I lived in Bilbao for a year and I remember perfectly the little walk to go up to Solokoetxe. When I was living in Madrid, getting from Arganzuela to Sol or taking a walk along the Rastro involved going up a pretty steep hill. Even in my Pamplona, to go from Txantrea or Rotxapea to the old style you have to exercise your legs.
But there are hills and hills and there are cities where they are simply at another level. This is the case of Wushan, in Chongqing (China). And if in Pamplona we solve it with elevators, in China they don’t mess around (literally): they just inaugurate the longest escalator in the world, one with which to shorten a journey from an hour to just 20 minutes.
The project. The staircase is called Shénnǚ Dà Fūtī, something like “The Great Escalator of the Goddess” and runs along the vertical axis of the Avenue of the Goddess (Shennü Avenue), for 905 meters in length to overcome a difference in level of 242.14 meters, the equivalent of an 80-story skyscraper.
As can be seen in the images, it is not a single flight of stairs, but a network made up of 21 escalators, eight elevators, four moving walkways, two pedestrian bridges and two overpasses, all connected to overcome the urban slope of the center of Wushan.
Why is it important. The construction of this megainfrastructure has several relevant plans, the most direct being the improvement of access for those who live or travel through the area by solving an access problem. Likewise, it represents a vertical urban planning model different from the classic one of demolishing and flattening. On the other hand, it is evidently an engineering milestone that shows the technical power of China, its application to the improvement of urban infrastructure and also breaks records: there is no other urban system of these characteristics, surpassing that of Central Hillside Escalator Link from Hong Kong (800 meters and 135 meters of altitude difference).
It has only been in operation for a few weeks and is already one of its most recognizable structures. Huang Wei, chief project designer of China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group explains that “Our goal was for the infrastructure itself to become a destination. It’s not just a way to get from point A to point B, but to make it part of the experience of the city.”
Context. Chongqing It is a directly administered Chinese municipality as large as many European states (more than 30 million inhabitants). Its eponymous capital is not called “Mountain City” by chance: it is built on and around a series of steep hills at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing.
But this rugged geography is not exclusive to the center: it permeates the entire territory. In Wushan, a town in the northeastern corner of the municipality nestled in the Three Gorges of the Yangtze, the Gaotang neighborhood suffered the consequences of the topography in an extreme way: getting from there to the rest of the town meant a journey of almost an hour winding along steep slopes, which in practice meant isolation. It is right there where the staircase has been built.
The Gatang neighborhood in Wushan, seen from Google Maps in relief
Why a ladder? The idea of building vertical transportation for Wushan dates back to 2002when a new urban area was completed, but at that time there was a shortage of funds and technical limitations. The idea came back on the table in 2022 and was seriously considered by authorities.
As details the project’s chief designer “the key question was what type of transportation system best suited a mountainous city like Wushan.” After considering other options such as cable cars or trains, they chose this system by weighing factors such as capacity, safety, life cycle costs, adaptability to steep slopes and visual impact.
Engineering challenges. We have already seen that the great escalator of the Goddess runs through densely populated urban neighborhoods, highways and pipelines. According to Huang, modular design is key to adapting to the fragmented terrain and integrating into what is already built. According to the construction managerZhang Jie, the escalator ascends a slope with an average inclination of 40 degrees, and some sections exceed 60 degrees. In these conditions, operating with heavy machinery becomes complicated.
A very touristy staircase. Set up an infrastructure like this at a reasonable price (in the testing phase it is free, but then the intention is charge a fee) to cross Wuhan on foot sounds good, but the intention of turning it into a tourist attraction has been present since its conception.
In fact, there are parts with transparent glass facades to reduce the visual volume and have new panoramic views and there are points with lighting installations, turning the staircase into a kind of snake that moves between hills. In addition to, of course, facilitating movement through leisure places.
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