I was wondering if there’s something different about the escalator manufacturer or design. Like longer landing areas or boarding area with extended hand rails. If you had any familiarity with them.
Op is probably referring to the history of conflict between Ukraine and Russia specifically, for example when Ukraine lost its war of independence against the Red Army. Stalin purged Ukraine quite thoroughly then by starvation.
Yes, they are used as air raid shelters, but they were designed like that in the first place. Some of them lie really deep - especially the ones in the city center.
Kyiv metro is one of the deepest in the world. We have one station that is 105 meters deep. So even with fast escalators, it feels like an eternity to go up and down there.
The longest escalators in the Eastern hemisphere, at Wheaton Metro, which I've ridden many times, are apparently the same speed according to Wikipedia. So my gut feeling of maybe they did that because maybe they're short doesn't hold
I remember taking the escalators in Moscow in the 80s and thinking they were freakishly fast. According to this article they are not that fast. I wonder if they lowered the speed or it was just my lack of familiarity with long escalators.
You are not wrong. I have tried some of the faster ones in Prague and Kiev.
The difference in numbers does not sound like much but it sure does in real life.
The speed combined with the wind can be quite wild.
I lived in DTLA for several years and regularly used Little Tokyo/Arts District station. It was not uncommon during peak hours to see people - myself included sliding down the railing.
I am 43 years old now and was much younger then (27-35) but I remember these days fondly. Now I live in NYC where public transit it so much better that this and many other issues that plague LA (especially the redline) do not exist but I do miss those days and look back on them fondly.
I still have at least 1 scar I can attribute to trying this whilst wearing the wrong pants (in terms of fabric).
NYC has a lot of money, but this is a huge project, involving continuous disruption to a system that must continue carrying 6 million people per day throughout its completion. The NYC subway has more stations than any other metro system on earth, with 424 stations, of which 133 are already accessible. Hitting 95% by 2055 means around 10/year on average for the next 29 years. While it could always be better, for a system that is over 120 years old, this seems not too terrible to me.
Also, not every subway station is equal. Some see significantly higher ridership than others, or are more critical transfer points, and so can be prioritized to have more impact sooner. It seems like that is what they’re doing.
"Your grandkids might some day dream of having accessible subway stations" is such a civilizational failure that we've just silently accepted
I agree that the timelines are a real problem, but that's for the long tail. The major transfer stations are mostly there today and the remaining few are on track to get there in the next few years.
NYC has a lot of stations. There are some that basically cannot be made fully compliant with the full spectrum of ADA accessibility requirements, which are actually on the more comprehensive side of the spectrum compared to other countries.
Some of it makes more sense when you see it. There's a station built underneath the pillars of a bridge. Right now they're trying to figure out how to add a second entrance and exit as a first step, but as you can imagine operating on a station under a bridge is hard. It's also the only station in the neighborhood, so you can't just shut it down for a year. Getting it to the point of having full elevator/escalator and other ADA compliant requirements for new construction is basically out of the question without having the most out of control construction project you've seen.
So the long tail of stations are going to take a very long time to get updated, if ever.
The MTA also has far more stations than any other US system, indeed more than any other metro system on Earth.
The NYC subway has 424 stations. The next highest in the US is the L in Chicago, with 146, followed by DC, with 98.
Seems natural it would take longer, though that is scant comfort to the people who need them. NYC has 133 accessible stations, which is 91% of the L’s total station count.
I remember I extensively used Berlin public transport nearly 30y ago and was annoyed how you couldn't use it with a stroller because of the lack of "accessibility"
I then realized "accessibility" translates straight to: mobility with little children. which affects many many additional people, but it's rarely in the public discourse anywhere.
in Paris in 2019 I then saw parents with tiny light-weight sit-on micro scooters, as a creative work-around to the parental public mobility challenge.
I lived in DTLA for several years and regularly used Little Tokyo/Arts District station. It was not uncommon during peak hours to see people - myself included sliding down the railing.
