The thronging crowd - a test of mettle

If you've ever been at Flinders Street Station during the evening peak then you know the experience of being in a crowd where people are so focused on their own objective that they lose - or disregard - the people around them.

A growing crowd of eager commuters stands at the traffic lights, waiting to cross the road and enter the Station. The green man appears on the lights and we surge forward. Like the release of a dam gate, we flow in the one direction until we hit the next barrier - the turnstiles we need to navigate to enter the station. There is a narrowing of focus. This is where the jostling starts. People suddenly change direction; they cut off another's trajectory. Their heads are down, their eyes trained straight ahead. We're through the turnstiles and then there are some stairs (about 10?) to negotiate. The arrivals and departures board is right above these stairs. People stop suddenly to look up and confirm the platform from which their train is leaving. People suddenly change direction to get around the people who have turned to pillars of stone. Down the stairs and we're in an even narrower space. Most people are going into the station and so have swelled to take up the whole space. Pity the people moving against this tide. They resort to bags and elbows. Some try to keep left, but then find themselves trapped behind a SMP (slow moving person). They change direction suddenly to cut in front, usually without regard to anyone who might be behind or beside them.

I run this gauntlet regularly. I try to remain aware of those around me, but find myself becoming more bullish as I'm whacked by urban weaponry - backpacks, shopping bags, umbrellas swinging wildly, even jauntily.

Today was particularly challenging even before I reached the station. It made me think about a drama warm up exercise which is about building physical awareness of the space and the people within it. Everyone moves slowly at first in any direction, dodging and weaving through the throng. The speed builds. People rarely collide. I believe it is because participants in such an exercise are absolutely present and acutely aware of their bodies in relation to others. I've done this in a group where half the group is blindfolded. Again, people rarely, collide.

Thinking about this today, I wondered about how this kind of awareness in everyday life and activities could improve crowd behaviour, making everything easier and happier. I was reminded about my first visit to India a few years ago. I visited the southern city of Chennai. My hotel was on the opposite side of the road to the location of the nearest bank. I needed to get cash and thought nothing of stepping out to engage in the ordinary activity of visiting an ATM.

On stepping out of the hotel's calm, I was immediately confronted with the practical problem of how to cross the road. The voluminous traffic never stopped. There were no designated crossings or traffic lights. Observing the traffic - reading it as a surfer might read the surf - the chaos soon revealed an order of cooperation and awareness. Vehicle horns were tooted, but the sound was a happy beep that said "Just letting you know I'm over here".

As I stood marooned on the wrong side of the road, I watched some locals cross the road. I was horrified when I saw them launch from the safety of the kerb. As they made their way across the road, the traffic happily moved around them. It was like throwing a pebble in a pond. I was astonished to see them arrive safely on the other side. I took a deep breath but my courage failed me. I waited for some more people to come along so I could follow in their wake. They did and I did. It resulted in terrified exhilaration. I suppose that living with so many people teaches you awareness.

If I applied the same principles to the evening rush at Flinders Street Station, I fear you would find my body, trampled and bruised at the end of the rush. Generally Melburnians are great to be in a crowd with. My theory is that practice makes the difference: attendance at AFL football games in huge crowds from an early age teaches people how to get from A to B when B isn't even visible and there are 10,000 people in the way. The personal electronic device is one of the problems. Headphones are plugged in. Heads are down, rather than being up and engaged with the world.

All of this thinking leaves me pondering a further question - will we evolve to have another set of eyes in the top of our heads so we can look at the device AND see where we're going and will we gain hearing sensors all over our bodies so we can be plugged in but still hear the rest of the world?

Peril on the roads

Police were out in force the other day, watching people alight from trams and ignore the official crossing spots.  I was amazed by how unaware people were of their surroundings.  Even as the police called out the individuals who stepped off the tram stop onto the tracks in front of the tram, more people followed them to meet their fate of on the spot fines for jaywalking.  While the police were dealing with the people who had walked in front of the tram, others set off in the other direction to cross the road against the lights!

Now I can imagine some people would say that the police should be out there catching real crooks, rather than targeting law abiding city workers who are just trying to make their connection to get home.  I think that a blitz on this stuff is a good idea every now and then.  In between pedestrians plugged in to ipods and unaware of their surroundings and drivers sending texts, reading email or talking on their mobile phones, the two are bound to meet in unplanned and unpleasant circumstances.  Regularly.

The other day I was driving on the Tullamarine freeway and needed to move across into the lane on my right. The traffic was heavy so I tried to nudge across and ask permission from a particular car to be allowed into his  lane.  Good old fashioned eye contact wasn't possible.  When I looked across to communicate with the driver, his eyes were down on the mobile phone he had in his left hand as he sped along at about 100 km per hour!  I decided I didn't want to be anywhere near him on the road and changed lanes a few cars ahead of him.

