> Now, maybe you're imagining a scenario where people don't want to walk. Agreed that this is an imagined scenario because people in a hurry will want to maxim

> Now, maybe you're imagining a scenario where people don't want to walk. Agreed that this is an imagined scenario because people in a hurry will want to maximize their speed by walking/running up the escalator. More importantly, people generally (I'm imagining) do not want to stand on the same escalator step as another person, especially if they are strangers to each other. That means in a 2-lane standing escalator there will be breaks between people standing to the left or the right which, effectively, will turn a 2-lane standing-only escalator into a "1-lane" standing escalator.