The Little Tokyo stop had no stairs or escalators before 2023, since it was at grade then. Do you mean a different stop?
Also, the busiest stations with huge escalator length, like Union Station or Wilshire/Vermont, have so much open space that escalators are rarely a bottleneck in my experience. 7th St/Metro station is crazy crowded, but the escalators are short and people usually give you room to run down the escalator.
The only station I worry about for future congestion is the Grand Ave station, which has no escalators, but is so deep that you have to take an elevator since walking stairs is not reasonable except for emergencies.
Yep, you are correct. I am just now realizing that maybe this is why there was such a culture around it. Lil Tokyo was closest to this spot and we regularly would grab things from Sakura Market for each other, talk random shit etc... one day this guy was scared/sad about a girl he really liked and we convinced him to approach her and so we played Lupe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhuYwE-gAn0) on the whole ride - much to the annoyance of the other passengers.
There was also a respect that I cant forget; almost like it was a rhythm. Never a rush to beat someone else to the train. I remember that for a time due to our schedules we would meet at the top, smoke a J and chat for as long as we could then slide down and catch the redline (now called the B Line*) and part ways.
Note: He got the girl. we all lost contact - hope he/they are dong well.
\Note: I wonder if the redline was renamed because of the level of violence or if it was because of the purple line expansion.
There aren’t many primary and secondary colors. If you plan to have a more comprehensive system you’ll run out pretty quick. Chicago comes to mind. The newest one is pink and I’m not sure what they’d do if they built a new one.
[increasing speeds would save] about 670,000 hours a year.
Are they the bottleneck? How many fewer/additional injuries would result from increasing escalator speeds? (Do people get good thinking done during their climbs and descents?)
Anyway, using the escalator would mean not jogging up/down the stairs as is my instinct.
According to the video from clan, speeding up escalators above about .75m/s results people leaving gaps between each other, so the speed increase is negated by a volume decrease.
or even save transmission of a couple communicable diseases
There is probably an upper bound to the ‘saves infection’ effect of the increases speed and resulting greater commuter spacing. As the speed goes up people will want to hold the hand rail, and collect each other’s diseases.
Some stations in Prague were at 200 cm/s, according to some sources [0] before EU regulations cut it to a maximum of 90 cm/s (TFA puts Prague at 65 cm/s today, and you know, I'm not on a Prague escalator right now, so I suppose I'll trust them).
I can't find a better source for just how fast the Prague escalators were, but as an occasional user they seemed more than twice as fast as London or Paris which TFA gives as 65-75 cm/s.
They felt dangerous to step onto, but I never saw anyone actually have an accident. The metro in Prague is also deeper than most.
I'm a little surprised there's no data here from the Montréal or Toronto metro systems! I think Canada has the same escalator speed limit as the US, so I expect them to be similar.
The speed is fine, need to be safe for old folks and kids. The important part is that people move over so those in a hurry/need exercise can continue walking.
I once worked in a Japanese tower for a few weeks. The office was on the 6th floor. I'd play beat-the-elevator with my coworkers. They'd get in the machine, as I casually leaned against the wall.
As soon as the doors closed, I'd sprint up the stairs, with the intent of lounging against the wall, pretending I am not breathing hard, and pretending to look at my watch.
Unfortunately, I rarely made it past the 5th floor sprinting. But there was still enough time to walk up the last flight and implement my evil plan.
My coworkers just looked at me with their "gaijin" expression.
It's interesting that escalators generally run slower in the US since their inventor was American: Jesse W. Reno.
It does seem like a bit of a trend in engineering that the first to get there set slower standards that others then copy, speed up and otherwise improve upon. See Britain and trains.
On that note, the very same Jesse W. Reno tried to build a spiral escalator in London in 1906 in Holloway Road tube station, the shaft for which still exists today. It never made it into production aparrently, but goes with the trend.
