I’m a fast walker. I don’t know if it’s my impossibly long legs or my hummingbird-like metabolism or the fact that I was a gazelle in a past life, but I find walking slowly to be physically painful. So painful, in fact, that I regularly piggy-back my girlfriend up the massive hill to my house rather than walk at her tortoise-like speed — a speed everyone else might refer to as “normal.”
Finally, there is a place for people like me.
Argos, a popular department store in Liverpool’s shopping district, has instituted a pedestrian fast lane outside its shop for shoppers frustrated by kids, tourists, and slowpokes getting in their damn way. The Daily Mail reports:
The new lane, being trialled this week in the Liverpool One shopping complex, hopes to help pick up the pace for those who are hurrying by bypassing the crowds.
New statistics show 31 per cent of people find pavement hoggers frustrating, while more than a quarter (27 per cent) get annoyed by dawdling pedestrians.
Dr Alastair Moore, an independent retail expert, said: ‘Perusing the high street is one of my favorite past times but I do have my own shopping bugbears, from middle of the street chattering to battling through the crowds. …
In total, 28.8 million Brits said they would like a pavement fast lane installed in their local high street to ensure less time is spent dodging the masses.
Shoppers are testing out the experimental pavement fast lane for one week from Monday until this Sunday.
The lanes are meant to speed shoppers past the crowds to Argos’ doors. While increasing consumerism seems like the worst possible motivation for addressing the scourge of the slow walker, maybe if the pilot works, the pedestrian fast lane will spread beyond shopping areas and to the rest of the world. And once that’s taken care of, we can get down to more important issues. Like, for instance, figuring out what the fuck is a bugbear.
h/t CityLab
