XKCD gives DC a shout-out!

From today’s strip: xkcd: Chin-Up Bar. The Man in the Hat has an adventure on the longest escalator in the United States, a 70-meter-long behemoth.

The real-world longest escalator in the United States is at the Wheaton metro stop in DC, measuring a whopping - 70 meters.

DC is great. XKCD is great. The two combined? Pure awesome!

I’ve ridden that escalator (more than once behind idiots who don’t observe DC’s hallowed stand-to-the-right rule), and recognized it immediately.

I’m not sure whether to be sorry that I’m no longer in the DC area, meaning that I won’t be able to carry out that prank, or glad that I’m no longer in the DC area, meaning that I won’t be on that escalator when someone else does it!

If you did it…would you be wearing a hat?

'cause I’d be on the lookout. Not that I’m in DC that often…

-D/a

Oh. The city, not the comic company.

Yeah, been up that escalator a few times when I was growing up in Rockville. I would not have kind feelings for anyone who stopped it up.

After we went to DC, we found out about this. Too bad! Or we would have ridden it just for the novelty. The Woodley Park one was pretty long, but nowhere near this one…

I used to ride the Wheaton metro escalator every day. I hated it when it would stop suddenly when I was half way up (which is still twice as long as any reasonable length elevator)

For some reason I thought Diogenes the Cynic.

What a jerk. Just put a Slinky down it.

When it was first opened, I ran up the down side of it; just to be able to say I had done it. Man, my quadriceps femorus were burnin’!