In the south terminal at Seatac airport, there's a long escalator from the subway. Everybody crams onto the escalator, I just go up the adjoining steps two at a time and get there long before everyone else.
I just don't understand people who are content with just standing there on the escalator. And I mean able-bodied people, about to sit for hours on an airplane.
Of all the places to judge people for taking an escalator, you pick an airport? Where you have people with heavy luggage, people traveling in groups of mixed mobility, people who spent the entirety of the preceding days walking around looking at sights, people who didn't sleep well on an unfamiliar hotel bed?
Or given a non-airport station, I've found myself standing on the escalator during my morning commute ever since I ramped up my exercise routine. So when you see me, I'm standing because I hit a PR on my squats earlier that morning, or because I finished a 14k run less than an hour ago.
There are quite a few confounding factors at play in Britain with regards trains. The UK is quite small and infrastructure like railways takes up space and competes with roads and so on. There is the need for bridges and tunnels to accommodate crossings with other methods of transport or itself or to traverse topography.
A first stab at really high speed rail here called APT Advanced Passenger Train involved engines and carriages that tilted. It seems that the journalists on the demo run were so pissed (drunk) that it was given horrific reviews and the idea was shelved. That might have been our really fast railway links.
We did get HST 125 (High Speed Train) which in the early '80s did look pretty fancy compared to the older blunt nosed locomotives that they replaced.
Can confirm the Kyiv metro escalators are both significantly faster and generally longer than London - the combination can be a little scary the first few times.
What fascinates me is SF. The epicenter of world's future, but when physically there it doesn't quite look "futuristic". I'd say SF is more charming that cyberpunk. The roads, the homes, even my personal favorites Hayes street and Alamo square park don't really feel like the future is here. Let alone slow escalators.
But as soon as I spoke with a few people out there, it hit my me like a truck. It's the concentration of the people who are literally building the future that make SF what it is.
SF has laws that make it a multi-year process just to get the permits to refurbish a building, before any construction even starts. The end result is that most of the city is frozen in the 70s.
LA: 0.46 meters/s (1 mph)
Hong Kong: 0.75 meters/s (1.7 mph)
Kyiv: 0.9 meters/s (2 mph)
Kinda slower than I expected in general. I assume the speed is mostly dictated by boarding/alighting safety.
Kyiv subway stations are also air raid shelters.[1] They may have decided that running the escalators fast to get people to safety is worth the risk.
[1] https://visitkyiv.com/visitor-essentials/kyiv-shelter-map/
That was standard across major Soviet cities.
They were running much faster than the “west” in 2015-2020 too, so I doubt that is the reason.
The Soviet Union used metros as shelters long before it broke apart. If it works for a nuclear war it works even better for conventional attacks.
I was wondering if there’s something different about the escalator manufacturer or design. Like longer landing areas or boarding area with extended hand rails. If you had any familiarity with them.
When building them, they probably didn’t expect to be hiding from Russian attacks.
That would be a naive reading of the history of the USSR.
Yeah, weren't subway stations in the USSR dual-purpose nuclear shelters?
I think you're talking about something else. Not all that much risk of self-nuking.
Well, Chernobyl...
I think I’m missing your point?
The USSR didn’t bomb it’s citizens all that often did it?
Op is probably referring to the history of conflict between Ukraine and Russia specifically, for example when Ukraine lost its war of independence against the Red Army. Stalin purged Ukraine quite thoroughly then by starvation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czecho...
Yes, they are used as air raid shelters, but they were designed like that in the first place. Some of them lie really deep - especially the ones in the city center.
Kyiv metro is one of the deepest in the world. We have one station that is 105 meters deep. So even with fast escalators, it feels like an eternity to go up and down there.
3mph is a pretty solid walk. 2 doesn't sound bad for an escalator.
It's not the speed of travel that gets you. It's the sudden rate change from/to walking speed.
