Featured blog: If you value your life, stand right

Kristin McGrath

I have visitors coming into town this week. So I gave them the advice I give everyone who visits: The Metro is easy. The hardest part is buying your ticket. But, if you want to make it past the escalator alive, stand right, walk left. Most people laugh this off. But they learn.

Since I've gotten here, I have been thrilled with the system, which is strictly enforced with impatient sighs and exCUSE me's from angry commuters who have been looking for the first excuse to release their hatred of life that day.

Commuters standing right and walking left at Grosvenor-Strathmore. All is right with the world.

And now, when I leave the city, I find myself filled with rage at shopping malls, airports and other places with escalators. There are people standing on the left, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Turns out, there are many in this city who are passionate about this issue. In fact, while I have noticed the stand-right rule in other cities and all over Europe, the first hits on Google all have to do with D.C.

Standtotheright.com has shirts for sale depicting an escalator helpfully labeled with "walk" on the left and "stand" on the right.

Yanmei Xie, for Washingtonian.com, points out that standing right is an etiquette-based agreement that allows a city of people with "diverse needs" to function.

This Metafilter thread has plenty of comments asserting the dominance of D.C.'s Metro system over those of Chicago and New York--and some local humor from those who love all of D.C.'s eccentricities.

And this Yelp discussion (about Boston) lament's the fact that other cities have not instated the stand-right concept.

But does walking up the escalator (instead of relaxing on the right) save much time? Read my next blog entry to find out how much time I saved per escalator ride by walking left (and how much time that adds up to each week).