Regular BART riders grumble that it seems like the station’s escalators are out of order practically half the time.

There’s a reason for that: The worst of BART’s escalators really are out of order practically half the time, a Chronicle investigation found.

And although not all of BART’s 177 escalators are broken every other day, virtually every one of them was out of service for dozens of days, at least, between April 2015 and last month. The most reliable of them weren’t working an average of one day every three weeks.

The worst problems are at BART’s downtown San Francisco stations, where transit officials say rain, litter and debris — including hypodermic needles and human waste — combine with vandalism and misbehavior to cripple aging escalators that weren’t designed for outdoor use.

“It’s awful,” Michelle Luna, a 33-year-old management analyst, said as she rushed to catch a train from Civic Center Station to Berkeley on a day when the transit system’s most abysmal escalator was operating.

But even at BART’s more sedate suburban stations, riders stand a good chance of encountering a broken-down escalator and having to hoof it up the stairs.

The man who oversees BART’s escalator maintenance said age has caught up with the people movers. Most of the transit agency’s escalators range in age from about 20 years to 45 years — 120 of them were installed before 1980. The last overhaul was in 1998 and was not comprehensive.

Mike Lemon, the agency’s power and mechanical superintendent, said another contributor to BART’s escalator woes is the workload that comes with a ridership that has surged over the past two decades.

“In 20 years, we went from 250,000 to more than 410,000 passengers a day,” Lemon said. “You can’t handle that kind of increase without some impact.”

“The equipment just wears,” he said.

BART purchased its escalators from seven different manufacturers. While all have their quirks, Lemon said, O&K escalators, built by a German company, are the least reliable.

“None are as bad as the O&Ks,” he said.

BART bought O&K’s last 19 escalators around 1996, just before the company sold off its escalator division, and installed them at its busiest stations — in downtown San Francisco and the Mission. All of them were put in as street escalators but turned out to be highly susceptible to water damage.

“For that environment, they were poorly designed,” Lemon said. Whoever made the decision to buy them, he said, “wasn’t aware. There was a lack of knowledge.”

Downtown S.F., Mission

Downtown San Francisco is where BART’s two most problematic escalators are located. They run side by side carrying passengers between Civic Center Station and United Nations Plaza in a canyon-like entryway just off Market Street.

Between April 2015 and April 2017, the down escalator there was closed for maintenance or repairs a total of 342.5 days, according to figures BART provided in response to a Chronicle request. Its neighbor, which hauls passengers up to the plaza, was out of service 334.1 days over the same period.

Unreliability was nearly as much an issue at all other stations that serve downtown San Francisco and the Mission District.

The escalator at Montgomery Station, near Sansome and Sutter streets, was third on the breakdown list, followed by the 16th Street Mission Station’s escalator that emerges outside of Walgreens, and the Powell Station escalator that rises near the southeast corner of Fourth and Mission streets.

Escalators at 24th Street Mission, Daly City, Civic Center, Millbrae and Embarcadero stations rounded out the worst 10.

Eight of the 10 least-reliable escalators are among the oldest in the system. They not only have the elements to contend with, but also are frequented by vagrants who use them as restrooms, usually after BART has closed, as well as drug users who intentionally shut them down by triggering sensors so they won’t be bothered by riders who want to use them.

“The street escalators ... are the hardest to stay up with,” said Vince Bevilacqua, assistant superintendent for elevators and escalators.

“Think of the environment,” he said, referring to the combination of weather and the surroundings and the people who linger around the stations at night. “You can’t put a team out there on graveyard shift to work on them.”

BART officials admit the system’s escalators need serious attention, but especially those in downtown San Francisco.

“This is an issue of critical importance,” said Nick Josefowitz, one of San Francisco’s three BART directors. “Like so much at BART, decades of neglect have left us in a really difficult spot.

“But with the passage of the BART bond and a new focus on replacing aging infrastructure, we are going to be getting ourselves out of these problems. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it will eventually lead to a much more functioning BART system.”

The bond is Measure RR, approved by voters in November to raise $3.5 billion to overhaul the entire system. BART plans to direct some of the money to replace all 40 escalators in downtown San Francisco over the next few years. Attention to escalators at the Mission stations and the downtown Oakland stations will follow.