The longest escalators in the Eastern hemisphere, at Wheaton Metro, which I've ridden many times, are apparently the same speed according to Wikipedia. So my gut feeling of maybe they did that because maybe they're short doesn't hold
That's what smartphoness are for ...
Decades of fecal matters gumming up the gears
I remember taking the escalators in Moscow in the 80s and thinking they were freakishly fast. According to this article they are not that fast. I wonder if they lowered the speed or it was just my lack of familiarity with long escalators.
You are not wrong. I have tried some of the faster ones in Prague and Kiev. The difference in numbers does not sound like much but it sure does in real life.
The speed combined with the wind can be quite wild.
You might also enjoy this comparison with London:
https://youtu.be/UWJot1Q2LgY
The video also explains that escalator speed is now set via international standards.
That video is surprisingly interesting.
Thank you.
I thought the escalators in the Budapest metro were pretty damn fast. I went there in 2005, not sure if they've changed them since.
I lived in DTLA for several years and regularly used Little Tokyo/Arts District station. It was not uncommon during peak hours to see people - myself included sliding down the railing.
I am 43 years old now and was much younger then (27-35) but I remember these days fondly. Now I live in NYC where public transit it so much better that this and many other issues that plague LA (especially the redline) do not exist but I do miss those days and look back on them fondly.
I still have at least 1 scar I can attribute to trying this whilst wearing the wrong pants (in terms of fabric).
Unfortunately NY transit sucks if you're disabled and can't deal with stairs.
I didn't know this but given the multiple: "This is an accessible station" alerts it makes sense. Hopefully this is something that can change soon.
A bunch of the congestion fee $ is going towards more elevators (and maintenance).
The current plan aims to have the subway system 95% accessible by 2055.
<https://www.mta.info/project/station-accessibility-upgrades>
(Of the old US subway systems, MTA seems to be the most lackadaisical in actually making their system accessible.)
I love the ridiculous year end-dates on American infrastructure projects.
"Your grandkids might some day dream of having accessible subway stations" is such a civilizational failure that we've just silently accepted.
Hey, at least the USA has curb cuts
NYC has a lot of money, but this is a huge project, involving continuous disruption to a system that must continue carrying 6 million people per day throughout its completion. The NYC subway has more stations than any other metro system on earth, with 424 stations, of which 133 are already accessible. Hitting 95% by 2055 means around 10/year on average for the next 29 years. While it could always be better, for a system that is over 120 years old, this seems not too terrible to me.
Also, not every subway station is equal. Some see significantly higher ridership than others, or are more critical transfer points, and so can be prioritized to have more impact sooner. It seems like that is what they’re doing.
I agree that the timelines are a real problem, but that's for the long tail. The major transfer stations are mostly there today and the remaining few are on track to get there in the next few years.
NYC has a lot of stations. There are some that basically cannot be made fully compliant with the full spectrum of ADA accessibility requirements, which are actually on the more comprehensive side of the spectrum compared to other countries.
Some of it makes more sense when you see it. There's a station built underneath the pillars of a bridge. Right now they're trying to figure out how to add a second entrance and exit as a first step, but as you can imagine operating on a station under a bridge is hard. It's also the only station in the neighborhood, so you can't just shut it down for a year. Getting it to the point of having full elevator/escalator and other ADA compliant requirements for new construction is basically out of the question without having the most out of control construction project you've seen.
So the long tail of stations are going to take a very long time to get updated, if ever.
The MTA also has far more stations than any other US system, indeed more than any other metro system on Earth.
The NYC subway has 424 stations. The next highest in the US is the L in Chicago, with 146, followed by DC, with 98.
Seems natural it would take longer, though that is scant comfort to the people who need them. NYC has 133 accessible stations, which is 91% of the L’s total station count.
