats.

That's never worked for me. But I dunno, maybe the beard puts them off...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 7:24 PM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


Oh, and I upgrade, downgrade, or just plain old go stand somewhere else when a smoker sits down or stands near me. Some things aren't worth sitting through. I often wonder if they notice or are hurt that someone just picked up and moved to an essentially equivalent or worse seat when they got on. Hopefully they don't because I don't want to be hurtful, I just don't like the smell them. If there are no seats I try to go stand by a door so they will think I'm preparing to get off, rather than moving away from them.


I used to take the GO Train from the suburbs to work in the Molsons Fleet Street brewery back in the day. Sometimes I wouldn't change out of my work clothes and at work we used to prank each other by putting little holes in bottle caps and either shaking them like water pistols or letting the go through to be dropped in cases where they spray like a fountain. So I would sometimes stink from being soaked with beer but after 8-12 hours I wouldn't really notice it.

One day i was on the top level of the GO Train on the way home to the far end of Mississauga and noticed every around me was getting off at Long Branch (back then almost nobody got off at Long Branch) and I thought that was strange. Then when I eventually made it out to near the Clarkson stop, which is one before the last stop of Oakville, I got up and went down to the lower level to be ready to get off.

And I made eye contact with the entire group of people at the far exit who had been sitting around me at the start of the trip but who had all moved to get away from my beer stench and were standing by the door but not getting off. This being Canada they all looked completely mortified that I had caught them and recognized that they moved to get away from me. I still chuckle when I think about how scandalous I must have seemed.
posted by srboisvert at 7:42 PM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


srboisvert, I'm sure they were just the kind of people who like to move into position to get off well ahead of time. My mom is like this -- she moves to the door as soon as she can on public transit, and I swear she moves into the right or left lane to turn off of a street as soon as she gets onto the street, no matter how far away the actual turn will take place. I'm sure they weren't moving away from you! On their behalf, let me offer whatever excuse you might buy, so that you don't realize you've been snubbed based on any smell you have been exuding.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:55 PM on February 14, 2017


I do the pick-and-roll, the perch, and the upgrade. I don't even think of them as poor etiquette. Are they?
posted by panama joe at 8:05 PM on February 14, 2017


I presume the quality of the rest of your life is such that it warrants these commutes.

Yes, that's part of it, but also sometimes its just pragmatic. Pardon me, I appear to be going off on one of my rare rants.

For some people it's a luxury. For others it may be a sacrifice or compromise. For others - especially low income or patrons with disability - its even a dire need and essential freedom.

Riding transit can also directly improve the quality of life. In urban environments you have a lot less stress worrying about parking, about parking tickets, about theft or vandalism, about vehicular accidents, about traffic or driving. Even in bad transit systems - presuming experienced ridership skills, scheduling and planning - they're usually less late than people driving personal vehicles. You also have a lot less cost and commitment.

Transit has its own stresses, but they do seem to be lesser than vehicular ownership when the local transit is good.

You trade endless trips to gas stations and paying bills for making sure you have correct change and you get to the transit stop early, or learning the tricks and quirks of learning your routes for maximum efficiency. You trade fender benders and flat tires for missing a transfer. You trade washing and cleaning your car for sitting next to someone who is unpleasant. You trade getting stuck in traffic for getting crammed in like sardines with a lot of mainly reasonable and quiet people - your neighbors, really, your town and city fully represented.

And you can usually trade the stress of driving for... reading a book. Listening to music. Taking up knitting, or even drawing. Watching a movie on your mobile device. Taking a nap.

And sometimes it rewards you with real world magic. Like people busting out into song together because some high school kid or old homeless dude in the back sparked it off by picking an easy classic and deciding to sing. No, seriously, I've seen this happen maybe a dozen times. Or hilarious characters that make a boring ride to work or the grocery store into a pleasant chat. Or sometimes people sometimes meet friends they never would meet if they didn't happen to ride the same bus or train, especially if it's a regular commute. I've met a good handful of folks this way.

In a good city and transit system, the buses and rails are a rolling party on holidays or major events or festivals. I've even seen art and music performances on specially scheduled light rail runs, where regular transit riders end up getting on an extra train and treated to a baroque quartet or a bluegrass band for a few stops.