In San Francisco’s four Market Street stations, the plan is to replace one platform escalator and one street escalator at a time at each station. At the end of the first year, eight new escalators will be in place. At that rate, it will take about five years to replace all 40.

Bevan Dufty, who also represents San Francisco on the BART board, likes the plan but said the five years he’s been told it will take to completion is too long. He wants the work to be accelerated, even if it means inconveniencing riders by having multiple escalators at the same station shut down simultaneously.

“It’s time for a Marshall Plan for escalators and elevators at BART,” he said.

But a speedup may not be possible because of government red tape, high demand for escalators in a booming economy, and the need to keep the stations open and operating.

Lemon said the process of advertising for bids, getting the big escalator companies interested in bidding, and a 12- to 16-month wait for new escalators to be delivered adds up. Then comes the matter of mobilizing crews to install them, work that has to be done in phases to avoid blocking rider access to stations.

In the interim, BART is modernizing some of its most troublesome downtown escalators — the O&K models — by replacing devices that control the machines, rewiring them and making them less susceptible to liquids. That work is scheduled to be completed by July 2018.

In addition, beginning this summer, crews will erect canopies to cover entrances to the Market Street stations and shield the escalators and stairways from the elements. The canopies are also designed to allow BART to lock the escalators at night.

“It protects them from rain, protects them from being used as toilets, protects them from being trashed by vandals,” Josefowitz said. “Once they’re installed, they will lead to much higher levels of escalator reliability.”

Back to Gallery A breakdown of BART’s broken-down escalators 7 1 of 7 Photo: Noah Berger, Special to The Chronicle 2 of 7 Photo: Noah Berger, Special to The Chronicle 3 of 7 Photo: Noah Berger, Special to The Chronicle 4 of 7 Photo: Natasha Dangond, The Chronicle 5 of 7 Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle 6 of 7 Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle 7 of 7 Photo: Noah Berger, Special to The Chronicle













To test the concept, BART installed its first canopy, a curved glass covering, at 19th Street Station in Oakland two years ago and it has been a success, Lemon said. But according to BART’s records, the covered escalator was out of service 83.4 days over those two years, putting it somewhere in the middle systemwide in terms of escalator reliability.

Escalator troubles aren’t just limited to BART’s older, more urban stations. Out in BART’s suburban extensions, an escalator at Millbrae is the ninth most unreliable in the system. Another at Dublin/Pleasanton ranks 11th in shutdowns.

The escalators had once been very reliable but are now showing their age, Lemon said. The Dublin/Pleasanton escalator, on the job since 1997, and the Millbrae escalator, in service since 2003, are both closing in on 20 years, which means it’s time for an overhaul, Lemon said.

Electrical problems have vexed the Dublin/Pleasanton escalator, he said, while issues with handrails have caused trouble on the Millbrae machine. Both have involved complicated and time-consuming repairs, he said.

Limited staffing

But BART directs most of its focus at downtown San Francisco.

“Even though the outlying areas are important to us, 80 percent of the people travel to the downtown area,” Lemon said. “We have limited resources and staffing. We have to prioritize. We focus as much as we can on downtown.”

BART has stationed 13 of its 43 escalator repair workers at Civic Center to more quickly tackle problems downtown. Even so, crews regularly need to be called in from elsewhere in the system to help.

The transit system’s ability to keep up with repairs is stymied for another reason: a shortage of licensed escalator mechanics.

The position pays $42 an hour, but competition for the skilled workers is fierce and private industry often lures them with pay as high as $72 and better hours, and locations that don’t involve dealing with urine and feces. Just 24 of BART’s escalator workers are licensed mechanics. Ideally, Lemon said, all 43 would be licensed, giving BART more specialized experience.

To address the problem, BART is now using unlicensed assistants and trainees to repair escalators under the supervision of its licensed mechanics. Still, turnover is frequent, and BART is currently down three escalator workers.

Meanwhile, BART’s aging escalators keep breaking down.

“We’ll be busy a long time,” Lemon said. “We need this renovation fast.”

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan