Tom Durning submits, from Transportation Nation:
The 12,000 residents of one hilly Medellin neighborhood used to climb the equivalent of 28 stories to get from the city center to their homes. But an arduous 30-minute walk has been transformed into a five-minute ride, with the installation of an urban escalator system.
The escalator is divided into six stages and cost about US$6.7 million to construct.
Press reports call Comuna 13 one of Medellin’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods. Which makes it ripe for transformation, according to city officials.
Rafael Nanclares, Medellin’s secretary of transportation and transit … tweeted a photo o
f a banner hung on the side of a building that read: “What pride! We live in the only neighborhood in the world with public escalators.”
Nanclares said the escalators would make it easier for residents to get to school and work. A major goal of the escalator is to connect Comuna 13 with the economic center of the city–both literally and figuratively. “It’s a way to give presence to people who don’t have a presence,” he said. The ambitious project is as much statement of support to an overlooked community as it is transportation improvement as he sees it.
Carlos Pardo, a consultant for the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), pointed out that the city has been working to improve mobility for its poorest residents. “This escalator is part of a broader range of initiatives in Medellin,” he said. The city has recently inaugurated a bike share program and a bus rapid transit system. Parts of the city also have a cable car– but the necessary distance between stations made an escalator a better choice for Comuna 13.
I think you should (or he should check his facts first. Hong Kong was the first city with public hill climbing escalators. I do believe that escalators are a great form of transit, Would it possibly work on Burnaby Mountain. Maybe it’s just too long a distance. http://www.12hk.com/area/Central/MidLevelEscalators.shtml