We've often joked in the past about the poor reputation of Metro's escalators and elevators. Rare is the Metrorail trip that does not include a loudspeaker announcement informing customers of all the latest elevator outages. Station escalators seem so often out of order, we've even suggested giving up and calling them by a more accurate name: stairs. But this morning, via the Examiner, Metro is reporting that its escalators reached a 95.5 percent performance rate in January of this year. That's a significant improvement over the low of 88.3 percent availability in the summer of 2006. Elevator service has similarly improved, reaching 97.1 percent in January. more ›