Passengers at five PATCO stations in our area continue to deal with repairs that have put the escalators out of commission.
“I helped a woman down the other day who couldn’t get down on her wheelchair,” said Michael Doody of Blackwood, New Jersey.
The escalators at the Lindenwold, Woodcrest, Ashland, 8th and Market and 13th and Locust stations have been down for months.
PATCO officials have tried to fix the broken escalators. They recently received word however from Fujitec, the company that made the escalators, that they were beyond repair and had to be completely replaced, a process which could take months.
“They came in, they looked at the escalators and when they opened them up they said they couldn’t agree to replace them unless they were either completely replaced or significantly overhauled,” said Tim Ireland of PATCO.
Ireland says it will cost about $2 million to replace each escalator. He assures passengers however that rates and fees won’t go up because of it.
“Our capital budget was approved today,” Ireland said. “In no time in the foreseeable future do we intend to raise PATCO fares or tolls. This will have no impact on tolls or PATCO fares.”
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PATCO officials don’t have a set date yet for when the escalators will be completely replaced. They do say it will happen within a year however.
