As we recently learned from Washington, D.C., transit agencies and escalators just don’t mix. Government agencies that are forced to take the lowest bids on projects often end up with escalators that can’t withstand the constant pounding they take, and fixes are costly and slow. The MTA too, as The Post briefly notes, has its own escalator problem, and agencies leaders are vowing to fix it. “I don’t think we’re providing the service,” Jay Walder said at the MTA Board meeting yesterday. “We have been trying a number of things on elevators and escalators, it’s not a budget issue, and they have not worked.”
The MTA’s Transit committee meeting books provide a more nuanced look. Scroll to page 8-25 of this pdf for the full report. In essence, the MTA hopes for a 96 percent availability goal, but but 24-hour access is now hoving around 91.7 percent. That figure omits escalators targeted for capital replacement, and it doesn’t explore for how long these escalators are out of service. A quick glance at the Transit escalator outage page shows some that have been shuttered since late October and early November, and the one at High St., for instance, was available only 44 percent of the time last year.
The systemic root of the problem seems to arise from technological failures and an inability to conduct efficient repairs, but that’s not stopping the MTA from expanding the escalator system. For instance, the current plans for the deep station at 34th St. and 11th Ave. along the 7 line extension call for only escalators — and no staircase access — at one end of the station. The MTA claims the depth makes a staircase inefficient, but I’ve often seen people walking up the flights at 63rd St. and Lexington Ave. Relying heavily on escalators though seems to be an avenue to inconvenience and steeper costs.
13 comments
I read a few days ago that a WMATA escalator fell apart with a few steps falling into the gear system. It’s strange that the Roosevelt Island F stop has elevators, escalators & yet no stairs unlike 63rd Street wich is almost as deep.
Unless I’m mistaken, and I admit I haven’t been there in a while, but I recall that Roosevelt Island has stairs – at least one from each platform up to the mezzanine, and a center stairway between the two esclators up to the sreet.
No, you’re not mistaken – each escalator has a stairway next to it.
However, the Roosevelt Island station is one of those stations where there’s usually one set of escalators working, so there’s usually no one using them.
When I lived in DC there was always comparison to London (and even NYC) as having escalators that didn’t seem to be out quite as much as DC’s. (DC uses escalators EVERYWHERE. Even for short trips between platforms.) London has some extremely long escalators that seem to be able to work at a rate that DC can only dream about. At least that was the discourse when I lived in DC.
The escalators in the Metro system were NOT RECCOMENDED by the MANUFACTURERS, but they didn’t listen. The Metrocard here in NYC was handled in a similar way with means more spending on eqipment that is becomeing less reliable as time goes on.
I find myself wondering the same thing as Christopher – I at first accepted that it was difficult-to-impossible for transit agencies to maintain this kind of heavily used equipment – and then I went to Tokyo.
Has any outside party taken a look at this issue? Is it America’s fanatical obsession with lowest-bid-at-any-cost contracting?
Prague’s metro has escalators for deep level stations and those things are FAST! Almost certainly faster than probably legally allowed here. But they get you up and down and a jiffy, for sure.
You’d think that when one of a pair of escalators breaks down, they would reverse the other one, if necessary, so that there will be at least an UP escalator running.
Last Saturday, at the uptown platform of the “IND” level at Herald Square, an up escalator was stopped and the down escalator next to it was running. If half the people have to walk, at least let it be the people who are going DOWN.
Really a bad idea to have only escalators and no stairs. I’d say it’s an ADA issue. I went through a period where I suffered from vertigo, and the D.C. Metro was a horror. (I have different meds now, thank you.)
But you don’t have to suffer dizziness or fear of heights to be wary of using an escalator. Bad eyesight can make the first step and the last step a problematic experience.
If they aren’t going to have any stairs, surely there will be an elevator. And it will be crowded — if the elevator is in working order.
I believe that also poses a fire hazard. Escalators are much more flammable than stairs, and elevators don’t operate in the event of a fire. It’s probably not an ideal situation to have only ONE exit out of a (likely) busy train station in the event of a fire.
No stairs planned for 34/11 on the #7 extension? Bad, bad idea! Every station should have properly maintained and open, usable stairways, no matter how deep. I use the stairs to go down AND UP at the deepest stations: 63/Lex, High St, 53/5, 53/Lex, etc. Hey, it’s great exercise – one of the best actually.
I remember being in London, staying near the Queensway Central Line station. When a crowded train let out people would sometimes wait for three or four elevators to go up. I generally opted for the clean and well maintained spiral stairway. And there were others with me on the stairs.
I’ve been to Hong Kong before, and their subway system has MUCH better maintained escalators. There are escalators in every station for the shortest distances, yet they still manage to keep them running.
They also have low fares, platform screen doors, countdown clocks, and automated (and crowded) trains. I wonder whether or not we can steal ideas from their subway operator, because we really need them.
Leave it to the MTA to decide that stairways are “inefficient” and plan to not have them at 34th & 11th. They have no concern for the passengers who will inevitably have to walk up a broken escalator–and we all know the up escalator is going to break down. And as someone pointed out above, it never occurs to MTA station workers to reverse the down escalator to up when this occurs. Walking up an escalator requires more exertion than stairs because the steps are larger than on a staircase. That is why you will see several landings on the staircase adjacent to a long escalator. Anyone who is not in great physical shape, or the elderly will find this very difficult.