Best Of Three

Using the subway a lot, I've given plenty of consideration to the best means of getting down to the platform and up again. They provide three possibilities, although not all three are always in good working order. The are, of course, the elevator, the escalator and the stairs. Each has its better qualities and its worse ones, and while my perspective on things is unlikely to inform you in any way, perhaps it will sway you nonetheless with its passion and logic.

I generally favor the escalator when available. When tired, I can move up or down without expending energy. When not tired, I can go all the faster by walking up or down it. Mostly I'm not too tired to do that. The trouble comes when it is either congested or anyone ahead of me is ignorant of the proper protocol. One side is for movers and the other side is for standers. When that gets muddied, I get angry and often late as well. When the escalator is crowded, there's just no helping it. I call it the cattle conveyor and take the stairs.

The stairs also have the advantage of not provoking white-knuckled fear in me when they are very steep. The escalator does that. Other than that, the stairs have little going for them other than being lightly used and thus preferable when the station is very busy. Sometimes I use them just to prove a point when in the company of lazy friends who insist on the escalator under unfavorable conditions. They are unimpressed, but then I don't do it to impress.

What I don't ever do is take the elevator. The way it works is that one elevator takes you from the platform up to the mezzanine. A second elevator past the turnstiles takes you to ground level. Both elevators are slower than molasses and less pleasantly aromatic. To be indelicate, they smell more like urine than molasses, and this is an invariable condition. I have seen them freshly cleaned and as foul to the olfactory senses as ever. It doesn't pay to use them if any alternative is realistic. Do with this wisdom what you will.