Metro riders aren’t imagining it: The escalators have gotten worse, the transit agency acknowledges in a new report. Escalators have been breaking down more often — failing after an average of about eight days of use — and the breakdowns are taking longer to fix, the report shows.
The average time between failures has shrunk, meaning escalators broke down more frequently in 2010 than either of the two prior years, according to the report. Escalators lasted an average of about 153 hours of service before breaking down. In 2009 and 2008 the escalators lasted an average of 172 hours and 178 hours before breakdowns.
Metro also is taking longer to fix the escalators when they fail, the report showed. In 2008, it took Metro just under 10 hours on average to fix a broken escalator. But in 2010, the average had crept up to 14 hours.
| Escalator breakdowns Average time between failures |
| 2008: 178 revenue hours |
| 2009: 172 revenue hours |
| 2010: 153 revenue hours |
| Average time to repair |
| 2008: 9.94 revenue hours |
| 2009: 13.29 revenue hours |
| 2010: 14 revenue hours |
| Source: Metro |
More than half of the outages are unscheduled or occur because of a safety concern, according to the report.
For Metrorail riders, such news may not seem surprising. Commuters regularly pass a downed escalator during their daily trips and have gotten used to hiking up the stopped staircases.
On Monday, for example, 79 of Metro’s 588 escalators were “under repair,” according to the agency’s Web site.
Metro has complained that its aging infrastructure is partly to blame. Adding to the problem, some of the manufacturers went out of business long ago, making replacement parts hard to find.
But the oldest escalators don’t necessarily have the worst records. The second-youngest escalators in Metro’s fleet, made by Fuji, average just 11 years old but had the second-worst failure rate in December, according to the Metro report. They lasted less than a week — 128 hours of service — before breaking down.
The second-oldest escalators, meanwhile, had the best record — lasting on average 180 hours before a breakdown despite an average age of 31 years.
Escalators inside stations operated for almost twice as long as uncovered ones at station exits. All outdoor escalators were supposed to have canopies, but Metro ran out of money, so not all stations have the covers, which help keep leaves, snow and rain off the staircases.
Metro has resumed installing some canopies above particularly troublesome escalators. Crews are working on a one-year, $6 million project to add a canopy and new escalators to the Foggy Bottom stop.
An independent review in the fall faulted Metro for its poor maintenance practices on elevators and escalators, saying such neglect led them to break down. Shortly thereafter, at least six riders were injured when brakes malfunctioned on an escalator at L’Enfant Plaza and caused the moving staircase to speed up, dumping riders in a heap.
Metro followed the report by taking an internal look at what led to the problems, spokesman Reggie Woodruff said. The report represents “an unvarnished review of the areas we are tackling to improve performance and conditions for our customers.” In December, as The Washington Examiner first reported, the agency also reorganized the department and brought in a new leader. It has allotted $63 million for escalator rehab in its six-year capital plan, the report said.
