It's my understanding that Pittsburgh has more public staircases than virtually any other city. There are over 700 staircases, and many are quite long.
Many years ago, I was in the passenger seat on a road-trip that had a brief stop in Pittsburgh, to get lunch with some friends before we moved on. I absentmindedly commented, as it was summer and many folks were wearing shorts, that a _lot_ of people here _really great legs_.
As the thought coalesced in my mind about why that might be the case, the driver responded "Maybe it's from trying to work the clutch pedal on these hills!"
I thought they might mention the most famous public stairs in recent years - The Joker Stairs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joker_Stairs). They've become a tourist attraction to the inconvenience to locals.
†: I lived there for 6 months in 2005. A lovely small Italian college town (small city) that is nothing but hills and medieval staircases, alleys, and arches. It feels like living in an Escherian or Borgesian maze. It's wonderful.
A while ago I was perusing the hillside communities in Lima, Peru on Google Maps [1]
It's pretty rough. But it made me wonder if some of these now quaint hillside communities in Italy would have felt more like Lima. Now they've reached a certain mythic quality, but at one time the higher up you were probably the lower class (because access is annoying and difficult), and what is now well maintained may have been more crude and decayed.
The problem with staircases being used for seating is that this robs them of their ability to function as passages. This is generally not a problem with wide outdoor staircases in city centers, but it certainly is when it comes to staircases in or near public transport stations, such as the one shown in the article.
Stairs are indeed better benches - particularly in cities where purposefully uncomfortable benches are installed (or the benches are simply removed.) At least the stairs, for now, are present.
LA: I remember a notable one on the Silver Lake side of the ridge separating the neighborhoods of Silver Lake and Echo Park. My recollection is that it had no handrail.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~rochballparks2/towns/pgh_steps.h...