Washington riders will have to learn to spring into action faster, said Cleatus Barnett, who represents Maryland on the Metro board of directors. In places like Montreal, you better move quickly if you're going to get off the train. One obstacle between Metro riders and a quick exit is the design of the Metro car. Subway cars in Boston and New York are designed for crowds, with bench seating along the sides of the train and room in the aisle for standing passengers. New York has ordered new rail cars with wider doors to improve the speed of loading and unloading, said Robert Slovak, a spokesman for New York City Transit, the country's largest subway system.
Passengers sometimes have to step over seat mates to reach the doors.
Poles for standees are clustered around the doors, making it difficult for other passengers to quickly step off or onto crowded trains. Gallagher said that Metro may add poles down the length of some of its cars to encourage people to move into the body of the car and away from the doors but that it has no plans to significantly change the car design. On the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in San Francisco, riders waiting on a platform line up behind markings that indicate where the doors will be when the next train arrives. New York is experimenting with a similar system at Grand Central Station, where riders line up on the right and left of a green painted box, creating a tunnel for debarking passengers, Slovak said. Metro is not weighing any such plan, because its trains are operated manually at the moment, making it difficult to stop at precise spots along the platform.