The TTC's broken staircase

On any given day, roughly 1000 of the TTC's subway station escalators are broken and/or under repair (this is a rough estimate, but I don't think I'm too far off). Yet this regular old staircase of the eastern platform of the St. Clair West station has the distinction of being the only non-mechanical stairway I know of in the system that is "broken":



This staircase has been cordoned off for months. They haven't even bothered to put up a sign telling us the date when it will be "fixed" (which would inevitably be pushed back four or five times before the job was finished).

Having said all this, there is a good reason that I can attest to for why this staircase is closed. One day, while passing by, I noticed that is was soaking wet. I didn't think much of it, until I noticed that it was wet for several days in a row after that. And this wasn't because of a leaking pipe dripping onto it overhead or anything like that -- the staircase seemed to simply be oozing wetness.

The stairs are quite dry now, in case you can't tell from the photograph. Yet it remains closed. Perhaps the source of the wetness has yet to be bested. In any event, the escalators are only a short walk further down the platform.