Nationwide, 250, 000 water lines burst a year, or about one every twominutes, flooding and closing streets, interrupting water service, and requiring residents to boil water for safety, wrote New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg in a special series on water issues.
Shoppers are likely to abandon a line that might take between one and 10 minutes to get through after the first twoor three minutes if they feel it isn't moving sufficiently fast enough for them, says Narayan Janakiraman, an assistant professor of marketing at Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.