Seems like they have been working on these for months. This must be costing UA a small fortune (I think I read how much on the side of one of the walls once).

Was there something wrong with the old escalators? Ok - they didn't have the nice bright yellow line down the side, but they seemed to work most of the time. Now one of them isn't working at all!

Was there a better use for the millions of dollars this is costing?

Dunno... they've been broken/under repair for so long I had begun to think of them as a conceptual art project.

Are you saying you think UA is paying for the improvements? I didn't think they would be responsible for terminal infrastructure such as this - don't they just lease the gates?

The escalator project is being done by the City of Chicago. They are doing all of the airport escalators -- the worst one is the down escalator for the peoplemover -- you have to walk into the garage and then the length of the platform to a temporary stairwell to the other end of the platform.

According to the Department of Aviation website, the project runs until June 30, 2005 and was worth about $9 million (interestingly, the sign on the construction enclosure said it was more like $5 million). I think this is all paid for by the gate leases and passenger facility charges.

I suspect that there are issues that need to be addressed to get the escalators up to code and they probably were getting to the end of their service life.

It does seem like they are making progress, though -- looks like a couple more are about done.

Now, if they could get all the moving sidewalks operating again...

While it might seem like "forever", part of the issue has to be that they're doing one set at a time, keeping some up and running. It certainly would have been faster to close down all 4 at B/C at once, but this way there is always something moving. As someone else said, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. (pun intended)

Passing through ORD this afternoon, I was thinking the same thing. "Modernization" they are calling it, but what exactly is new? They aren't wider, not faster, don't carry any more people, just got some new yellow markings on them. They could have installed all new escalators in the time they are taking on this project.

And I thought the UA terminal belonged to UA, that it was a ground lease from the city? I also thought the work was UA, and it seemed a pretty fine waste of money at this particular time.

Slow news day, wimp?

Well I was looking for an interesting thread from iluv2fly but couldnt find one. Maybe its because the search function isn't working?

I'll try and be more imaginitive next time.

Try waiting for our elevators to work. 7 years and they still break down all the time. City of Chicago is slowwwwwwwwwww in making repairs.

The "modernization" will (I assume) still employ the same basic escalator tecnology (no magnetic levitation, etc) so I think it's just replacing the worn-out parts and installing a new escalator.

That or they had an extra $5M in the budget they needed to blow ..

And as was noted, the worst is the airport train escalator, which requires you to walk through the parking garage and then back down a temporary stairs. In actuality, it seems like everyone just tries to crowd onto the elevators.

The worst airport project that I have seen recently is the peoplemover belt escalator thing that is closed at SFO - now it is necessary to trudge on foot from the UAL gates back to the main bldg ...

This seems more appropriate, therefore, for the ORD forum.

cblaisd, Moderator, United

Maybe the link over on the UA forum will actually bring more people over to these severely under-utilized LocalTalk boards. ^

I was in ORD in September. The escalator in the F (United Express) gates
at F9 that goes to the gates in the lower level was broken. A week later
I came back through the same gate and it was still broken. The elevator
was the only way to go up without lugging your rollerbag by its handle
up the steps. A crew from an Air Wisc or Skywest flight got in the elevator
instead of walking up the steps. Several passengers with rollerbags, strollers, etc had to wait for the elevator.