Ok, while we are on BART gripes: what is the deal with people trying to squeeze their way upstream and board the cars before everyone has fully detrained? In NYC peeps form little ad-hoc queues to the left and right of the doors, let the exiters exit, then enter in two quick streams. In the Bay, I feel like MFing Moses trying to part the sea when exiting a train.

Don't even get me started on the weird station lines that people form at Embarcadero/Montgomery/Powell...

It's even more annoying given that passengers waiting to board know EXACTLY where the door will be when the train stops, thanks to those black edge marks. It might not be a bad idea to ask BART to add some floor marks telling people where to line up on crowded stations.

Seems like adding these stickers would be useful: http://thesource.metro.net/2013/02/13/new-platform-decals-re...

You'd think, but at crowded platfroms people are still standing right in the middle of the yellow, and don't budge when the train arrives. :-(

I've seen the same behavior in London tube and Singapore MRT as well, despite display boards that indicate removing backpacks in crowded trains. Mumbai locals handle this in the best possible way, you simply cannot get on the train during peak traffic if you have a backpack. I mean you probably can wiggle in, your backpack might not :)

I like those backpacks. They provide a nice buffer between me and the next person, allowing for some breathing space.

Pisses me off that I have to take off my bag. I have to keep my feet together to protect it, which doesn't help my balancing leverage.

Try to just hang it with your hands, you'll see, it's not that bad and the bonus is that you don't piss off other people.

How do you know they're uneducated?

In Spanish and Portuguese "mal educado" == literally "poorly educated" is used to mean "someone with poor etiquette ... doesn't know how things should work" ... writer probably means in that sense.

Perhaps they mean "uneducated in riding public transport in a way that doesn't hassle other passengers."

Anecdotal I know but from what I've seen they probably know they should put their backpacks in front, they just don't care. I went to a museum once where patrons were asked to either wear their backpacks in front of them or lock them up near the entrance. Literally almost everyone disregarded those instructions and put their backpacks on their back despite being asked directly multiple times to put their backpacks in front. They would for a quick second then move them to their back once the museum staff looked away. It was a real eye opener on people's self centeredness.

He meant "uneducated" on how to behave in the tube. We would say the same thing in Europe if somebody is walking on the wrong side of escalators or similar, it doesn't mean we are literally saying they are uneducated.

Thanks, I'm unfamiliar with this usage. It was an honest question, don't know why I got downvoted.

Placing the backpack at your feet takes almost the same space, unless you are really fat, plus it becomes a tripping hazard and gets kicked.

Unless you are a slug, or have elephantitis, your torso and arms take up twice the volume of your legs.

It's called 'straddling'.

This way, the space between your legs (which is about the same width as your shoulders) serves as a convenient location to store said bag, while also allowing you to stand over it and thereby protect it from trips/kicks and reduce your overall surface footprint.