"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience." Mitch Hedberg

Good article, valid points--and many share your perspective, Mr. Cole.

"My time in New York comes to mind . . . " https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/06/04/40392097/hey-sound-transit-escalators-are-critical-and-you-should-take-them-more-seriously

"When I lived in New York City for a while . . ." https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/09/05/31902347/yes-we-should-preserve-our-historic-landmarks-but-the-showbox-isnt-one-of-them

"When people in New York or Boston ask that question . . . " https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/01/21/38181947/which-school-did-you-go-to-the-covington-catholic-incident-hits-close-to-home

@1 - I don't think so. It's still broken and subject to Murphy's law. Folks shouldn't be on it when it starts moving again planned or accidentally.

Good article. It is worth pointing out that though, that the biggest flaw with the design of the deep boor tunnels that Sound Transit built is that they don't have stairs. If I'm not mistaken, the stations built before Sound Transit (the ones built for buses) all have stairs. That means that if an escalator is broken, the vast majority of riders can exit or enter the station quite easily using stairs, while others wait for an elevator. I can understand why you might cut costs by not adding escalators, but not adding stairs just means you will have a major system failure from time to time. Oh, and stairs don't cost much to maintain (something that will be an issue eventually, as we build a ridiculously long subway system).

Couple side notes. Another way to cut costs is to get rid of mezzanines. These are only needed in stations that have multiple tracks going in various directions (stations like UW, Capitol Hill and Northgate don't need them). This leads to high cost stations (https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/). The problem with Sound Transit is that they tend to overbuild the stations, yet cut back in essential features. They are all quite grand -- I give them that -- but I would settle for something more functional. I would prefer that agencies short of cash (which pretty much means everyone) follow the lead of Boston (https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2016/05/10/frequent-service-not-escalator-access-is-what-attracts-transit-users/).

@4, 5: it's a Mitch Hedberg (RIP) joke.

Literalists.

A big issue is that 1) ALL outdoor escalators have terrible reliability records and 2) there is a massive dearth of repair people. The agency I work had to functionally close an escalator for nearly 6 months due to the backlog of service orders and lack of labor.

We badly need trade programs (perhaps ones that allows bored, non-academically inclined kids out of their public schools around 16 like happens in the UK) in areas where the local schools are poor. We need to valorize these jobs - this means fewer negative portrayals of blue collar workers in our TV and media (which, by the by, will help heal some of the blue city and red-hinterland divide in this country, which is maintained by deep class rivalry) if we want to have a society that can maintain it's own machines.

@3

Every country has a large, culturally dominant city, and the provincial burgs will constantly compare themselves to that primary city, with varying degrees of anxiety or resentment.

This is true of towns much larger than Seattle, with deeper, broader heritage-- Chicago still calls itself "the second city" in between its bouts of self-congratulation.

@7

Like a lot of Hedburg's material, that joke unrecognizable without the delivery.

Don't get me wrong, I love deadpan-- but it can mask some pretty pedestrian writing.

"If there had been a fire or other incident on the platform that required the station to be quickly evacuated, this would’ve been a disaster"- because a stopped escalator isn't a set of stairs?

There needs to be and end to the effective monopoly of the elevator companies. The building that I live in (4 stories) recently had to upgrade our elevator to current code. The electric controls were old and parts, in this case a control circuit board, were no longer manufactured and codes do not allow retrofitting of the boards. As a result a new control system had to be installed to the tune of over $300K. It seems that once you change this you have to change that. Annual service inspections (mandatory) cost well over $500 and that is only to check out the system not necessarily doing anything. Regulations should be established so that other elevator companies can cross over and both work on and manufacture parts for elevator and escalator systems other that their own kind of like how a person can have scheduled maintenance on a car at an independent garage and not just the dealership. The way it's set up now is a ripoff.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a recurring theme with ST. Nearly every escalator and elevator they own is horribly underbuilt. I'm not sure if this is the result of the low bidder syndrome, or if it is by (poor) design. At this point, it would certainly behoove them to have their own repair staff and parts department for elevators and escalators. I would like to see how much is spent in repair costs vs. replacement with higher quality equipment.

If people didn't insist on walking up or down the escalators, causing more strain, vibrations, and wear to the motors than they are designed for... Then the escalators would not break down even half as often

Washington Metro may have a lot of deep bore stations (Wheaton Station has the longest continuous escalator in the Western Hemisphere) but it's not exactly a model of redundancy. Out of WMATA's dozen or so deepest stations, only one — Rosslyn — has two in each direction.

Really interesting article. But I lived in D.C. back in the dark ages 25 years ago. Granted, I was only there for 3 months on an internship. But I took the Metro from multiple stations every day, many of which were deep, two-escalator stations, and I never encountered an escalator that was out of order. Maybe things have changed since then, but the Metro didn’t have the constant problems that Sound Transit has. Did D.C. just have more money, or is Seattle just dysfunctional?

great piece david, thanks for writing. curious. @14, im curious to hear more on this. not doubting your claim at this point, but this is definitely the first ive heard of walking on escalators leading to more rapid breakdown. please share more info if youve got it!

Also: Capitol Hill & Husky Stadium stations were built without permanent stairs as an option. Big mistake! Many of us prefer to take stairs, as they can be faster than congested escalators — besides providing free exercise. Cmon Sound Transit, you can & must do better!

@18 -- Yes, that is what I said at 6. The biggest problem is a lack of stairs.

Sound Transit has been utterly clueless when it comes to design for Light Rail. They've focused so much on trying to make the stations (particulary Captiol Hill) cool that they ignored functionality.

They designed their platforms to accomodate trains no longer than three car lengths - not anticipating a not-so-distant future where capacity would warrant longer trains.

They installed shit escelators - and not enough of them - to virtually guarnatee commutter inconvienence.

In some cases as noted, there are no parallel stairs to give more able-bodied commutters an option to bypass the chokepoints at escellators when they are crowded... or to give almost everyone an alternative when the escelators aren't functioning.

I try to be responsible and take Link to SEA when I have a flight, but I swear that more often than not there's a glitch on Link (an escelator not working, which is a real pain when towing luggage; a delayed train, etc.) while the escelators at SEA always seem to be in working order (and if they're crowded and I'm in a rush, I can hustle up the adjacent stairs).

If they had a decent stair system, we could easily run up the stairs from the bottom platform, with our heavy backpacks.

We built a slow meandering route from downtown to the airport ensuring few tourists or travelers would use it. At-grade, hitting cars and people, then it drops you off in an open air car garage 1/4 mile from the terminal.
It is an embarrassment.

can we replicate Stockholm's King's Garden underground station . If we're upgrading , do it right

This article is intelligent.
Nice to read.

" it’s not as if Sound Transit builds stations a hundred feet below ground for shits and giggles."

And yet a deep bore station is still on the table for the next Chinatown/ID station even though there's a far superior cut and cover option available.