Escalating excitement for everybody

I had an interesting talk with my roommate, Atif, last night about the merits of escalator systems. Atif, a worldly gentleman with an acute interest in urban development, described to me how the Public Transportation system in Kiev, Ukraine contains no such escalators and, instead, utilizes an extended ramp system to facilitate subway riders issuing forth from the train platform to sunlight and vice versa. From the sounds of it, however, the subway trains run essentially directly below the ground. Therefore, although the idea of conserving electricity, encouraging exercise, and simplifying the aesthetic tantalizes the imagination, it simply isn’t practical in every metropolitan area.

DC constitutes one such area where subways cannot always run directly below the ground. Due to gentle, but consistent elevation changes, a meandering creek bed with a steep, deep drop, and the depth of stable ground at some locations, DC’s metro boasts some of the longest escalators in the world. In particular, the Wheaton Metro on DC’s Red Line hosts the longest escalator in the Western Hemisphere at a length of 230 feet (the Forest Glen station, just preceding the Wheaton station, is actually deeper at 196 feet, but the only access in and out is via elevator).

Which leads me to my next point: why didn’t anybody tell me about the escalator system in Hong Kong. Jerks. For the unschooled riff-raff like myself, Hong Kong boasts the world’s longest outdoor escalator system in the world. The escalator system provides such essential transportation for Hong Kong’s commuting masses, that they treat it like an expressway in the United States (think Seattle). In the morning, the escalators operate only downhill for the workers to descend to the business districts, and then operate from 10am until midnight only uphill. This escalator system, christened the Mid-Levels Escalator, consists of 20 escalators and 3 moving sidewalks. It is 800 meters long, and climbs 135 vertical meters. If you were the typical American and let the escalator do all the work, total travel time takes 20 minutes.

I just gotta know, has anybody ever run the entire 800 meters upward against the down escalators? Epic.