Metro escalators: Steps in the wrong direction

By William T. Breer
Washington

It seems that Metro has ignored my suggestion [letters, Dec. 27] that in order to ensure service on ascending escalators, it hold one in reserve so that it could always maintain upward service. The Van Ness, Dupont Circle and Bethesda escalators have suffered repeated triple outages in the past several months that could have been alleviated by the implementation of my suggestion.

To make matters more absurd, upon my arrival at Van Ness a few days ago, there was one long escalator running — in descending mode. Have the operators not noticed that it is easier to walk down than up? The escalators were built to operate in either direction.