5 Ways To Combat Elevator Traffic In NYC

There is a huge and underreported problem going on in the commute of New Yorkers: Elevator Traffic. People do a lot of things to make getting from point a to point b faster - from timing their arrival on the subway to strategically zig-zagging blocks to hiring an uber. But when it comes to going up and down elevators - we all get stuck. Here are a few ways that we can fix this:

1. Increase Speed

Elevators can be slow both in how fast they ascend and descend and in how fast they open and close. Slow elevators are extremely frustrating and should be replaced with newer, faster elevators. NYC should mandate that elevators operate at a more acceptable speed in both of these aspects.

2. Increase Size

Nothing is worse then small elevators. They induce claustrophobia amongst many and have very little carrying capacity - ensuring there is a line during peak hours. The elevator in the office I just went to today could only fit 5 people. It stopped on a few floors on the way down, but no more passengers could get on because it was already full. Contrast that to the elevators at Google's NYC office which are enormous and could easily fit 20. People have a good deal of personal space, and the full elevator denying new passengers doesn't occur. NYC should mandate a new minimum carrying capacity of 10 people in all elevators, and say good riddance to the smallest elevators that have caused so much delay.

3. Increase Quantity

The city needs vastly more elevators. First, there needs to be a much lower threshold for having an elevator - mainly any building with more than one story. I'm moving into a walk up apartment, and it would be hard to impossible for elderly or handicapped people to visit me there since there is no elevator. Second there needs to be more elevators per occupant. This will help reduce the wait time substantially and decrease the system strain when one elevator is out of commission.

4. Increase Reliability

It's amazing how often elevators are broken. Going from two elevators to one more than doubles the amount of time it takes to get to the floor I want. Elevators are obviously built for safety, something I saw first hand when I was in High School. I spent a lot of time at Otis Elevator's world headquarters, where their engineers acted as mentors to my school's Robotics team. Every time we went over there we could see the machines testing elevator parts non-stop - it was quite a sight actually. But for all the safety mechanisms built into elevators, I still don't understand why they break so often, and also why it takes so long to fix them. I'm sure that there are ways to build elevators that are more reliable, and NYC should mandate new reliability standards, ensuring there is much less elevator downtime.

5. Open Source Data

New minimum regulations are great - but not enough. Buildings should be required to open source every piece of data about their elevators in real time - from size to speed to uptime. This will allow potential commercial and residential tenants to take into account the quality of the elevators before signing any lease. If the rest of New Yorkers are as interested in elevator efficiency as I am, this open data could force an elevator quality arms race - leading to even faster vertical commutes.