I remember I extensively used Berlin public transport nearly 30y ago and was annoyed how you couldn't use it with a stroller because of the lack of "accessibility"
I then realized "accessibility" translates straight to: mobility with little children. which affects many many additional people, but it's rarely in the public discourse anywhere.
in Paris in 2019 I then saw parents with tiny light-weight sit-on micro scooters, as a creative work-around to the parental public mobility challenge.
but 2055? ooof.
Paris, too.
The Little Tokyo stop had no stairs or escalators before 2023, since it was at grade then. Do you mean a different stop?
Also, the busiest stations with huge escalator length, like Union Station or Wilshire/Vermont, have so much open space that escalators are rarely a bottleneck in my experience. 7th St/Metro station is crazy crowded, but the escalators are short and people usually give you room to run down the escalator.
The only station I worry about for future congestion is the Grand Ave station, which has no escalators, but is so deep that you have to take an elevator since walking stairs is not reasonable except for emergencies.
TY, you are correct; it was Civic Center/Grand Park: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_Center/Grand_Park_statio...
Thank you, I got to do down memory lane checking this.
It was not just this one, but the one before it from the street into the station that is IIRC at even more of an incline given that its on that hill.
Yep, you are correct. I am just now realizing that maybe this is why there was such a culture around it. Lil Tokyo was closest to this spot and we regularly would grab things from Sakura Market for each other, talk random shit etc... one day this guy was scared/sad about a girl he really liked and we convinced him to approach her and so we played Lupe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhuYwE-gAn0) on the whole ride - much to the annoyance of the other passengers.
There was also a respect that I cant forget; almost like it was a rhythm. Never a rush to beat someone else to the train. I remember that for a time due to our schedules we would meet at the top, smoke a J and chat for as long as we could then slide down and catch the redline (now called the B Line*) and part ways.
Note: He got the girl. we all lost contact - hope he/they are dong well.
\Note: I wonder if the redline was renamed because of the level of violence or if it was because of the purple line expansion.
There aren’t many primary and secondary colors. If you plan to have a more comprehensive system you’ll run out pretty quick. Chicago comes to mind. The newest one is pink and I’m not sure what they’d do if they built a new one.
Also, could have been that most people wanted to avoid pershing square.
Are they the bottleneck? How many fewer/additional injuries would result from increasing escalator speeds? (Do people get good thinking done during their climbs and descents?)
Anyway, using the escalator would mean not jogging up/down the stairs as is my instinct.
According to the video from clan, speeding up escalators above about .75m/s results people leaving gaps between each other, so the speed increase is negated by a volume decrease.
Thanks. Wonder if the gaps (and speed) increase satisfaction and/or even save transmission of a couple communicable diseases here and there.
There is probably an upper bound to the ‘saves infection’ effect of the increases speed and resulting greater commuter spacing. As the speed goes up people will want to hold the hand rail, and collect each other’s diseases.
They should hire you :D
Wonder if this article was inspired by this youtube video that came out a few weeks back. One of my top 5 watches of the month I'd hazard.
Where are the fastest escalators in the world? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWJot1Q2LgY
Some stations in Prague were at 200 cm/s, according to some sources [0] before EU regulations cut it to a maximum of 90 cm/s (TFA puts Prague at 65 cm/s today, and you know, I'm not on a Prague escalator right now, so I suppose I'll trust them).
I can't find a better source for just how fast the Prague escalators were, but as an occasional user they seemed more than twice as fast as London or Paris which TFA gives as 65-75 cm/s.
They felt dangerous to step onto, but I never saw anyone actually have an accident. The metro in Prague is also deeper than most.
[0] https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/prague-s-speedy-len...
Borderline off-topic, but Prague also have a "Paternoster Lift" (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/paternoster-lift-at-prag...) that seems well-maintained that I've always wanted to visit, but haven't had the chance yet.
There's also one in the Vienna city hall that's open to the public. The free guided tour of city hall is also worth the time.
