straphanger

straphanger

A passenger on public transport, especially who stands during travel and holds onto a strap for support. I hate being stuck next to the other straphangers on my way to work each morning. I used to feel sorry for all the straphangers having to catch the train the city, but now traffic has gotten so bad that I'm starting to consider it for myself as well.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

straphanger

n. a subway passenger; bus passenger; commuter. I didn’t think I could get used to being a straphanger.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • strap in
  • strap up
  • strap into (something)
  • strap on to
  • strap down
  • hate (someone or something) like sin
  • hate like sin
  • strap someone with someone or something
  • sell oneself
  • pet hate
References in periodicals archive
The Straphangers Campaign rates each subway line's timeliness in a sepa rate report in July.
"Subway and bus fares," said the Straphangers Campaign in a recent testimony (Contino 2014), "have gone up four times in the past six years.
The female fronted NYHC band the Straphangers will go on at 8pm.
"I have the worry that a lot of my Colleagues have," Gene Russianoff, chief attorney for the Straphangers campaign, told me before the measure was defeated.
For example, the Straphangers Campaign project, which measures the effectiveness of New York City's transit service, was able to improve the Transit Authority's accountability with well-informed transportation data to citizens, and to encourage communication between citizens and transit officials for purposes of including citizen opinions in measuring their performance.
For example, the Straphangers Campaign, a project of the New York Public Interest Research Group, does an outstanding job measuring and reporting on the performance of New York City Subways.
Shades of Me and My Brother: Ranting all the while, Orlovsky leads Frank down into the subway, where the filmmaker records his longtime star serenading expressionless straphangers with a snatch of an aria from Pagliacci and a toneless "Home on the Range." It's an aptly underground ending for a piece that is both street theater and an urban road movie.
"The New York City subway system is large: 468 stations and hundreds of miles of tracks," says Neysa Pranger of the Straphangers Campaign, a New York Public Interest Research Group.
The arched ceiling of Gustavino tiles and the chandeliers--still intact today--are hardly the design motif contemporary straphangers expect.
The first focuses on "transit tussles" in Chicago, as a result of which, although efforts to municipalize street railways were stymied, not only entrepreneurs but also politicians, labor leaders, engineers, and "straphangers" got at least portions of what they wanted.
On the staircase hangs Red Grooms's witty three-dimensional 'Straphangers'.
For each evening I see Straphangers in street-cars bound Home for their tea; Flies by them my Jitney.
Commuter's group the Straphangers' Alliance, which organised the award, were also in a hurry to point out that this is not a one-off problem.
Metro isn't just for Philadelphia straphangers anymore.
Stainless straphangers allow 360 [degrees] aiming to maximize task visibility.