Saint John City Market escalator upgrades complete

After eight months of renovations, the new escalator and elevator are finally installed and running.

The dilapidated escalator was a long-running joke among residents, with many tweeting that they thought the new escalator's day would never come.

People are excited, but not everybody has had the chance to test it out, since it doesn't officially open until tomorrow morning.

Sue Murray comes to the market almost every day, and just noticed it as she walked through the door. She was crossing the street to get in, as many have done whilethe pedway was closed.

"I forgot that it was working, or I would have come up that way," she said. "This is the first I've seen all of this done."

"Difficult to maintain"

The city started upgrades in early January, after deciding that the structure was becoming too costly to keep fixing. The escalator was old, and the parts were hard to come by.

Also, the elevator wasn't big enough to suit the needs of the public.

Then, construction dragged onfrom January until June, then July, then finally August. On Friday afternoon, the upgrades passed final inspection and quietly, the structure was reopened.

When Brunswick Square found out, they were surprised as well.

But one Saint Johner was jokingly unimpressed.

Numerous upgrades

The revampdidn't just include the new equipment. They also upgraded the lightingand flooring, and gave the space a fresh coat of paint.

Kaylee Barnes works at Land and Sea Apparel in the market, and saidit's nice to finally be able to tell tourists where to go again.

"I've taken it up once and it was great!" she said of her inaugural escalator ride. "Yeah, it was great to actually have things running."

"You just didn't actually expect it to ever open again, but now that it has, it's nice."