[germanier]

The queue paragraph was interesting because that is one thing we Germans don't do very well compared to other countries.

But yes, there are separate containers on the street for brown, clear, and other glass (not to mention the deposit you pay for certain bottles that you get back when returning them to the store). Seven different bins might be a bit much but every one I know has separate bins for packaging, paper, bio waste, and non-recyclable waste in their home (that's not something you want to separate later on) – these are the ones that are collected separately by the garbage collection service. The rest (like bottles and batteries) usually gets no extra bin.

[zhemao]

> The queue paragraph was interesting because that is one thing we Germans don't do very well compared to other countries

Maybe not compared to the British, but everybody is better at queueing than Chinese. Have you ever been to China and tried to take public transportation? It's madness. At rush hour it's just one big shoving match.

[m_mueller]

I'd like to see a queing match between Japan and England. Japanese queing is crazy polite, to the point where everyone deoptimises their advantage, so it only works when there is one big queue with the employees multiplexing. They also queue for train entrances, escalators, you name it. Escalators are also a thing of beauty here - absolutely noone stands on the wrong side. And there's two queues, onr for standing and one for walking.

[zhemao]

Two queues on the escalator is how it's supposed to be everywhere. In big cities in the US, people generally obey the rule "walk on the left, stand on the right."

But sometimes you get chuckleheads like one guy who stood right in the middle of the BART station escalator during morning rush hour and blocked everyone behind him.

And then when he got off the escalator he just waltzed out the emergency exit (thus evading the fare) without batting an eye. Some men just want to see the world burn.

[vinay427]

How does this form of fare evasion work? I thought a rider usually scans/tags a form of payment before boarding the train and does so again after disembarking.

[zhemao]

Yes, you scan or insert your card when entering the station from which you are departing and then scan again when exiting the destination station. But you are only charged on exit because the fare is calculated based on the distance between stations. If you go through the emergency exit at the destination and thus avoid scanning your card, you can skip out on the fare.

They have emergency exits in most public transit systems, but usually they have some sort of alarm that sounds when you open it. But the BART emergency exits are literally just a swiveling door. If there's no attendant, you could literally just walk out of it without attracting much notice. I've seen people do this multiple times. I don't know why the BART authority considers this acceptable. I suppose they can catch offenders if they notice that the card is always used to swipe in but never to swipe out.

[germanier]

Outside of rush hour there is not much difference in queuing between both the Berlin and Beijing metro in my experience (i.e. nobody stands in line in either city). During rush hour there is more pushing in Beijing but Berliners try to get through the door as well, even if it means cutting someone off.