Another thing that motivates me to ride transit is that I personally dislike cars and car culture so much that I tend to try avoid getting in them at all if I can help it. Growing up in SoCal is a huge part of this loathing, where people do insane shit like buy a cheap house out in the high deserts up the 10, 14 or 15 freeways and will willingly commute 3-4+ hours each way, five days a week. For, oh, 10-20 years.

I remember sitting on freeways literally hundreds, if not thousands of times, with tens or hundreds of thousands of vehicles all going nowhere in 100+ degree desert weather with broken AC and the windows down. Idling, creeping and burning precious fuel - the incredible and varied stenches of hundreds of different kinds of cars and trucks gurgitating plumes of hot, toxic gases. The smell of brake asbestos, burning oil, overly rich diesel.

It was - is - awful. I really don't understand how people can collectively tolerate it. I sometimes feel like I'm watching a nation of junkies poison themselves, and it's kind of fucked up.

Which brings me to the main reason I dislike cars, because of my tendency for pragmatic futurism - or in the case of LA's wrongfully murdered street car system - retroism?

I can readily extrapolate and grasp the real energy and material costs of cars globally nearly as a whole from product to fuel and other consumables to roadway substrates and structures and visualize about how much road and rail public transit and different, more efficient modes of transportation that that energy and material could buy.

Let's do some basic napkin math assisted by reference materials and Wolfram-Alpha, Wikipedia and Google. I'm actually awful at math, but this is fun, and anyone may feel free to pick this to pieces or extrapolate:

I'm going to try to err and ballpark in the favor of cars.

There's about 659.5 million cars on the planet, and 135.9 million of them are in the USA. Average weight for a car or sedan is 5000 lbs. So 679,500,000,000 lbs, or roughly 344,549,446.45 US long tons of metal or materials.

I'm going to fudge and count that weight as entirely metal to account for larger trucks and SUVs, but I won't include all the steel involved in building roads - and my goal is to calculate how much steel rail that could be laid down with just the amount of metal that's in all the cars.

Plain old bog standard 19th century American rail is 43.33lb/19.65kg per foot, or 228,782.4 lbs or per mile. I'm going to guess that this is rail and maybe ties but not ballast.

There are currently 140,490 miles of standard gauge rail in the US, not including the 26 currently existing light rail systems, which is... calculating... around a measly 965.65 miles in total, so 141,455.65-ish miles of existing rail.

So, that low-ball estimate starting material cost of assuming cars themselves are metal, not accounting for the tens of thousands of filling stations, roads, parking and other material would get us about 2,970,071 miles of standard gauge rail, and probably even more light rail, at least as far as the material costs are concerned.

There are only 4.12 million miles of road in the entire US, including Alaska and Hawaii. I'm assuming that includes every marked road on a map from washboarded BLM desert roads to major interstates.

I'm fudging a lot, but I'm just trying to illustrate the scales of how many goddamn cars there are, and how little rail. And the best solution doesn't necessarily even involve rail. This is like 150 year old technology that's known for being more efficient per pound then rubber on roads, and it can be electrified.

And that is an incredible amount of energy and materials. It is easily our largest - and likely most problematic - collective energy and material cost. Short of war, at least. And, well, we appear to keep going to war to secure our petro interests, and I'm not counting those energy and material costs, either.

And the way to actually build out transit is to demand it and ask for it. Simply giving up your car or using it less and riding transit isn't enough. You need to get involved and tell your local, state and federal government that you want transit, and that you're willing to pay for it with your taxes.

And the fact that we're not investing more in transit as a country as a matter of national independence and economic security is utterly ponderous, if not malfeasance.
posted by loquacious at 8:47 PM on February 14, 2017 [18 favorites]


jacquilynne: "Be very fat. Wear an empire waist dress. People will assume you are pregnant and offer you seats."

I am, erm, broad of beam but I have two problems with that approach....

Vigorous muttonchops and a mustache.

I don't have the chest to carry off the empire waist any more. Just like I don't have the gams for proper spike heels.
posted by Samizdata at 9:07 PM on February 14, 2017


As a woman, I won't sit next to lavaballers because way too often they have thought that this gives them carte blanche to press their leg on mine.

