The MTA Inspector General found if those escalators or elevators are privately owned and maintained (mostly found leading in and out from under large private buildings), there appears to be no rush to make repairs.
"The MTA agrees that they have not been aggressive enough and not organized enough to really hold the landlords responsible for filling their contractual obligation," Inspector General Barry Kluger said.
There are 33 privately owned and maintained escalators and elevators in 13 of some of the busiest stations.
At four stations in particular, escalators have been out of service from four months to as long as three years.
"Not only were there delays in getting it fixed, but there were also delays in the communication from station management to the landlords," Kluger said.
The inspector general points out too that no less than six different MTA departments oversee these private people movers.
"Nobody at the MTA in those six departments was willing to accept responsibility," he said.
The MTA says it will "...take a more aggressive approach to address outages... to force landlords to restore service more quickly."
They are also posting those outages on their website.
If people have complaints the IG wants to hear from you at www.mtaig.state.ny.us or call 1-800-MTA-IG4U.
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ONLINE:
mta.info
The MTA is running a competition for app developers. Thursday's "App of the Day" is an app that maps out broken escalators. Friday's app will be something different. The public can vote on what they want in an app.
Details are here: http://mtaappquest.com/
