Sound Transit has promised to spend millions to upgrade and fix its frequently breaking escalators and elevators. Operation of the conveyances, which are crucial to passenger accessibility and safety, have fallen below the transit agency’s targets.
In a recent meeting of the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board, a Sound Transit representative presented the work the agency was doing to mitigate the problem.
Between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2022, Sound Transit documented 762 escalator and elevator outages, averaging 127 a month. Thirty-eight percent of outages are caused by mechanical failures, 32 percent by passenger misuse, 15 percent by environmental factors and 12 percent by power outages.
According to Sound Transit spokesperson John Gallagher, “misuse” can include passengers hitting the emergency stop button for no reason, jumping on the escalator, riding on the handrail or carrying a bike on the escalator, inadvertently hitting the escalator’s connecting plating.
The problem is particularly acute in the downtown tunnel stations, where 29 percent of escalators and 16 percent of elevators were non-operational in the first seven months of 2022. Sound Transit, which took over management of the downtown tunnels at the start of 2021, is currently upgrading the downtown elevators and escalators. It is budgeted to spend a total of $8.7 million on the renovations.
Outside of downtown, escalator and elevator coverage is more consistent. Those machines work more than 90 percent of the time. That’s still below the agency's goal of functioning 95 and 97 percent, respectively.
According to records obtained by Real Change, Sound Transit spent $1.16 million on escalator and elevator maintenance between January 2020 and April 2022. Eighty-five percent of maintenance costs were not tied to any specific outage, including more than $435,000 in monthly maintenance.
Roughly $172,000 was spent by the agency fixing escalator and elevator outages. Of this, 70 percent of maintenance dollars were spent on outages caused by environmental factors, 13 percent due to vandalism, 7 percent due to mechanical issues and 7 percent due to passenger misuse.
Compounding the frequent outages is the lack of a reporting system. Gallagher said that Sound Transit relies on reports from staff and passengers to identify when escalators and elevators break down.
“At present, we do not have a system in place to alert us when an escalator or elevator goes out of service, although we are working to develop such a system,” he wrote.
Sound Transit currently operates 193 escalators and elevators across its transit system. It is projected to operate 312 conveyances in 2025 and as many as 575 by 2041. As the agency continues to grow, it will have to grapple with increasing challenges to maintain accessibility and safety for all passengers.
Sound Transit said that it encourages people who notice an elevator or escalator outage at one of their stations to report it to the on-site security guard or call security at (206) 398-5268.
Guy Oron is the staff reporter for Real Change. He handles coverage of our weekly news stories. Find them on Twitter, @GuyOron.
Read more of the Aug. 24-30, 2022 issue.