Nthing being annoyed by those who won't move over when the end seat is freed up(this has been both men and women).
posted by brujita at 9:46 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I get the impression that I'm the only upgrader that uses the Madison bus system.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:41 PM on February 14, 2017


Migration is especially effective in Osaka, so much so that it gave me my username!
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 2:42 AM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


I just infect an appropriately-seated host for the duration of the subway ride. Works every time, unless the car is empty, but in that case how could I have gotten on in the first place?
posted by kyrademon at 4:00 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've found that the only trick needed to get a seat on the New York subway is to actually need one.

I've traveled a lot and, now that I use a cane and can no longer stand stably on trains or buses, get a weird perspective on the nature of different places through the willingness of strangers to offer me a seat on crowded public transport. I've found that Parisians at least seem to not be nearly as awful as Parisians are convinced they are, that Londoners are in fact quite kind, Berliners will basically always volunteer to stand with a smile, and that Brussels is a pretty great place filled with pretty great people while white Flemish commuters as well as suburban French and German bus-goers will often look down and do their best to ignore even a white heavily accented dude with a cane trying hard not to fall. At least in general in Europe I've found a strong correlation between the multiculturalism, poverty, and bad reputation among respectable white people of a place and the community investment and kindness to be found there.

This however doesn't hold in the US, I have yet to not be offered a seat anywhere in America, rich or poor, non-white or fluorescently privileged, and have only even had to ask for one in the crowded kinds of contexts where it wouldn't be immediately obvious that someone with a cane was having trouble standing. Maybe its that the kinds of people who would look the other way are already getting where they're going in a car but, having more than once found myself sitting on the floor of a bus in Flanders surrounded by people trying very hard not to notice, this topic is really what makes me more homesick than anything else.

I don't really miss New York, but I do miss the hell out of New Yorkers.
posted by Blasdelb at 4:53 AM on February 15, 2017 [8 favorites]


Ironically, Blasdelb, I have had almost exactly the opposite situation in New York during the few months I was recovering from a broken foot and had a cane. There were times when i was on the subway, cane in one hand and teetering, and I saw seated people on the subway look at the cane, look me in the eye, and then look away and remain seated.

I had my revenge once, though - there was a time when I was seated (cane in hand) and a heavily pregnant woman got on, and no one else was offering her a seat. I was nearly recovered then and it was close to the end of my ride, so I offered her mine, and she waddled over and sat. We glanced around the rest of the other passengers, gave each other a knowing look, then gave the car another glance, then gave each other an evil grin - and then started having a slightly-louder-than-necessary conversation about how interesting it was that the only person who was willing to give up her seat to the pregnant woman was the woman with the cane. Goodness, what was the world coming to?....

No one else on the car interjected, but I dont' care. I know they heard us and that's good enough for me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:35 AM on February 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


I used to do the migration frequently when I had to board the train at the last stop in Chicago's LOOP. So many times I could never shove myself on the train, let alone even get a seat. Now that I work a bit more centrally, I can usually get a seat going home. Going into downtown though? That is a complete crapshoot.
posted by anactualwolfe at 6:53 AM on February 15, 2017


Are we not even going to discuss the people who sit on the outside edge of a two-seater and fill the inside seat with their purse or backpack in the hopes that no one will sit with them, not just for a stop or two which would be entirely reasonable, but for long stretches of time?

Because those people drive me batty and if the bus is so crowded that I have to sit next to someone, and I can sit next to someone doing the outside-edge-hovering vs. someone sitting by a window, I may very well pick the hoverer and make them make room for me, just on principle.

In other news, Pittsburgh has just changed its entire practice for where to enter vs. exist a bus, and so twenty years' worth of carefully honed strategies about where to sit for optimum ease of bus egress has been thrown out the window. I'm working on forming new strategies, but not all the drivers are following the new system reliably, and everything is chaos. It's very upsetting.
posted by Stacey at 7:10 AM on February 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


Because those people drive me batty and if the bus is so crowded that I have to sit next to someone, and I can sit next to someone doing the outside-edge-hovering vs. someone sitting by a window, I may very well pick the hoverer and make them make room for me, just on principle.

Speaking as a regular hoverer, feel free.

I hover for several reasons these days:

1. As a teenager, I was aggressively groped on a bus while trapped in the inside seat by a man who wouldn't let me out without me making a way louder scene than I felt comfortable with at the time. So, for a long time, I have preferred to avoid the inside seat because it doesn't feel safe.

