I’d go so far as to posit that there’s no such thing as a “broken escalator”, that Mitch Hedburg had it exactly right; it is merely a phase transition to stairs, unless the escalator was like, torn in two – you wouldn’t call ice “melted ice” after it melts, you’d (usually) just call it water. Same shit. An escalator merely has a phase change directly into being stairs if it “breaks”, unless the escalator was so violently broken it could no longer be considered stairs, either.
If it was a sign on a broken escalator, it’d be okay.
I’d go so far as to posit that there’s no such thing as a “broken escalator”, that Mitch Hedburg had it exactly right; it is merely a phase transition to stairs, unless the escalator was like, torn in two – you wouldn’t call ice “melted ice” after it melts, you’d (usually) just call it water. Same shit. An escalator merely has a phase change directly into being stairs if it “breaks”, unless the escalator was so violently broken it could no longer be considered stairs, either.
Mitch did it better
Or it becomes super dangerous stairs where if it breaks further you fall into massive bone grinding gears.