I'm a little surprised there's no data here from the Montréal or Toronto metro systems! I think Canada has the same escalator speed limit as the US, so I expect them to be similar.
The speed is fine, need to be safe for old folks and kids. The important part is that people move over so those in a hurry/need exercise can continue walking.
I once worked in a Japanese tower for a few weeks. The office was on the 6th floor. I'd play beat-the-elevator with my coworkers. They'd get in the machine, as I casually leaned against the wall.
As soon as the doors closed, I'd sprint up the stairs, with the intent of lounging against the wall, pretending I am not breathing hard, and pretending to look at my watch.
Unfortunately, I rarely made it past the 5th floor sprinting. But there was still enough time to walk up the last flight and implement my evil plan.
My coworkers just looked at me with their "gaijin" expression.
It's interesting that escalators generally run slower in the US since their inventor was American: Jesse W. Reno.
It does seem like a bit of a trend in engineering that the first to get there set slower standards that others then copy, speed up and otherwise improve upon. See Britain and trains.
On that note, the very same Jesse W. Reno tried to build a spiral escalator in London in 1906 in Holloway Road tube station, the shaft for which still exists today. It never made it into production aparrently, but goes with the trend.
In the south terminal at Seatac airport, there's a long escalator from the subway. Everybody crams onto the escalator, I just go up the adjoining steps two at a time and get there long before everyone else.
I just don't understand people who are content with just standing there on the escalator. And I mean able-bodied people, about to sit for hours on an airplane.
Of all the places to judge people for taking an escalator, you pick an airport? Where you have people with heavy luggage, people traveling in groups of mixed mobility, people who spent the entirety of the preceding days walking around looking at sights, people who didn't sleep well on an unfamiliar hotel bed?
Or given a non-airport station, I've found myself standing on the escalator during my morning commute ever since I ramped up my exercise routine. So when you see me, I'm standing because I hit a PR on my squats earlier that morning, or because I finished a 14k run less than an hour ago.
The escalator is long after you've checked your bags and gone through security, so you've just got carryon.
The people you are referring to are a small minority. I'm usually the only one taking the steps.
If you're really in bad shape, there's an elevator.
"See Britain and trains."
There are quite a few confounding factors at play in Britain with regards trains. The UK is quite small and infrastructure like railways takes up space and competes with roads and so on. There is the need for bridges and tunnels to accommodate crossings with other methods of transport or itself or to traverse topography.
A first stab at really high speed rail here called APT Advanced Passenger Train involved engines and carriages that tilted. It seems that the journalists on the demo run were so pissed (drunk) that it was given horrific reviews and the idea was shelved. That might have been our really fast railway links.
We did get HST 125 (High Speed Train) which in the early '80s did look pretty fancy compared to the older blunt nosed locomotives that they replaced.
Is that what you meant?
The video in the link of this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49861051 says Jesse wasn't the inventor - seemed reasonably researched to me - skip to half a minute in.
We're laid back.
Can confirm the Kyiv metro escalators are both significantly faster and generally longer than London - the combination can be a little scary the first few times.
I remember the same in Tiblisi, Georgia!
Hm, the chart lists New York at the same typical speeds as LA. New York escalators have been fine in my experience.
If you think the escalators are slow, just wait until you have to suffer the prevailing walking speed.
What fascinates me is SF. The epicenter of world's future, but when physically there it doesn't quite look "futuristic". I'd say SF is more charming that cyberpunk. The roads, the homes, even my personal favorites Hayes street and Alamo square park don't really feel like the future is here. Let alone slow escalators.
But as soon as I spoke with a few people out there, it hit my me like a truck. It's the concentration of the people who are literally building the future that make SF what it is.
I can't be the only one fascinated by this!
SF has laws that make it a multi-year process just to get the permits to refurbish a building, before any construction even starts. The end result is that most of the city is frozen in the 70s.
I can't believe Singapore ain't number 1. Someone has to fix that!