2. As a very fat person, if a thin person is sitting on the inside seat, I can sort of turn sideways a bit and hang a bit off the edge of the outside seat and we can both sit moderately comfortable. But if I take the inside seat, I end up taking up 3/4 of the seat, and any thin person who wants to sit next to me can only barely perch on the edge of what's left.

3. As a very fat person, my knees often don't fit between seats, and on Toronto's subways, there are a lot of forward facing pairs that face a sideways facing bank, which means if I'm in the outside seat, my knees are facing air, not seat.

There are a huge number of behaviours described in this thread that I understand are irksome, and I can't guarantee that everyone you see doing them is doing them for anything other than purely selfish reasons, but it would perhaps be nice if more people realized that not everyone who isn't visibly disabled is perfectly able to ride transit in precisely the manner that you would prefer. I do a lot of things that might not be ideal because my size makes me more likely to get trapped and unable to exit a crowded vehicle, because it makes me a target for abuse, and because it means my knees are terrible and even though you can't tell, standing on a bus is very, very painful for me.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:34 AM on February 15, 2017 [4 favorites]


I also make it a policy to go right up to pairs of manspreaders taking up a three-person bench and asking them if I might sit. They never say no. I encourage everyone to do this.

I don't ask. Just nudge their knee over with my knee and make my own space, fuck 'em.
posted by greta simone at 8:44 AM on February 15, 2017


Good points, Jacquilynne, and thank you for addressing them. FWIW, I myself am also both very fat and invisibly disabled, so I do get it. The edge-hovering doesn't make sense for me personally as a way to handle those things, but everyone's body and limitations are different. It's useful to know that for some people like me that's a better way to manage those issues. The more you learn!
posted by Stacey at 8:53 AM on February 15, 2017


These mostly work in Paris, except for the "cut in front of people when you weren't originally in front" is likely to get your butt kicked or some other form of vengeance. People here have memories for that sort of thing. It's almost comical.

There is no quarter given to people who stand in the middle of where the doors will open hoping to jump in before others get off. It's rare to see that attempted here. On the other hand, there's always un petit malin tring to slink in from the side while people are still streaming out.

Other than that people are pretty well-behaved here. Manspreaders aren't too common and will draw their legs in, people make room, that sort of thing. And if anyone breaks one of the rules of politeness, you absolutely get to lay into them verbally after a warning shot of "excusez-moi monsieur/madame". You will be supported by the glares of fellow passengers at the offender and perhaps even an assenting "c'est clair."

I presume the quality of the rest of your life is such that it warrants these commutes.

Here's a Parisian joke: how do you know whether a car not licensed in département 75 (Paris proper) is driven in Paris?
Answer: it's dented all over.
posted by fraula at 11:10 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I sometimes see people on the bus or subway who I suspect are uncomfortable standing due to their size. The thing is, I feel funny offering a seat because it feels offensive to imply that their size is a disability, unless there is another obvious indicator that this might be so, like a cane (which might or might not be size-related). What's the etiquette on offering a seat to a person with no visible disability but who one suspects might have an especially hard time standing, especially if one is averse to being yelled at.

Invisible problems are a tricky thing. I've been travelling on the streetcar with my mom a lot lately. She's older so people often offer her a seat, which ends up greatly embarrassing me because she will hover over the seat waiting for me to get on (I have more difficulty getting on than her these days) and then motion excitedly for me to take the seat she scored on the crowded streetcar. I can only imagine what people must thinking of me when I sit down, so I find myself explaining to strangers that I'm quite pregnant and in pain (I swear once I unzipped my jacket to provide belly-based-proof), and not just some selfish jerk of a daughter.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:11 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


What's the etiquette on offering a seat to a person with no visible disability but who one suspects might have an especially hard time standing, especially if one is averse to being yelled at.

Here a nonchalant "would you like to sit?" while making polite eye contact always works.
posted by fraula at 11:13 AM on February 15, 2017


Or even just casually stand up and move elsewhere without comment, so that it's available sans embarrassment.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:48 AM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


What's the etiquette on offering a seat to a person with no visible disability but who one suspects might have an especially hard time standing, especially if one is averse to being yelled at.

