NEW YORK - The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is letting riders down when it comes to escalators at the Second Avenue subway stations.
A report from the MTA's inspector general on Monday shows that escalators in the city's newest subway stations are frequently out of order, including seven that were out more often than others in Manhattan.
"They had one blocked off for like a few weeks so I'm hoping that its fixed now and they did some like more long term adjustments," a rider said. "That's a little frustrating, that they're only two years old and there has been issues with them."
The report, covering January 2017 to March 2018, found that just three of the 32 escalators at the Second Avenue subway stations - 72nd Street, 86th Street and 96th Street - were working regularly.
The inspector general called the outages at brand-new escalators "especially troubling" and that the agency "cannot adequately explain why these new escalators are so frequently out-of-service"
Some problems identified with these escalators: Safety sensors triggered and emergency buttons activated for unknown reasons.
One at the 72nd Street station was out once every two days at the end of 2017.
"Yea, like every week almost, a couple of times," a rider there said. "This is the new station, it shouldn't be that way."
"Very deep," a regular rider at the 72nd Street station said. "I get dizzy sometimes walking up and down."
A downed escalator can make trips a pain for commuters with a disability, like this rider.
"It's happened several times, especially with the ones down here, which is very frustrating for me," the rider said.
Each of the ten escalators at 72nd Street, built and maintained by Schindler Elevator Corporation, experienced 83 outages on average over the 15-month period.
Schindler, which is making 45 escalators for the new Long Island Rail Road terminal at Grand Central, in a statement said it's working with the MTA on an action plan that's keeping escalators moving.
The MTA says they warned the company that they were breaking down far too often.
Since then Schindler has hired more staff and attended monthly meeting with MTA management.
The MTA says they've been getting better. The next performance meeting will be held in August.
Second Avenue Subway Escalators Are Letting Riders Down
PUBLISHED 7:26 AM EDT Jul. 16, 2019