Every morning thousands of people feel as if they're trying to accomplish a particularly tricky quest. Wrestle out of the packed subway car - done. Avoid getting lost and carried away by the crowd - done. Reach the escalator and join the gridlock at the entrance - done. At least all the commuters are following the common escalator rule: stand on the right side, walk on the left. After all, it's the most effective way to use an escalator, right? Actually, it’s wrong!

Wait, what? But this practice makes perfect sense: you can always choose whether you want to relax and let the machinery do all the work or save time and walk up! Yep, it turns out that we've been using escalators inefficiently all this time.

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