Long Escalators
Los Angeles: Barely an underground metro system. Amsterdam: Not much of an underground system. Paris: A very extensive albeit shallow underground system. My point being that it was not until I went to Stockholm that I had the privelege of seeing a very long escalator (center picture). I thought the Swedes were pretty odd to dig so far down and figured only such a high tax country could afford the maintenance such escalators surely require. I wasn't so much impressed that these long escalators existed, but rather that they functioned reliably. I later discovered that Prague and Budapest have equally long escalators if not longer (Prague yellow line). Prague escalators were moving kind of slow (yellow line excluded) but they all provided a good opportunity for text messaging...on the way down to let your friend know you're hopping on the metro...on the way up, to announce you've arrived.
Very often there are 3 escalators together, perhaps to allow 1 to break down. But since they usually all work, it's 2 down, 1 up or vice versa. One remarkably annoying yet common configuration is when the 2 outer tracks are going one way and the middle track is going the opposite. It just results in very bad traffic flow, because people on the middle track will have to go left or right and in both cases they will cross in front of people walking straight into them.
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Very often there are 3 escalators together, perhaps to allow 1 to break down. But since they usually all work, it's 2 down, 1 up or vice versa. One remarkably annoying yet common configuration is when the 2 outer tracks are going one way and the middle track is going the opposite. It just results in very bad traffic flow, because people on the middle track will have to go left or right and in both cases they will cross in front of people walking straight into them.
Labels: escalators, prague, stockholm
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