Clark/Lake Escalator: From Inconvenient to Hot Mess

By Alexander Hough in News on Jul 29, 2011 6:00PM

Perhaps you, like us, assumed that when the the subway-to-concourse escalator at the east end of the Clark/Lake Blue line station stopped working in late-May, the CTA was fixing it during off hours.

It was a reasonable assumption. There may be no more important entrance/exit in the CTA system: Clark/Lake is the second busiest CTA station, and that specific escalator vitally connects the Blue line, the CTA's second busiest line, to the Thompson Center and every other L route besides the Red and Yellow lines. It's a transfer point for travelers going to and from both major airports.

Damn our naivete! The frustrating reality set in when we exited the train Monday morning and saw that the broken escalator, which had been valiantly serving as a giant metal staircase, had been entombed in a wooden mausoleum, funneling the mass of commuters - and the unfortunate few trying to move downstairs - to the single adjacent stairwell.

The escalator in question was made by the U.S.-based Montgomery Elevator Company over 20 years ago, and the malfunction was the result of just plain wearing out. Montgomery was acquired in 1994 by the Finnish company KONE, and the replacement parts had to be made from scratch in Germany, a process that took several weeks - or exactly as long as the period between when the escalator stopped working and when the wood barricade went up on Friday, July 22.

In case you're wondering, the CTA does do regular maintenance on its escalators. "Escalators across the system undergo routine maintenance on a weekly basis, which includes the oiling/greasing of key operating components," CTA spokesperson Catherine Hosinski told us. "More in-depth inspections of gears, bearings, and motor components can only be performed during a preventative maintenance session, which are scheduled approximately every 18 months. These inspections require escalators to be removed from service for approximately seven working days."

These are all things you can think about while shuffling towards the lone staircase or while you take a ride in the 12-person elevator/urinal.

It's inconvenient, to be sure, but everything's on the official up-and-up: the Americans with Disabilities Act doesn't count escalators as a means of egress. That's interesting, if only because it lends credence to our belief that all you able-bodied people should continue to walk up escalators instead of texting or being lazy.

The escalator is estimated to be fixed by September 16, although Hosinski is optimistic the repairs will be completed before then. Maybe it was Hosinski's confidence or maybe it's just our naivete once again, but we're optimistic, too.