Escalator Outage Means Uptowners Have To Climb Stairs Out Of Station

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — All three escalators at the 181st Street A train station are out of service, meaning that uptowners have to either wait for what can be crowded elevators or climb the equivalent of 10 flights of stairs to make it to the sidewalk.

Uptown residents told Patch that signs were put up Monday morning in the station saying that the escalators will not be replaced until February 2023.

The station is around 120-feet below street level.

It means that a person not wanting to wait for the newly replaced elevators in the station has to climb the equivalent of exactly one-third of a football field.

"They're all connected to the same machines that run the escalator, so unfortunately the only way to properly replace them, is to do them all at once," MTA Construction and Development President Jamie Torres-Springer, told NBC News.

"While we could have done a better job providing more advance notice of the outage, we will work going forward to ensure customers are provided as much information as possible on the availability of three elevators at the north end of the station," the MTA added to NBC News.

There are three elevators at the 181st Street A train station. The station is one of the deepest in all of New York City.

In 2018, 3,368,097 people swiped into the 181st Street A train station for the year, according to the MTA. That means 9,200 people passed through the station daily.

Using those numbers as a general benchmark, that's a lot of people choosing to climb 10-flights of stairs or waiting for three elevators.