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Here’s why Capitol Hill Station’s escalator has been busted for weeks

We have been celebrating Capitol Hill Station’s first Christmas of service but in what has mostly been a season of light for the light rail facility, there has been one holiday dark spot.

The “up” escalator from the main platform has been out of service for weeks — some say two, others, three. While outages for the escalators haven’t been uncommon, this one might, indeed, have set a record:

Sound Transit blames the delay on the state telling CHS that the agency is awaiting word from Washington Labor & Industries to “approve the repairs.”

In the meantime, the blocked-off route shows there is, yes, such thing as a broken escalator.

We’ve already documented why Capitol Hill Station’s escalators are sometimes reversed. If the current outage continues, we may be faced with another perpetually broken Capitol Hill escalator. Remember what happened to the other one: It’s now stairs.

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Kevin
Kevin
7 years ago

The main question is, why wont they let us walk on it like stairs while its broken?

Jason
7 years ago
Reply to  Kevin

I asked SoundTransit about this on Twitter. It turns out that escalator stair treads don’t meet the code for stairways. They’re too tall to legally be stairs.

Emily
Emily
7 years ago

The better question is also why should it take internal approval by L & I for a repair. Shouldn’t these still be under a one year warranty from the contractor?

Eric Bustad
Eric Bustad
7 years ago
Reply to  Emily

And why does this require approval from the L&I in the first place?

DB McWeeberton
DB McWeeberton
7 years ago
Reply to  Emily

We definitely have problems if every escalator repair in Seattle has to be approved in Olympia.

jc
jc
7 years ago
Reply to  Emily

The escalator has to be up to safety standards, and this falls on L&I. Remember the guy who was killed on the escalator at the station downtown a few years ago? There are a lot of accidents. I even got my foot caught in one when I was a kid. If they can keep this number down, they’re doing their job. Two or three weeks seems like a long time, but they probably don’t have a very large staff escalator escalator specialists.

Carla
Carla
7 years ago
Reply to  Emily

I know someone who was caught in an escalator at SeaTac a few years back and was quite seriously injured – spent a good deal of time in the hospital and then recovering.

Whilst we take them for granted these machines can be lethal.

Get it fixed properly.

Seba
Seba
7 years ago

but I thought more regulation and oversight were supposed to make everything in the world better! our lawmakers should step up and regulate the departments of regulation and hold them accountable for these delays. but then we will need an oversight board to ensure the regulatory regulators are being prompt about things . . .

Morty
Morty
7 years ago

FYI – that’s short. SeaTac Airport station has escalators out going on months. The elevator was down over a month.

Jordan
Jordan
7 years ago

I’m just glad someone is carrying on the tradition now that the Harvard market escalator is gone

Max
Max
7 years ago

Three of the escalators and one of the elevators were out of service at the UW station when I left today. I commute between Cap Hill and UW every day on the light rail and it seems like at least one escalator is always broken in one of the stations.

Max
Max
7 years ago

Can someone explain the grammer of the section after the em dash of: “The “up” escalator from the main platform has been out of service for weeks — some way two, others, three.”

Paul
Paul
7 years ago

Just waiting for the day all escalators and elevators at the station are broken. The state will still insist approval must be issued for repairs.

joanna
7 years ago

Sound Transit is large well-funded and well-staffed organization.
Escalators and elevators seem to have historically been problematic for ST. What happened to lessons learned? Is this an area where ST cuts corners. The stations depend on the escalators and elevators working. ST engineers and leadership should do better than this. They owe the public an explanation and a fix.

le.gai.savant
le.gai.savant
7 years ago

This was a project which cost billions, and it’s less than a year old. It’s a pretty long climb. Inconvenient for lots of people. Yes people with injuries or disabilities can go find the elevator and take it, but really?

Suggestions for follow-up pieces

1. What broke? We bought equipment that lasts less than 1 year for a key part of the station? What did this escalator cost, and who’s paying for the repair?

2. For Sound Transit to say, it’s L&I’s fault — that sounds pretty questionable to me. Does L&I not have an expedited approval process for whatever permits are needed to fix a public project that affects lots of people?

How about, ask Sound Transit at L&I for a contact at L&I and ask them why it takes weeks to approve repair of an escalator. Or even better, what if Sound Transit won’t give you a name? Or if L&I won’t tell you why. Or if it turns out, this is just an excuse by someone at Sound Transit for the delay. All promising fodder for an interesting story. Even better, maybe a journalist contacting them will help get the bureaucracy moving here.

DB McWeeberton
DB McWeeberton
7 years ago
Reply to  le.gai.savant

It’s odd that this small thing is such a problem. Light rail in general is so great, and works so well. I’ve been riding it nearly every day since the UW and Capitol Hill stations opened, and most of the (very rare) delays have been fixed immediately. But the escalators failing seems to be a daily occurrence. Seems like it would be the simplest part of the whole operation.

Tom l
Tom l
7 years ago

The reason they will not let you walk on the escalator is because if you have a load of people walking on the escalator and the brake fails the escalator will start to free fall in the down direction and people will get hurt. And then the lawsuits will start to fly !!!

joanna
7 years ago

I say so what, it the Capitol Hill Station is less than a year old. There have been continuing elevator and escalator problems at Mount Baker and SeaTac over time. There is no excuse not to use lessons learned to install high quality, working equipment.

Tom
Tom
7 years ago
Reply to  joanna

Unfortunately you will never see high quality escalators installed because of the bid process to win the contract. Low bid means cheap quality escalators.

joanna
7 years ago

Well they did well on the other pieces through bid processes. Bid processes should account for success. At this point I wonder if the poor quality and shoddy elevator and escalator problems have more to do with the contractor having some type of inside track with electeds or high up ST executives. They have had decades to address this.

Josh
Josh
7 years ago
Reply to  joanna

Conspiratorial but possible. I don’t have the time to look into this, but her is a link that could get you started: https://fortress.wa.gov/lni/wagelookup/searchforms.aspx

gary
gary
7 years ago

The escalator was invented over 125 years ago and there over 35,000 in the USA alone. You would think statistically there should be very few incidents (accidents or breakdowns).
I can be very frustrating with little information provided, which leads most to believe a cover-up (why) or better yet, incompetence (more believable), or unconcerned. Probably all of the above.
It would be great to see detailed costs to maintaining our transportation systems.

Robert
Robert
7 years ago

They are working this as of this afternoon!!!