Two escalator brake failures in five days sent passengers flying down to the bottom — and landed four in the hospital, putting the spotlight on Metro’s deteriorating escalator performance.
Both brake failures happened when the escalators were packed. The first occurred after Saturday’s rally on the National Mall when a L’Enfant Plaza station escalator went into free fall; the second came on Wednesday night at Gallery Place-Chinatown, where witnesses said a station escalator suddenly sped up on passengers who were leaving the Washington Capitals game.
Metro safety officials presented a preliminary report on the weekend incident Thursday morning. Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said officials investigated the second incident on Thursday.
“It was determined that one of the escalators did need a new brake, so they will be installing it when [the part] is available either today or tomorrow,” she said.
The accidents are two blows to an agency already plagued by worsening escalator performance. According to Metro data, the average escalator reliability has fallen three straight years to 90.5 percent in 2009.
Even then, some Metro Board members believe escalator performance is much worse.
“When I give people that 90 percent number, they never believe me,” board member Jeff McKay said at an October meeting.
The L’Enfant report said the sheer volume of the passengers on the escalator — on a day when Metro broke a ridership record — contributed to the malfunction.
“When the escalator shut down [due to the volume], the brakes engaged but failed due to the passenger load,” Metro Deputy Chief of Rail Safety Robert Maniuszko told the committee.
“After the distinct sound of a metallic ‘bang,’ ” he said, the escalator went into an 18-second free fall.
Passengers “piled up at the bottom” and six were injured; two declined medical attention. One of the four sent to the hospital suffered a “severe laceration and possibly internal injury,” Maniuszko said.
An inspection of the brakes revealed one had oil on it, another “showed wear” and a third was in good condition. Farbstein said the agency is investigating the escalator and the adjacent ones for the “root cause” of the failure but is not conducting a sweeping inspection of all 588 escalators in the system.
The L’Enfant escalator was last inspected in September and investigators are reviewing those records, according to Maniuszko. The unit was
installed in 1977 and rehabbed in 2004.
Samuel Robfogel, a witness to the Saturday accident, said he wants more accountability from Metro.
Samuel Robfogel, a witness to the Saturday accident, said he wants more accountability from Metro.
“My confidence is shaken,” said Robfogel, a university administrator in the District. “And Metro still hasn’t released a statement about it. I just want to know that these things are being addressed and being taken seriously. I want to know what went wrong and what’s going to be done to fix it.”
Christopher Zimmerman, chairman of the Metro Board’s safety committee, said Thursday afternoon he had not heard of the Gallery Place malfunction but that “it is of great concern any time something like this occurs.”
Zimmerman, who has served on Metro’s board since 1998, said malfunctions of this severity — where the units speed up — are rare.
“I haven’t previously heard of anything like this happening,” he said.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Broken-Metro-escalators-send-riders-flying-106739773.html#ixzz14SJrUmC4
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