Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Do all the lower escalators have to go "up"?

A reader commenting on our last post questioned why all four of Roosevelt Island's subway station escalators that run between the platforms and the station's lower mezzanine are running solely in the "up" direction:

"Why do both escalators from the platform to the mezzanine go in the up direction 24/7? Before the replacement we had one escalator going down and the other one up. Can we have this back?"
It is a good question. My kids have also been asking me why they can't take any of these escalators down to the platforms as well. Granted the stairs work fine to walk down to the platforms but they keep asking.

For them it's fun but for an individual that can't walk down stairs easily and for whom the escalators are a necessity having all four running in the "up" direction must be very annoying. Perhaps someone at the NYCTA figured walking up was harder so they arbitrarily set them all to "up"?

Note: The escalators in question here are not the six escalators that run between the street level down to the lower mezzanine.



2 comments:

  1. How about for 2 nights running - no up escalators in at least one of the long flights? I've written to MTA and will write to Jessica and Micah for good measure. And the station attendant cannot even reverse the direction of the escalators without 'calling' somebody. Somebody in the MTA ought to go to jail.

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  2. Did you notice that in any train station (not only Roosevelt Island) there is at least one escalator not operational? This is a shame.

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