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Hoofing It Out of the Subway
Hughes said the idea for the stairs conversion came from employees, who suggested stairs would be easier to maintain.
In 2000, Metro began a 10-year maintenance and rehabilitation plan for its escalators. So far, 194 have been overhauled.
  With broken escalators such as this one at Judiciary Square among the leading complaints of Metro commuters, officials are asking for the first time: "Should we put in stairs?" (By Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post) |
But the process is expensive, costing $240,000 to $500,000 per escalator. It is also time-consuming, with overhauls taking three to four months. The inconvenience to riders can last twice as long because side-by-side escalators are often repaired one after the other, and one has to be turned off while the other is being fixed.
It costs about $51,000 to maintain one escalator for a year. If all 23 selected units were converted to stairs, the agency could save close to $1.2 million every year.
Replacing escalators with stairs would also eliminate the need for expensive overhauls, Hughes said. Of the 23, 18 are scheduled to be overhauled, at a cost of about $250,000 per unit. If they did not overhaul them, there would be a one-time savings of $4.5 million, he said.
Still, it would take several years for Metro to recoup its costs. It would take about four months and cost $604,440 to replace an escalator with granite steps, bringing the cost to replace the 23 units to $13.9 million. Hughes said Metro would recover its investment in less than 10 years.
Some customers choose to walk up and down escalators, even when they don't have to. For the fitness-minded, having a set of steps "would give them the opportunity, if they want to take the stairs for health, to have that ability," Hughes said.
Other subway systems, including the London Underground, have had similar problems with overhauling escalators. But to address crowding and improve flow in the stations, London officials took the reverse approach in the escalators vs. stairs debate.
"Escalators are not being replaced with stairs to save on maintenance," said Roger Perkins, media relations officer for Metronet Rail, which is responsible for maintaining nine of the 12 subway lines in the London system. "In fact, quite the opposite." At each of two busy stations, he said, "we replaced a staircase down the center of two escalators with a third escalator to relieve congestion."
Special correspondent Karla Adam contributed to this report from London.
