Repairs on Skywalk escalator must speed up
If there’s any urgency to fixing the Skywalk escalator, they’re doing a good job of making it look like there isn’t.
The glass-domed Skywalk runs between Union Station and the CN Tower and Rogers Centre to the west and is often filled with people going to and from sports events, particularly in bad weather.
Its construction paralleled the opening of the Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome), in1989, but its days are numbered, after the city approved its partial demolition to make way for a 48-storey office tower.
It remains open for now, as part of the city’s PATH system, and will be as busy as ever this summer, with tourist season in high gear and lots of people here for the Pan Am Games.
But they better be able to handle two steep flights of stairs, if someone doesn’t get cracking soon on fixing an escalator that connects the Skywalk’s upper and lower levels.
We’ve had several complaints about it recently, including one from Kevin McManus, who said “barricades have been in place since December, with no indication of any work actually taking place.
“With the busy summer season approaching for the Bremner St. region, not to mention Pan Am Games traffic that will come through the Skywalk, it would be nice to have this operational before the visitor invasion begins.” A reader who asked not to be named said “this area has extremely high foot traffic when the weather is awful (or) when a show or team is playing at the SkyDome, or there’s an event at the convention centre.
“Many elderly people or people who find it difficult to walk are forced to use the stairs to go up.”
We went there and found the escalator that runs between the lower level and a landing on the way to the upper level closed with “prevent maintenance” barriers.
It’s good exercise for most people to scale the stairs, but we also saw a few who had to huff and puff their way up, which is why the escalator was put there. Status: We’ve emailed a media con- tact at the city, asking him to track down the department responsible for the Skywalk and find out why it’s taking so long to fix the escalator. What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To contact us, go to thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer or call us at 416-869-4823 email jlakey@thestar.ca. To read our blog, go to thestar.com/news/the_fixer. Report problems and follow us on Twitter @TOStarFixer.