Photo by Mr. T in DC

If using the Dupont Circle Metro station’s southern entrance is part of your daily routine, you’re going to have to change things up starting tomorrow.

Metro is kicking off an eight-month-long replacement of three escalators at the station’s southern entrance, and instead of shutting down one escalator at a time, it’s closing down the entrance altogether. Said Metro:

During the project, the three existing escalator units will be demolished and removed from the site; the area beneath the units will be modified; and new, standard size, industrial-grade escalators will be installed. Due to the tight nature of the work zone, each escalator segment being removed and installed will travel on three separate cranes between the site and street level.

A full closure of the entrance is required to provide for customer safety while heavy lifting of escalator segments takes place in a narrow workspace. As a secondary benefit, closing the entrance will allow the work to proceed on a faster timeline than would otherwise be possible.

The work is part of a broader seven-year-long plan to replace 94 escalators throughout the system, which included the re-opening of the Foggy Bottom escalators in December. In an announcement of the closure, Metro called the Dupont Circle escalators the “least reliable and most difficult to maintain” of the whole system. That’s saying a lot.

Metro is encouraging commuters to head north to the entrance on Q Street NW or south along Connecticut Avenue NW to the Farragut North station.

120111_3BDupontEscalatorReplacement