What was interesting in that article is how building occupants vacate a building faster with an obstacle (in this case, polls) directly in the path of the fire exit rather than just having the fire exit unencumbered.  Unfortunately, there are rather large issues with having objects in the path of emergency exits; would people see them?  Could individuals be trapped trying to avoid the obstacle?  Would people still be able to see the exit?  Plus, having any object in front of an emergency point of egress is in violation of building codes (NYS Fire Code [ICC Based] 1014.2).

The possible solution?

As you can see, there isn't a drastic change to the emergency exit, however, there is a wall separating the two paths of traffic flow - increasing exit speed.  Obviously, this is a variation on the idea of having an object in the path of human traffic, but this appears to be complaint with the current code implementation.

You may also notice a complete lack of dimensions on this drawing - that was intentional.  Everything was code compliant (read: the doors are at least 32" wide, etc) however, I don't know how a variation of the width of the hallway, doors, or the wall separating the two paths would affect the flow of traffic outside.  This is because that wasn't part of the study which this is based on and further research is necessary.