So both Cranky Emeritus Blogger Merry, and helpful reader Gina, sent me this video clip. It's an innovative idea for encouraging people to take the stairs instead of the escalator and I just had to share it:



Cool, huh?

(And if you have slow bandwidth or are otherwise video-averse: basically they took a flight of stairs next to an escalator, turned them into piano keys that play notes when people step on them. And voila--stair usage went way up!)

But here's the thing: being Crabby McSlacker, I couldn't help wondering how this would play out in real life. Would it be all excited plinking and plonking and happy grins and laughter?

Or instead, would you have harried commuters missing their trains during rush hour due to dilly-dallying schoolchildren and aimless tourists stomping out "Chopsticks" and "Frere Jacques" over and over? How often would the stairs be taken Out of Service to enable specially trained Musical Stair Repair Techs to unjam piano keys gummed up with spilled cokes and chewing gum? Plus, what about the lawsuits filed by aggrieved parents whose kids would no doubt break limbs while flinging themselves from key to key?...

Good thing I'm just a grumpy blogger instead of an urban planner!

(Still, it does look kinda fun doesn't it?)