Elevating Spirits

By Lucas Peglau

You’re in a cramped, hot, and shaking space—where do you picture yourself? The subway, you say? I’m not sure about you, but I picture the IAB elevators.

Traveling by elevator is consistently one of the most unpleasant experiences at SIPA. Whenever I use them, I’m invariably rushing between classes on the fourth and twelfth floors. Invariably, the elevators are packed. And invariably, and most aggravatingly, those that boarded with me on the fourth floor get off on the sixth floor.

Yes, you read that correctly. As sure as death and taxes, SIPA students see no issue with self-indulgently using the elevators to journey up a mere two levels.

Perhaps I am alone on this matter. Perhaps no one else sees a problem with this. Perhaps you, dear reader, will ask “Lucas, why is this your bête noire?”

Besides being less healthy than walking, it is also selfish. Yes, selfish. When throngs of Seeples flood the fourth floor elevators, only to then leave on the sixth, they create needless delays and congestion for everyone else. Some of us need to use the elevators. There are those, like myself, who only have ten minutes to rush between a lecture on one floor and a seminar another eight floors up.

Or what about our professors, many of whom are significantly older than us whippersnappers, who must travel between their lessons in the main atrium to their offices on a higher floor? Think of all the recommendation letters they write and all the mentorship they give—would it be so hard to make their lives easier?

Or what about people in wheelchairs? They have no other option but the elevator. You’re making it harder for them too.

But it’s not just the negative externalities foisted upon us by elevator joyriders that irritate me—it’s that it is less efficient.

You see, after a year of stewing over the ridiculousness of watching classmates refuse to use their feet to climb two flights of stairs, I decided that I had to calculate the time required going from the fourth to the sixth floor by elevator. Maybe these students were onto something. Maybe they had intuited a superior way to summit two floors. Maybe I was the foolish one…

So, I ran my experiment. Between 3:00 PM and 3:10 PM on a recent Monday, I timed myself twice going from floor four to six, both by elevator and by stairs. One set of timed trials took place during the middle of that rush period, the other at the very end. My timer started and ended in the exact same locations on both floors each time.

My findings were as follows:

Elevator, mid-rush: 1 minute 41 seconds.

Stairs, mid-rush: 1 minute 6 seconds.

Elevator, end-of-rush: 51 seconds.

Stairs, end-of-rush: 54 seconds.

At worst, the elevator took 35 seconds longer than the stairs. At best, it saved you three seconds.

I challenge anyone to justify what you gain during those extra three seconds. Are you solving world hunger? Are you divining the solution for the Russia-Ukraine War? Are you coming up with the next great AI innovation?

My guess is no.

So, what should we, as SIPA students, do about this? Frankly, I don’t have the answer. Luckily, there is a professor who does. For his years of study on this frustrating phenomenon, I turned to the singular Dr. Lincoln Mitchell.

Before writing this, I asked Dr. Mitchell what he thought about the overuse of elevators. “To be honest,” he divulged, “I have calculated the seconds, hours and days and figured out I have spent over a month of my life waiting for those elevators.”

I believe him.

As to solutions, Dr. Mitchell offered a novel one. He recommended that “one elevator should not stop at floor five or six, like an express elevator.” By having one elevator that never stops at those floors, students would be forced to use a more innovative, efficient, and healthier mode of transportation: walking.

Personally, I like this solution. But is it feasible? I don’t know. I don’t know who has the power to make this change. I don’t know if it’s SIPASA or Dean Yarhi-Milo herself. I don’t even know if it’s possible to pre-program the elevators this way.

But here’s something I do know: If students just stopped using the elevators between floors four and six, the quality of life at SIPA would get just a little bit better.

So instead of elevating yourself, elevate each other's spirits: Take the stairs.