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There's one in every crowd

By adamg on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 2:01pm
Escalator and stairs at Porter Square

Jared May looked up the stairs today from the bottom of the T's deepest subway stop, at Porter Square (actually, if you look closely, you can see there are two in this crowd - there's a second person higher up the stairs).

Neighborhoods: 
Cambridge
Topics: 
The T
Free tagging: 
Red Line
Porter Square


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Comments

By anon² on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 2:20pm.

And you probably burn a bottle of soda off. It's the small things!

By SwirlyGrrl on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 3:03pm.

But then I got old. I can still handle the cardio load, but the extra exercise isn't worth the wear and tear on the knees.

By JamesH on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 3:03pm.

Main span is 117 steps, add in the top and bottom staircases, and that's 199. At 0.15 cal/step, thats 30 calories. About as much as in 3 oz of Coke. Reminds me of those little novelty bottles they used to sell.

By SwirlyGrrl on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 5:20pm.

The caloric burn is highly mass dependent.

By HeyNonney on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 2:41pm.

It's a good exercise. brutal, but good. I go through there every day and every once in a while I force myself to take the massive hike. Of course, every once in a while all 3 escalators are broken and everyone is forced to climb all the stairs, and I swear it only happens on days when I'm carrying an extra 30 lbs in my backpack.

By Ari O on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 3:11pm.

117 stairs, so about 80 feet.

By tcf098 on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 3:29pm.

I'd love to try it, but I have a feeling that about half-way up, I'd be trying to straddle the railing to flop myself over to the escalator side.

By Middle-aged-guy on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 3:53pm.

Mid-50s and lanky, I always do it.

The first few times were slow, now it's fun.

Two steps at a time is easier than one, but YMMV.

By Boston_res on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 4:57pm.

Going every other step, and flying like the wind! Then I got to the top, and realized how bad of an idea that was. The world started to go dark, and well, I'm happy I didn't do it again.

By roadman on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 6:22pm.

At least the stairs at Porter don't break down like the escalators do.

By Anon on Mon, 03/03/2014 - 11:02pm.

Yet.

But I'm sure that the T is working on it.

By octr202 on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 7:55am.

...at least there are stairs at Porter. A lot of the Metro stations (and there's a lot with these "longest escalators outside Russia") have three escalators and no stairs at all on the primary entrance/exit routes. But then again, some aspects of the Metro were a triumph of form over function.

And yes, DC's escalators break down just as much, if not more than the T's.

By Eighthman on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 9:18pm.

One station (Forest Glen) doesn't even have escalators. There are 6 big elevators to take you nearly 200 feet underground. It takes more than 2 minutes to ride the escalator at the Wheaton station.

By GoBruins on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 9:37am.

An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.

By Scratchie on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 1:27pm.

Except you do see "Out of Order" signs when they rip out some of the stairs and leave them that way for a week.

"Every photo of you is a picture from when you were younger."

By Michael Kerpan on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 4:34pm.

Some escalators are apparently designed in such a way that they can't take full loads of people on them when stopped.

By cmbeat on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 5:44pm.

I had a friend that worked as a salesperson for escalators. At least back in the 90's, they designed them with a higher rise (distance between horizontal surfaces) than regular stairs to discourage people from walking up them too fast/too much. With them moving and the gap between the stairs and the fixed sides waiting to gobble up shoes, clothes, hair, skin they want to limit their liability from people losing their balance. Fine if it isn't moving but when they become stairs, you notice the difference in the rise.

By acer98foo on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 9:12pm.

The Broken Escalator Effect is a real thing that has been documented.

By anon on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 8:02am.

I don't always take the stairs but quite often. A lot of times there are just too many people squeezing on to the escalators and being difficult to those that try to pass on the left. In that situation, I'd rather take the stairs. I go every other step but then I enjoy hiking.

By The Scotsman on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 8:44am.

It would probably take me a half hour