Comments on: Coming next week: Environmentally-advanced escalators

By: The problem with the escalators :: Second Ave. Sagas | A New York City Subway Blog

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:58:51 +0000

[...] August, New York City Transit installed motion-sensitive “green” escalators to much fanfare. On the first day of service, some of them had already broken down, and it’s been nothing but [...]

By: Bookmarks about Europe

Bookmarks about Europe — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:00:59 +0000

[...] – bookmarked by 3 members originally found by Osmosis on 2008-09-16 Coming next week: Environmentally-advanced escalators http://secondavenuesagas.com/2.....scalators/ – [...]

By: Second Ave. Sagas | A New York City Subway Blog » Blog Archive » Green (escalators) means stop

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:46:24 +0000

[...] week, when the MTA announced its plans for green escalators, I responded with some skepticism. The MTA has, after all, run into numerous troubles with their [...]

By: herenthere

herenthere — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:13:34 +0000

I think you made a good point as to the cliched “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.” However, I think a trial like this, which is unprecedented in the U.S., would be the most effective if an entire station was outfitted with these escalators. Having just one or two in a station would confuse passengers about which have variable-speeds and which do not.

Regarding the newspaper of plastic bag blowing, I believe the sensors are at waist-level (Herald Square) and probably have some timer that guesses if a person has not passed the other sensor after a time period, then it is probably not a person.

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:11:29 +0000

I give them two weeks before they are permanently out of service.

By: Scott E

Scott E — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:35:45 +0000

Always being the cynic here, but…

Why test it with 35 escalators? If the test flops, that’s quite an investment. I’d make the test a bit smaller. Unless, of course, these are the only types of escalators made anymore, which I doubt.

Also, outfitting entire stations at a time seems a bit risky. The NY Times article says the lifespan is “up to 35 years” (I’m sure that assumes folowing a regular maintenance schedule – changing the oil every 3,000 miles, etc.) Whatever the REAL lifespan is, if they all go in at the same time, they are likely to all break down at about the same time. There would be a HUGE headache when that time comes.

They could be fun, or at least interesting. I could imagine a newspaper or plastic bag being blown above the escalator, causing it to constantly speed up and slow down. Not to mention, it would make it a bit more tempting to try to run up the “down” escalator, or vice-versa.