Starting October 1, riders of Seoul Metropolitan Subway must walk on the right through stations, ending the longstanding Korean habit of walking on the left. The move is aimed at reducing pedestrian congestion and traffic accidents, though we had to check to make sure there's no Korean equivalent to April Fool's Day anytime in mid-September.
To encourage pedestrians to relearn decades of ingrained behavior, station officials will reverse the direction of escalators and switch entry and exit doors. The burden of responsibility, however, lies on the Korean people.
"The most important thing is for citizens to change the habit and we expect voluntary participation of citizens in changing walking direction," an unnamed city official told Korea Times.
The Times said "helpers" will be on hand to direct riders to walk right while public service announcements and signs reinforce the new behavior. If there's a Korean equivalent of Glenn Beck, we bet his head already has exploded.
Although South Koreans drive on the right, "walk left" was imposed in 1921 during the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula -- a dark time in Korean history. Officials decided to undo 88 years of walking on the left through social engineering in some of the world's busiest subway stations, where nearly 8 million trips take place daily.
"[A] subway station is one of the most crowded public places and introducing the walking right culture at the stations will help changing the walking directions," one official told Korea Times.
According to the Korea Transport Institute, promoting a culture of "walk right" makes sense in a country where cars drive on the right and where the majority of the population is right-handed. "It is unreasonable to encourage walk left when cars drive right," one expert there told the Times.
The institute says a shift to "walk left" could reduce collisions between cars and pedestrians by up to 24 percent because crosswalks are currently set up for "walk right." In addition, the institute claims pedestrians will walk up to 70 percent faster and pedestrian density will decrease as much as 58 percent once walking becomes more structured.
While we don't know if the institute adjusted the efficiency gains for a learning curve, we can't imagine the gridlock on October 1 when the Seoul subway reroutes riders' familiar footpaths.
Photo: Flickr/troubleshooter. Riders on the Seoul Metropolitan Subway will be walking on the right starting October 1, 2009.
