>You are wrong about the bottleneck at the bottom, generally you can usually proceed up the left and walk the escalator without being delayed by the bottleneck queue of people wanting to stand on the escalator. Those folks are generally to the right leaving a relatively clear path on the left.

Yeah, that's nothing at all like America. Over here, people will just get on and stand in the middle of the escalator and hog as much room as they can.