There's no guarantee you won't be yelled at, unfortunately. There was a time when being offered a seat because I was fat or appeared pregnant was shameful to me. I never yelled at people, but it made me feel (silently) bad. And there are lots of other people who still feel the shame and react badly to what is really a kind instinct.

I no longer feel that shame, but I still might not take the offered seat, because unfortunately, a lot of seats on transit aren't okay for significantly fat people, even if they are offered. I can't sit in a single seat in a full bank of three unless it's the end seat on one of the ones where there's no arm rest and there's a little extra room before the wheel-well starts . When there's a pole between the second and third seats, I need the two seats side to myself to fit or to be sharing it only with a child. I can sit on the single forward facing seats on streetcars and buses, but only by turning sideways and facing out.

So, I end up doing a lot of mental calculus in trying to find seats on transit (don't even ask me about getting off the subway and standing in front of the turnstiles trying to judge which one of them is that extra inch apart so I will actually fit through -- I cannot *wait* until Toronto finishes changing everything over to Presto-style fare gates) and I while I might like a seat, I don't necessarily want your seat. But I also don't want to over-explain my fatness in public, either. As a result, I end up having a lot of experiences like this, which I post on FB last year:

When I get on a bus: "Hrrmm. Is there anywhere I can sit? A seat? Is that a seat? Maybe that guy is getting up? Or at the back?"

When someone offers me their seat on a bus: "Oh, no. Really, I am fine. I don't need to sit. I am not going far. No, really, you keep it."


I think the best thing you can do is make eye contact, smile and offer the seat without saying why you're offering it. "Are you looking for a seat?" or some other value neutral language is the best you can do. If people yell at you for that, I'm sorry. It's hard to be fat in this world, and some of us are bad at not taking our frustrations out on others.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:03 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


MetaFilter: I am not saying this is rational.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:35 PM on February 15, 2017


In Japan they have little tags you can put on your bag indicating you're pregnant or have an invisible disability. And seats designated as priority for those people (and also elderly people).

If you see someone with one of those tags it's pretty likely they would appreciate you giving up your seat, and it also tries to avoid other people judging those people for sitting in the disabled seats without a visible problem.

(Neither of these goals is 100% successful, of course, but its a good idea IMO)
posted by thefoxgod at 12:49 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I hover for several reasons these days:

As I read Stacey's comment, it's specifically about people who use a bag to block the seat next to them in an attempt to prevent anyone from sitting there. Sitting on the aisle seat instead of the window seat is fine; taking up an extra seat is inconsiderate to the rest of the passengers.
posted by Lexica at 12:55 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


In Japan they have little tags you can put on your bag indicating you're pregnant or have an invisible disability. And seats designated as priority for those people (and also elderly people).
Really wish they had those here in the US. Currently in my first trimester, and not only am I not showing, I'm actually losing weight from the morning sickness. I also have a tendency to faint when in pain or having low blood sugar or nauseated (which are weirdly related for me).

This actually happened on a subway once. I was in a lot of pain for woman-related issues I won't go into, started feeling nauseated because of it and light-headed. I really wanted to sit down, but I couldn't see any way to and I just couldn't ask for a seat. I ended up fainting and collapsing in a pile on the floor of the train, losing consciousness for a few seconds. When I came to, everyone was hovering over me. I felt quite embarrassed and insisted I was fine, but it was great to get a seat and some water from another passenger. At the next stop, emergency personnel boarded and asked if I wanted an ambulance, but I decided I was feeling fine now that I had a seat. After that incident, my doctor told me that I should ask for a seat if I felt faint, and tell people that I was pregnant if I needed to.

Of course, now that I'm actually pregnant, I don't find it any easier to ask for a seat, so that's a wash.

Today there was a little incident that seems relevant. An older man got on the train with a cane. I was debating whether I should get up, despite being pregnant, but before I could the woman next to me got up and offered her seat. However, the man wanted the corner seat, which was occupied by a woman who seemed supremely oblivious to the situation, immersed in her phone and with headphones on. Several people made her aware of her need to get up, and she did, but then immediately sat down in the recently vacated seat of the woman who first got up, which didn't seem like fair play. I honestly think she was just oblivious and didn't notice the woman getting up earlier, which was borne out by her dropping both gloves as she exited two stops later. Of course, we all grabbed them and handed them to her.
posted by peacheater at 2:26 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


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