BART makes progress on escalator repairs by marshalling extra resources
BART has repaired ten escalators this week as it continues a full court press to tackle an unusually large number of escalator outages. Four of the escalators returned to service are at BART’s four downtown San Francisco stations, the busiest in the system. As of 9AM Friday, 19 station escalators remain out of service systemwide, nine of them at the busy downtown San Francisco Stations.
In addition to diverting BART staff to aid with the escalator repair effort, BART has also brought in teams from four private contractors. A fifth contractor will join the effort Monday. Qualified technicians from All American, Otis, Schindler, Empire and Kone are working on escalators in tandem with BART crews.
“This is nothing less than a full court press to get these escalators back in service,” BART Assistant General Manager of Operations Paul Oversier said. “We know the escalator outages are frustrating for many of our customers. Over the past several weeks we have marshaled all the available resources, from both within the District and using private contractors, to get escalators back into service. We haven’t completed the job yet, but we’ve made significant headway and will continue to focus on those stations with the highest ridership that have out of service escalators. With the level of resources that we currently have directed to this repair effort, we are on track for our customers to see a marked improvement within the next two weeks."
BART has 179 escalators and 140 elevators throughout the 44-station system. BART’s goal is to have at least 95% of the street escalators and 98% percent of the elevators in service. Elevators are critically important for access to the disabled, so elevator updates are available via email at bart.gov/alerts or by visiting bart.gov/sms to learn about on-demand updates via text message or by calling our Elevator Availability phone line: (510)834-LIFT or (888)235-3828.
ESCALATORS RETURNED TO SERVICE THIS WEEK
Embarcadero
Powell Street (2)
Montgomery
Daly City
19th St. Oakland
Dublin/Pleasanton
West Dublin/Pleasanton (2)
South Hayward
Updated: Friday, June 8, 2012 5:31 pm to reflect additional elevators back in service