Commuters Take Woodside's Infamous 7-Train Escalator To Task

WOODSIDE, QUEENS — The 61st Street-Woodside subway stop has an unlikely celebrity: the station's lone escalator.

The 19-year-old Woodside resident has such a habit of breaking or shutting down that it's become a fixture of those social media corners where 7-train commuters go to vent.

How often does it break?

"The question is how long it's broken for," said Flushing resident Mario Luna, 61, laughing, as he headed into the station.

The Woodside escalator was available about 80 percent of the time during the first quarter of 2019, compared to a systemwide average of 90 percent during the same period. That makes it the third worst in Queens, after escalators at the Flushing-Main Street and 74th Street-Broadway stations on the 7 line.

At one point it went out of service for 10 straight days in January so the MTA could make emergency repairs, according to a NYC Transit Committee report.

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The escalator was only available about half of the time during the month of April, though availability jumped to 67 percent during May. (Escalator availability dropped systemwide in April as part of a systemwide inspection and repair campaign, according to the MTA.)

"Our Subway Action Plan has prioritized resources for our proactive maintenance program for elevators and escalators, which unlike most commercial and residential units are in heavy use ‪24/7‬," an MTA spokeswoman said in a statement.

The culprit for the outages tends to be scheduled maintenance service, the MTA spokeswoman said. Of the nine times the Woodside escalator went out of service in April, seven were to make scheduled repairs, she added.

About two-thirds of the escalator's outages during the first quarter of 2019 were scheduled, MTA data shows.

Don’t comprehend where all our city + state tax monies are going to. 2 weeks no escalator working @MTA #Woodside Train station! There’s so many elderly folks walking up these stairs! Let’s get it together! pic.twitter.com/n1CjnaJHkp
— AVENUE SIX Boutique (@ZariBatista) April 30, 2019

@NYCTSubway none of your card machines accept credit/debit, the escalator at 61st-Woodside breaks down every day. Elevator will be next to go at this point. A horde of old ladies and myself are pissed.
— pam (@pamelabeez) May 3, 2019

@NYCTSubway is the escalator at 61st St Woodside ever going to work or nah
— caressa (@CaressaCrawford) May 15, 2019

The escalator has a recurring issue with its comb-stop switch, which acts as the escalator's emergency brake. A specialist is studying a permanent fix.

That isn't likely to appease those commuters who take to social media every time they spot the escalator shut down.

"In all my years living here I’ve never seen such a failure," Woodside resident George McCook said.