Attention Lancs students: Here’s how to acceptably walk on the Spine

Every Lancs student faces them and hates them…Yes, Spinewalkers, we’re looking at you. For those of you blissfully unaware, ‘Spinewalkers’ is the less-than-affectionate term given to those who manage to cause absolute chaos and mayhem by disastrously walking down the North or South Spine between lectures.

We can’t even imagine how much easier it would be to get around if we all walked logically. So, we have compiled a list of things you should avoid doing when walking down the Spine in an attempt to save our own sanity (and hopefully yours).

Stand in the middle of the path

We don’t need to spell this one out for you; it’s quite simple – if you stand in the middle of the flow, people have to stop and shimmy around you.

We don’t have time for dancing! This creates an insane amount of congestion and is probably how Spine traffic starts. It’s also just annoying and can be easily fixed. 

Stop halfway down the stairs

The stairs just outside of Pizzetta Republic on the South Spine are like trudging up Mount Everest. They’re prime Spinewalker territory. Seriously, why are you choosing to text someone right now? Surely you can wait until you get to the bottom/top.

All you do is create a bottleneck as people try to get past you. Kindly make it to the end of the stairs, then stop. Thank you. This picture captures moments before a tumbling disaster.

Walk at a normal pace

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This one is a plea. Walk at a normal pace. We understand you want to be extra careful when it’s slippery, and that everyone walks at different speeds, but it’s incredibly annoying when people slow down as soon as they whip their phone out.

Either get to your destination before you check your text, or tuck in to the side.

Walk alongside no more than one other person

This is one of our biggest gripes. So, you have a lot of friends, yippee! But as soon as multiple people walk together, they have to match the slowest person’s pace.

Especially if you’ve just come out of a lecture and take a more laissez-faire approach to your walking, it doesn’t mean that some of us need to get to our destination a lot faster! Walk in pairs (or even threes, we’ll be generous), then leave some space for the rest of us.

Tuck into the side if you bump into some of your friends

In all honesty, we don’t think there’s anything more exciting than being in a bad mood after a lecture and seeing some of your friends on the Spine. Immediate mood boost.

Unfortunately, stopping in the middle of a crowd to talk to a group just creates traffic, and it becomes an absolute nightmare. We’ve all done it once or twice, but please make sure that you tuck into the side in future, it just helps it all flow better.

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