The longest covered outdoor escalator system in the world, running downhill in the morning and uphill the rest of the day.
Hong Kong Island rises steeply from the harbour, and the residential Mid-Levels sit a few hundred metres above Central at a gradient that is unpleasant to walk in humidity.
The solution, opened in 1993, is an 800-metre chain of twenty escalators and three moving walkways, covered, climbing 135 metres from Queen’s Road Central to Conduit Road. It is the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world and around 85,000 people use it daily.
The full ride takes about twenty minutes. You can step off at any of the street crossings.
The direction
This is the thing to know. It is a single-direction system and it reverses:
6am to 10am — downhill, for the morning commute. 10.30am to midnight — uphill, for everything else.
There are stairs alongside the whole length if you are going the wrong way.
Why it is worth riding
Because of what it passes through. The escalator cuts across the grain of the hillside and takes you over and past streets you would otherwise never see — market stalls, tenement balconies, laundry, temples, restaurant kitchens at eye level.
It is one of the better free experiences in Hong Kong, and it is transport rather than an attraction, which is why it works.
What is along it
SoHo — South of Hollywood Road — grew up around the escalator after it opened, and is now a dense strip of restaurants and bars on Staunton, Elgin and Shelley Streets. Almost none of it existed before 1993.
Graham Street Market, a wet market that has traded since the 1840s and is one of the oldest continuously operating street markets in Hong Kong. It has been progressively cleared for redevelopment and what remains is a fragment.
Jamia Mosque on Shelley Street, from 1890 in its present form, half hidden behind trees beside the escalator.
PMQ and Tai Kwun are both short walks off it.
Chungking Express
Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 film used the escalator repeatedly — the apartment that Faye Wong breaks into overlooks it, and the shots of the escalator passing the window are among the most recognisable images of 1990s Hong Kong.
The building is at 36 Shelley Street. People still photograph it.
Practicalities
Free, covered, and running from 6am to midnight.
It is the fastest way from Central up to Hollywood Road, SoHo and the Mid-Levels, and the fastest way down is the stairs beside it.
More Landmarks
Victoria Peak
The view that sells Hong Kong, reached by a tram at a gradient that pins you to the seat.
The Star Ferry
A ten-minute crossing on a green-and-white boat that has run since 1888 and costs less than a bottle of water.
Tian Tan Buddha and Po Lin Monastery
A 34-metre bronze Buddha on a Lantau hilltop, reached by 268 steps and a cable car over the sea.