I remember talking to a young woman I came across in a training program I was facilitating.  She was loudly talking to the others in the group about the fact that she was working at that particular place so she could earn money to pay off all her fines.  She was nineteen years old!  Since she was so forthcoming about it, I decided that I could ask her about how the fines came about.  She blithely told me that it was from speeding and using her mobile phone to text while she was driving.

What a great combination!  A nineteen year old behind the wheel of a high powered car, on her provisional license, concentrating on her mobile phone while she was driving faster than the speed limit.  How she arrived anywhere in one piece is a mystery.  I put it to her that she might feel in control and certain of what she was doing, but she could not control or predict the behaviour of any other driver on the road.  One driver could do something unexpected at the precise moment of inattention; her focus on her phone rather than the road could cost her her own life, or threaten someone else's.  She shrugged.

Knowing what I know about the driving behaviour of people in her age group (based on working with them) there is no way I would put myself at risk as a pedestrian!  I'm not wearing kevlar pants or a helmet.  My handbag and iphone won't protect me in a collision with a car, a tram or even a cyclist.

Occasionally I contemplate purchasing a push bike for local trips.  Then I witness a near impact and I put it to the back of my mind - it seems I would be literally risking my life to put myself on the road on a bicycle in a sea of inattentive drivers and distracted, cocooned pedestrians.  Walking across the road is dangerous enough!

I feel for Melbourne's tram drivers.  It must be nerve racking, trying to navigate this course of constantly moving obstacles when you are driving a large metal vehicle which is attached to rails and can not change direction.  Is it any wonder there are now signs inside the trams reminding passengers to "HANG ON" because the tram driver may need to stop suddenly.  Surely a couple of minutes waiting for the light  to change so the road can be crossed safely, is not going to mean dire consequences in most situations.  If it was, I suspect the pedestrian would be easily spotted as someone under stress and wouldn't be listening to an ipod.

So back to my original point, on the spot fines for jaywalkers give the opportunity to raise awareness about the rules and appropriate behaviours.  I overheard some of the conversations  being conducted by members of the police force.  It was great to hear them actually educating offenders.  There should be more of that!

Pop up park in the village

One of the streets in my village has been closed.  I'm so happy!  We're getting a pop up park!   What a fabulous idea - closing car access to facilitate better pedestrian access within a community that has a lot of pedestrians. It seems so obvious.  I walked past this afternoon and the plastic turf is partially laid.  At this moment a survey if the site requires a good dose of imagination.

I've often wondered about the traffic planning within Yarraville.  The shopping heart is made up of a cross road and it's always busy.  Place a train station and a level crossing at one end of the busiest street (the one that is the main thoroughfare), add in streets that are just wide enough for one car when cars are parked in both sides of the street and you have a recipe for gridlock and frustration.  To say nothing of pedestrians illegally crossing the tracks and risking their lives instead of missing their train.  (There was a pedestrian underpass here - it was closed in 1997 and replaced with the current arrangement.)

Generally when I'm going to the village, I walk.  The only time I will take my car is when I'm on my way to or from somewhere else and need to stop off on the way.  On these occasions, it is incredible to witness the displays of stupidity, bad manners and frustration of drivers.  As I've mentioned, there is only room for one car to pass when there are cars parked on both sides of the streets - and there are always cars parked on both sides of the street.  To relieve some of the congestion, there are a couple of bays where it's illegal to park so that people can pull in and allow cars coming in the other direction to pass.  They work really well, unless they are blocked because people have actually parked there!

This is when the fun starts.  Imagine the streets with no where to pull over and the boom gates down on the level crossing at the other end of the road.  None of the traffic can go anywhere while ever these are the prevailing conditions. Incoming traffic doesn't know what's going on until it gets there.  Oh boy!  Sometimes the boom gates can be down for what seems like an eternity.

The other day I was in this very situation. I was approaching the cross road to take a right turn and get the hell out.  The traffic in front of me was banked right back to the major cross road in the heart of the village while it waited for the trains to pass.  As I prepared to make my right hand turn, a car coming from the street I was turning into, turned right, blocking my path.  It was unable to move because the boom gates were down and the traffic was stopped.  Now no one could go anywhere!

There are a couple of possible explanations for this behaviour. Firstly, the driver was not local and didn't understand the conditions.  Secondly, the driver's ego meant that that driver's destination was the most important thing on the road that day.  Thirdly, some people are just stupid.  Makes me wonder how they are even driving on the road.

I hope that bad tempers, bad driving and bad manners don't mar the happiness of a pop up park.  It will mean cars have to go somewhere else and it will take out about eight premium parking spaces from the village.  It's going to be there for three months.  I wonder why we can't have it forever?  How lovely if the plastic grass was replaced with the real stuff.  Then we'd have a real park.  I wish we were getting a real park.

(The Age report includes a nifty picture of the street where the park will pop.)