Tyler Cowen links a blog by Samuel Arbesman mocking people who are so lazy that they take the elevator from 1 to 2. This reminds me of my own annoyance about a guy who worked in my building and did not take the elevator. (For the full story, go here and search on “elevator.”)
At the University of Montana, the administration once proposed creating a bicycle garage on the South campus so students could park their bicycles and take the Park and Ride to classes as a way of dealing with the problem of bicycles on the main campus.
I felt the better proposal would have been to convert the administration parking in the heart of campus to bicycle racks, and have the administrators use the Park and Ride.
Funny, I was just marveling yesterday at some people who take the elevator to go one or two floors in my building. Our elevator is very slow, so even in the mildly unlikely event that it's right there when you push the button, taking the stairs at average speed is pretty much a dead heat with taking the elevator. In the more likely event that you have to wait for the elevator, it'd be faster to walk. And the stairs are right next to the elevator, so it's not like people are taking the elevator because they'd otherwise have to go somewhere else to take the stairs. In short, the elevator is slower on average, and has no advantage that I can see (unless you're carrying something heavy, I guess). It's a bit hard for me to believe that people take the elevator because they're too lazy to walk one or two stories worth of stairs. They even take the elevator _down_. So why do they do it? Some cultural thing that makes them feel uncomfortable in the staircase?
It's not just one or two people, either, there are dozens of them.
In some buildings you have to take the elevator because access to each floor is controlled by electronic key cards that only let you go to certain floors.
In some buildings, the stairs are sort of ambiguous, that is, it's not totally obvious that you could take the stairs without getting in trouble (setting off fire alarms or whatever).
Sometimes the stairs are sort of dark, grungy, and give the impression of lack of safety or cleanliness (vomit, spilled coffee, dripping pipes, lack of light).
I think the elevators get more maintenance and large numbers of people come in and out of them, so they present an obvious and accepted route to your goal. They're the "default" and as Andrew is fond of saying, defaults matter.
You hurt the elevator's feelings if you don't use it.
I recently moved office buildings, and am now on the 3rd floor. I would *love* to take the stairs to and from the lobby, but the stairwells are alarmed and can only be used in case of fire! I'm tempted to point this out to HR, and suggest they open the stairwells to give employees a bit more free exercise…
First a general thanks for this blog. I enjoy reading and learning from your work.
The "elevator shame" topic, especially as considered in the post to which you link indirectly, points to an uncomfortable situation that happens all the time to people with hidden disability. A young-appearing neighbor or colleague with arthritis or other serious medical condition may look like he or she can walk up and down a flight of stairs, but that's not necessarily the case.