Navigating a mountainous city with a giant escalator

When a city is located in the heart of one of the world's highest mountain ranges it be difficult to get from one place to another, especially on foot.

In Medellin, Colombia, much of the city lies in a valley in the Andes, but as you move toward the surrounding slums, housing moves up the steep slopes that surround the city center. That's why the city has installed an urban escalator system to help residents in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city navigate their long commute from the city center to their neighborhood. Transportation Nation has more:

The 12,000 residents of one hilly Medellin neighborhood used to climb the equivalent of 28 stories to get from the city center to their homes. But an arduous 30-minute walk has been transformed into a five-minute ride, with the installation of an urban escalator system.

“This escalator represents a celebration for all of us as a city,” said Mayor Salazar Jaramillo on Monday, when he officially opened the escalators to the public in the Comuna 13 neighborhood. “This should be a symbol of city transformation and peace for Comuna 13.”

There are six sections of the escalator, which cost $6.7 million. Money well spent according to the city's mayor.

The mayor said innovations like the escalator are turning the Colombian city into a showcase for leading urban planning ideas, and added that officials from Rio de Janeiro had already contacted him about doing something similar in the hillside favelas there. [...]

“In these slums, we have to make an important change,” said Rafael Nanclares, Medellin’s secretary of transportation and transit, speaking on the phone to Transportation Nation. “We have to make opportunities for them.” Earlier this week, Nanclares tweeted a photo of a banner hung on the side of a building that read: “What pride! We live in the only neighborhood in the world with public escalators.”

The city is also working to improve mobility through bikeshare and bus-rapid transit. Though the escalators seem like a cheaper and more efficient way to navigate the steep hills. But you do have to wonder how reliable the escalators will be. Hey, you'd be suspicious too if you regularly rode DC Metro's escalators. We'll call it cautious optimism.

"Medellin Gets Mega Escalator" [Transportation Nation]

Photo: Office of the Mayor, Medellin

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com