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Group to MTA: Post status of broken escalators

By Matthew Sweeney | msweeney@am-ny.com

May 6, 2008

The escalator at Union Square Subway Station at the corner of East 14th Street and Union Square West has been out-of-service for over a year. The responsibility for the escalator is shared between the MTA and the owners of the commercial building Zackendorf Towers. MTA Commuters have had to use the adjacent staircases to make their to and from the subway. (Dennis W. Ho / April 23, 2008)

The Straphangers Campaign Monday called on NYC Transit to make a public accounting of all the broken escalators and elevators in the subway system that are privately owned.

"First, the failure to list these escalators and elevators undermines the credibility and usefulness of New York City Transit's reporting," said Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for NYPIRG's Straphangers Campaign wrote in a letter to transit president Howard Roberts. "From the public's point of view, a broken escalator is broken, no matter who owns it. Second, posting the status of these facilities could help put pressure on the independent operators to fix them."

Russianoff said the letter followed a series of stories in amNewYork that detailed long-standing problems with broken escalators at Union Square and at 53rd and Third Avenue, all of which are privately owned. The escalators at those locations seemed to have fallen through the cracks, remaining broken for years, as no one was held accountable for repairs.

The escalators were part of deals that the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority struck with real estate developers giving builders lucrative expansions to their construction projects above ground in return for building and maintaining amenities to the subway stations below.

Russianoff said Roberts deserves credit for the MTA Web page that keeps a running list of transit-operated escalators and elevators that are out of service. "It's hard to believe that 14th Street [Union Square] isn't on the list because it's privately owned," he said.

A transit spokesman could not be reached for comment last night.