People who take morning runs or afternoon strolls around West Seattle are happy for the public stairways that help them climb the steepest hills in the city.

The stairways have linked West Seattle neighborhoods for the past century. Today they bring medical benefits in the form of exercise terrain. Countless runners and walkers map their routes to include (or avoid) particular stairways around the Duwamish Peninsula.

Public stairways are built in the right of way of city streets in places where the land is too steep for a street. And West Seattle has the steepest public stairways in the city, says John Buswell, bridge engineer supervisor for the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Steepest of all is in the Thistle Street right of way between 44th and 46th avenues southwest. That stairway has 234 steps.

Another precipitous stairway at 228 steps is in the right of way of 18th Avenue Southwest between Charlestown Street and West Marginal Way.

For the record, Seattle's longest public stairway is near South Ferdinand Street and 31st Avenue South. It measures 463 feet but has only 84 steps.

The longest public stairway in West Seattle is 388 feet. It runs along the Juneau Street right of way between 21st Avenue and Croft Place Southwest. This stairway boasts 13 landings.

There's another long stairway on 19th Avenue between Othello and Dumar streets.

Checkout Holly Street between Delridge Way and 21st Avenue or climb Myrtle Street between Delridge Way and 21st.

Not all of West Seattle's stairways are long and steep. In the Pigeon Point neighborhood, there's a public stairway that's only 14 feet long and has just four steps. It's located along 21st Avenue between Dakota and Genesee streets.

Throughout Seattle there are 525 public stairways and West Seattle has 87. Most of them were built by the city in the early 1900s, shortly after West Seattle was annexed by the rest of Seattle.

Although crews from the Works Progress Administration built much of Seattle's parks infrastructure during the Great Depression, there are apparently no records of them building public stairways in Seattle, Buswell said.

Some of the city's stairways built in the 1940s are early examples of recycling.

Seattle used to have an extensive streetcar system, most of which was dismantled after World War II because the city decided to switch to a bus system instead.

Streetcar tracks had been installed with slabs of cast concrete set along and between the rails. The concrete filled the gaps around the rails so automobiles could cross the tracks easily, Buswell said.

When the streetcar rail lines were removed, the concrete slabs were salvaged and reused as steps for the public stairways. Slabs with bricks between them were stacked up the hill with most of each slab buried in the hillside to provide stability, Buswell explained.

The steel rails from the old streetcar tracks were reused as handrails and support brackets for the public stairways.

While most stairways are made of concrete, some are of steel-frame construction and a few are wooden.

Some stairways were damaged during heavy rainstorms in the mid-1990s and had to be repaired over successive years.

Not all of West Seattle's public stairways are old. Some were built as recently as last year.

One of the new stairways is in the Myrtle Street right of way between 27th and 28th avenues southwest. There's another on 28th Avenue near Sylvan Way.

The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act requires public facilities to include access for disabled people. The law doesn't prevent construction of public stairways. However it does require that a disabled-accessible ramp or other route accessible to a disabled person be located within a reasonable distance of a new stairway, said Buswell.

A few years ago, the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board pointed out how the city's public stairways encourage Seattleites to walk. Stairways also help hillside neighborhoods stay socially connected.

The board acknowledged the cost of meeting the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act will probably make scarce money for new stairways. So the board advised the city to preserve the stairways it has.

Tim St. Clair can be reached at 932-0300 or tstclair@robinsonnews.com