At first glance, it may look like a giant water slide is cascading through Wushan County in Chongqing, China. But the 3,000-foot-long structure seen above doesn’t belong to an amusement park — it’s actually the world’s longest outdoor escalator, transporting passengers 800 feet in elevation.
Called the “Goddess” escalator, the transit system opened Feb. 17 and includes 21 escalators, eight elevators, and four moving walkways, The Standard reports, encompassing an area of around 2,969 feet.
Not only is it an architectural marvel, but the escalator solved a debacle for residents and tourists alike: Instead of spending an hour climbing Wushan’s steep Goddess Avenue, they can now travel the entire distance within about 20 minutes. As a bonus, the glass covering allows passengers to enjoy beautiful views of the Three Gorges.
“Our goal was for infrastructure itself to become a destination,” said Huang Wei, the project’s chief designer, per iChongqing. “It’s not just a way to get from point A to point B, but part of the city’s experience.”
Wushan is located in the municipality of Chongqing, which is famous for its mountainous terrain that has led to uniquely layered architecture, with many buildings incorporating entrances on multiple stories, Parametric Architecture explained. In fact, that specific terrain is what enabled urban mobility firm Schindler to make the record-breaking escalator, as the team was able to follow the natural shape of the landscape. “If you didn’t have such high mountains, it would be impossible to make it that long,” Du Ying, a vice president at the company, told the Financial Times.
The design has been over 20 years in the making. Though the concept was sparked in 2002, it wasn’t until 2022 that local authorities began to formulate a plan for the system. The buildout, which reportedly cost $23 million, had to overcome multiple structural challenges: To work around steep parts of the landscape, some of which reached a nearly 60% slope, engineers used a “three-dimensional stitching” strategy that deployed lightweight corridors to lift up most of the installation, according to iChongqing. They also fit the escalators together “like building blocks,” Wei explained, in order to integrate them through roads and buildings.
But the result? A massive public transportation network that’s already a hit with residents — some 450,000 people used it during the Spring Festival in February.
“As far as I know, there are no similar projects nationwide, either exceeding or equal to ours, either under construction or already started,” Wei told the Times. “It’s the first of its kind.”
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