TBD staff members traveled the Metro system from end to end to end the last three days. We stopped at every station and looked at every escalator, riding on lots and walking on some that were not offering rides at the time.

We even visited the only station with no escalators (Forest Glen, if you were wondering; no problems reported there when we visited Tuesday, but it shut down Thursday when a train hit some track equipment).

We invited and gathered Twitter reports from dozens of riders who shared humor, anger and frustration in their tweets. Some told of escalators stopping as they were riding. For your reading enjoyment on your ride home, we present our report from escalator patrol after the jump.

Our count was 78 escalators of 588 idle, or 13 percent.

Most of our checks were made Tuesday and Wednesday (a few slipped past us, but we checked them today). Of course, our survey is kind of a rolling snapshot, because we didn't catch all the escalators at the same time.

TBD's Lisa Rowan saw an escalator go back into service and Steve Buttry saw one idle when he left a platform and moving a few minutes later when he returned after checking escalators to the street level. At least two people reported on Twitter during the survey that escalators stopped as they were on them. Sometimes we would see one escalator out on our visit and riders would report more out later on Twitter.

In many instances, one of three escalators was broken, allowing traffic still in both directions (though Nathasha Lim noted the only two escalators both going down at Eisenhower Avenue).

Minnesota Avenue had both escalators to the street idle and fairly long. With one barricaded, the other has to handle traffic in both directions (video below). We didn’t visit at a peak time, but this looks like it could be difficult to climb against the flow then.

We saw lots of escalators idle and many undergoing repairs, such as the Smithsonian escalator below:

Smithsonian escalator being repaired (Photo: Mandy Jenkins)

Daniel Victor rode the whole Green Line and shared this observation: "From the Tea Party to Remy, the Green Line gets a bad rap. But I'm here to tell you: If you hate stairs, you will love the Green Line. Almost all of the escalators in the northern and southern parts of the Green Line there were in good shape."

Noise was a frequent issue for working escalators. TBD film blogger Ryan Kearney called on his entertainment experience, explain that a Columbia Heights escalator "sounds like the soundtrack to a Wes Craven flick." Nathasha Lim heard a more mechanical sound: "like a dumpster truck rolling down the street." Mandy Jenkins described an escalator's sound as "elephantesque."

For details of particular stations, check the map above or the list below:

All escalators working:

Blue Line: Addison Road-Seat Pleasant (2), Morgan Boulevard (2), Largo Town Center (4).

Blue-Yellow Lines: Pentagon City (10), Reagan National Airport (8), King Street (2).

Green Line: Greenbelt (2), College Park-U of Md (4), Prince George's Plaza (4), West Hyattsville (4), Waterfront-SEU (5), Anacostia (6), Southern Ave. (4), Naylor Road (2), Suitland (4), Branch Ave (2).

Green-Yellow Lines: Archives/Navy Memorial (2), Mt. Vernon Sq. 7th St-Convention Center (7).

Orange Line: Dunn-Loring-Merrifield (2), Court House (8), Cheverly (6), Landover (2); New Carrollton (2).

Orange-Blue Lines: Rosslyn (8), Potomac Ave. (6).

Red Line: Rockville (2), Twin Brook (1), White Flint (4), Grosvenor-Strathmore (4), Cleveland Park (6), Woodley Park/Zoo/Adams-Morgan (8), Brookland/CUA (4), Takoma (3), Glenmont (5).

Yellow Line: Eisenhower (2).

One escalator out:

Blue Line: Benning Road (5), Arlington Cemetery (4).

Blue-Yellow Lines: Crystal City (12), Braddock Road (2).

Green Line: Navy Yard (9).

Green-Yellow Lines: Shaw/Howard (8), Georgia Avenue-Petworth (7).

L'Enfant Plaza (31)

Orange Line: Vienna/Fairfax/GMU (3), West Falls Church-VT/UVA (6), Virginia Square (7), Deanwood (4).

Orange-Blue Lines: Farragut West (14); McPherson Square (14), Federal Center SW (5), Capitol South (5), Eastern Market (5, all were working when TBD checked, but Emily Rindone later reported on Twitter and confirmed by email that an escalator stopped Tuesday while she was riding it), Stadium-Armory (10).

Red Line: Shady Grove (3), Medical Center (5), Bethesda (6), Friendship Heights (11), Rhode Island Ave. (3), Silver Spring (2),

Yellow Line: Huntington (6, all working when TBD visited, but later Twitter reports said an escalator was out).

Multiple escalators out:

Blue Line: Capitol Heights, 2 of 5 idle, Franconia-Springfield, 2 of 5 idle.

Blue-Yellow Lines: Pentagon, 2 of 12 idle,

Fort Totten: 2 of 6 out.

Gallery Place/Chinatown: 6 of 30.

Green Line: Congress Heights, 2 of 7 idle.

Green-Yellow Lines: U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo, 2 of 8 idle, Columbia Heights: 3 of 7 idle.

Metro Center: 5 of 25 idle.

Orange Line: East Falls Church, 2 of 3 idle, Clarendon, 2 of 8 idle (all 8 working on an earlier check), Minnesota Avenue, 2 of 4 idle;

Orange-Blue Lines: Foggy Bottom, 3 of 6 idle, Federal Triangle, 3 of 9 idle, Smithsonian, 2 of 14 idle,

Red Line: Tenleytown, 2 of 9 idle, Van Ness, 3 of 8 idle, DuPont Circle, 3 of 14 idle, Farragut North, 2 of 16 idle, Judiciary Square, 2 of 12 idle, Union Station, 2 of 9 idle (one out reported by our staff report, two on Twitter reports), Wheaton, 2 of 3 idle.

Altogether, eight TBD staff members checked Metro stations. Lisa Rowan, Daniel Victor, Nathasha Lim, Steve Buttry and Mandy Jenkins checked multiple stations. Jeff Sonderman made the map, with all the inspectors adding reports and Mandy adding color-coding.