The Unionville Sprints

I live in a place called Markham, which is about an hour outside of Toronto. I commute in to the big city using a commuter train called the Go Train. I've been doing it for over a year now, and there are a lot of things I really love about it.

One thing I particularly enjoy is that everyday I get to spectate a unique form of competition in which scores of commuters returning home rush as quickly as they can to their cars in an effort to beat the bottleneck of traffic. The best example of this on the particular line I take occurs at Unionville station.

As a race venue, Unionville has a number of unique elements that make it particularly rife for competition.


First, there is the large parking lot which hosts quite a lot of baking cars. The lot is free to Go Transit users, so there's no incentive to taking public transportation to the lot (actually public transportation users are actually penalized because they have to pay the fare for the bus to the lot). The lot is almost always at near capacity.

Second, there is the fact that the train only comes once every 30-40 minutes, which helps to concentrate the number of people into large competitive fields. (The most popular heat is the 5:20 train.) Third, there is the platform, (towards the bottom of the diagram), which is raised above the level of the parking lot, forcing people to navigate down a limited number of staircases. Finally, and most importantly, there is only one way out of the parking lot, down a road, at the end of which is yet another bottleneck otherwise known as a traffic light.

Conditions couldn't be better for creating a competitive atmosphere. Bottlenecks for commuters leaving the parking lot can be excessive if you are not in the top ten. The further back you are, the worse it gets. Pretty much the only things missing are medals and medal podiums. The prize for the top commuters? The ability to get on your way without the daily 20 minute traffic jam.

How the Game is Played

There is actually a lot of strategic thinking that goes into being the first out of the gate. At the start of the day, competitors need to carefully place their car to balance how far they run with how far they drive. This is not as simple as it seems, as it depends in large part about how large a load you're carrying, what your physical condition is, and how fast you can start your car. (It's even more fascinating during a snowfall in winter, when brushing your car off comes into play.)

It may seem to make sense to park as closely as you can to the train doors, but remember then that you'll have to avoid other people running for their cars, which will slow you down. But if you park on the far side of the lot, you'll have to contend with the risk of others who park closely mowing you down. So it seems as if it's best to park a little ways away from the train platform, so you can outrun your competitors and not have them in your way.

And competitors must align themselves to be first out of the train doors. Which means they actually have to select a good seat on the train or at very least must move themselves (within the bounds of social etiquette) to the best train door at the earliest possible moment after the previous station.
Because of the limited numbers of staircases that lead down to the parking lot, it's key for any Unionville sprinter to know exactly which train car they're on and remember where their car is in relation to the door that will be opening. Because if you're not one of the people closest to the door, you may want to consider giving up.

Here's a video taken of the last race I witnessed.

What's the Point?

Well there are a lot of interesting things about this from an experience designer's point of view. First of all, it's a fascinating set of circumstances that have led to this level of competitive atmosphere associated with going home from work. Go Transit couldn't have designed a better race course.

But Go Transit likely didn't design the parking lot with the idea of creating as highly a competitive atmosphere as they have. In fact, I think they probably had it in their minds to have a safe and convenient way for people to access their cars and get home at the end of their workdays. But through the compounding bottlenecks they've actually created a more stressful environment for people going to work.

Lessons can be learned from this when designing interactive experiences as well. Lessons about the importance of participatory design, walking a mile in your users' shoes. But also how design choices, conscious or unconscious, can create either an atmosphere of competition or collaboration, and how those choices can have a ripple effect throughout the system you're building.

Because it's not just the parking lot design that's lacking in this case. There are a whole host of interrelated factors that create the environment - the frequency of the trains, the propensity for people to drive rather than take public transportation to the lot, the long traffic light cycle, etc. And these factors, this unintended competition, spills over into people's lives and into the life of the city. People are actively worrying about how they quickly they will be able to get home for their kid's recital, or to make dinner. In other words, they're worrying more about how to figure out how to do a trivial activity quickly and simply than on being able to fulfill their actual goals and live their lives.