Columbians Enjoy Huge Outdoors Escalator

MEDELLIN – A huge escalator was installed in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Columbia’s second largest city Medellin.

Medellin is a hilly town and the enormous open air escalator will cut local residents’ daily commute by at least half an hour.

That’s especially true for the residents of Comuna 13, a section of Medellin that lies about 50 to 100 feet lower than the rest of the city.

The difference in height between Comuna 13 and the city is according to local authorities equal to a 28 story building.

For generations, the 12,000 residents of Comuna 13 have been forced to scale that height by climbing up several hundred steps to get to the city and step down the same steps to get home again.

Cesar Hernandez, who’s in charge of the building projects in the city says that the escalator has a total length of 1,267 feet which is divided up into six sections.

Hernandez says that future plans include covering the currently open air escalator so that locals can use it when it rains as well.

The cost to build the enormous escalator amounted to 7 million dollars but the expense is worth it for the citizens.

On average a very fit Comuna 13 resident would take 35 minutes to scale all the steps to the city but using the free escalator the entire trip only takes 6 minutes.

Salazar, mayor of Medellin, says that such huge escalator is the first of its kind to be build for poor people.

Salazar added that an official delegation from Brazil will be visiting his city soon because they are interested in building a similar escalator on their favelas (shanty towns) in Rio de Janeiro, a city that has a large portion of its poor people living in hilly neighborhoods as well.

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