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I've always loved this joke and basically quote it verbatim in my head when I encounter a broken-down escalator, but there's actually a whole chain of silliness

I've always loved this joke and basically quote it verbatim in my head when I encounter a broken-down escalator, but there's actually a whole chain of silliness that prevents most escalators from being used as stairs when they're not running. You see, the management will usually block them off for "safety reasons", which always seemed kind of silly to me, but eventually I ran across a facilities person who was able to explain it to me: stairs have a standard riser height per step, and everyone is used to walking up and down stairs of that height. Escalators, for whatever reason, are different. The stairs are taller. And people tend to trip when using them as stairs. So they minimize risk by just saying "go use the elevator or regular stairs." It's still kind of silly, but I kind of get it. What I don't get is why the escalator manufacturers don't make the risers the same height as normal stairs. I also don't really get why we apparently don't trip when walking up or down a running escalator, but it's possible the answer is that it doesn't really matter, because if you can't handle the step height on the escalator, you just stand still. :shrug:

clarry 7y ago
> What I don't get is why the escalator manufacturers don't make the risers the same height as normal stairs. The taller the step, the shorter the escalator. Doing that saves space and money.
- hamburglar 7y ago
  Eh, if you mean "shorter" in number of links in the chain, sure, but obviously the overall amount of materials that go into the escalator isn't appreciably affected, and an escalator with larger, chunkier steps must necessarily take up more space due to the thickness. You could argue that reducing the number of moving parts is desirable, and I'm sure that's true to a point, but I'd be surprised if the operational burden and cost of an escalator with 51 7 inch steps is significantly different than one with 45 8 inch steps. Then again, there's some reason they do it, and I'd guess cost is part of the equation. I just don't think it's quite as simple as you're stating it. Edit: I'd actually bet that a large part of the calculation is cost of retooling and changing the standard, which would involve having a whole line of incompatible parts to manage.

clarry 7y ago

> What I don't get is why the escalator manufacturers don't make the risers the same height as normal stairs. The taller the step, the shorter the escalator. Doing that saves space and money.

hamburglar 7y ago
Eh, if you mean "shorter" in number of links in the chain, sure, but obviously the overall amount of materials that go into the escalator isn't appreciably affected, and an escalator with larger, chunkier steps must necessarily take up more space due to the thickness. You could argue that reducing the number of moving parts is desirable, and I'm sure that's true to a point, but I'd be surprised if the operational burden and cost of an escalator with 51 7 inch steps is significantly different than one with 45 8 inch steps. Then again, there's some reason they do it, and I'd guess cost is part of the equation. I just don't think it's quite as simple as you're stating it. Edit: I'd actually bet that a large part of the calculation is cost of retooling and changing the standard, which would involve having a whole line of incompatible parts to manage.