LA Metro has some of the slowest escalators on Earth

Los Angeles Metro’s escalators are specified to run at 90 feet per minute (about 0.46 m/s), a pace that is slower than nearly every city in a comparison of legal limits across 139 cities in 58 countries and measured operating speeds in 42 systems. Hong Kong’s MTR typically runs escalators at roughly 148 feet per minute (0.75 m/s), about 64% faster than LA’s specification. The U.S. standard caps escalator speed at 100 feet per minute (≈0.508 m/s), which California uses for new installations; even within Los Angeles, LAX specifies the full 100 ft/min. A modeled scenario using FY2026 weekday ridership at 27 underground stations estimates about 300,000 minutes of escalator riding per weekday. Raising speeds to Hong Kong’s typical setting would save roughly 119,000 minutes each weekday (about 670,000 hours annually), while increasing to the U.S. maximum would cut about 10% of riding time (~30,000 minutes per weekday), with an individual commuter potentially reclaiming about 9.5 hours per year.

Speeds cannot simply be increased because of safety codes, equipment limits, cost, and rider comfort: higher speeds produce more step vibration and can raise safety issues, so some systems (Singapore) vary speed by peak periods. Historical Metro documents show original design rules allowed escalators to run at 90 and 120 ft/min, but the faster option was later removed; a correction notes some newer Metro escalators have been measured at about 98.4 ft/min, just under the American maximum.