By Julia Berkman and Hailey Murphy
Despite a recent grant to repair and modernize Western’s elevators, breakdowns continue to raise concerns for students.
Since 2015, 161 instances of elevator malfunctions have been reported to University Police or maintenance, according to university police logs.
“I’m not aware of any industry standards against which we could judge the abnormality of this,” said Paul Cocke, Director of Marketing and Communications. “Overall, Western is engaged in an ongoing cyclic renewal program to keep elevators reliable and as safe as possible.”
Hannah Spencer, Associated Students Representation & Engagement Programs director, was stuck in a Viking Union elevator for a short time during fall quarter. According to Spencer, the doors closed and the elevator wouldn’t move, no matter which button was pressed.
“It was only 10 minutes, but we had already set up a designated pee corner in case we were actually stuck,” Spencer said.
When she worked at the Viking Union front desk, Spencer often received calls about broken elevators, sometimes as often as twice a week.
Elevators in the VU have broken down 41 times since 2015, according to University Police logs, more than any other building on campus.
In just over three out of four of those instances, at least one person was trapped inside.
“At least until the VU construction started, there was only one elevator that made it possible to regularly access [the fifth floor],” Dee Mooney, Disability Outreach Center coordinator, said. “So if that elevator breaks down, and it has a couple of times, it’s impossible to reach the Disability Outreach Center.”
In addition to the VU, there have been frequent breakdowns in Park’s Hall (14), Eden’s Hall (11) and Miller Hall (11).
Such breakdowns, if not quickly resolved, restrict accessibility for students who rely on elevators. According to Mooney, students have been stranded both inside and outside their room as a result of breakdowns.
“Depending upon how long it takes to fix the elevator, it can be an issue of needing to go bed, needing to be able to get out and eat, or [needing to] go to class. It really impedes many aspects of daily functioning,” Mooney said.
Kaylee Martig, a junior on the Disability Advocacy Committee, said that when a student is trapped outside their room, University Police retrieve their belongings from the room and house them in a ground-level room temporarily.
Martig described this experience as “humiliating and unnecessary.”
Martig and the DAC lobbied for a $6.7 million grant to improve Western’s elevators last year. According to Cocke, Western received about half of that, and in the previous budget cycle, received $1.1 million.
“The money is used to make sure all the mechanical components are reliable and the operating controls are updated to modern standards,” Cocke said. “In addition, the elevators are brought up to current ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Accessible Design standards.”
Mooney said the grants will cover 29 elevator renovations. However, more money is still needed to update all 66 elevators on campus.
According to Matthew Erlich, spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, 57 of the elevators on campus were built between 1963 and 2003, so it’s not surprising that many elevators are experiencing issues.
“Like any aging machine, maintenance becomes extremely important,” Erlich said. “If that’s a problem, we tend to see more outages or malfunctions.”
Western is required by law to keep elevators maintained. However, they’re not required to report breakdowns to the Department of Labor & Industries “unless there is an accident,” Elrich said.
Elevators in high traffic area with obsolete parts and a history of breakdowns will be prioritized, Cocke said.
While “unplanned services outages” are reported to Disability Resources and the Equal Opportunity Office, according to Cocke, Martig believes that the many students who rely on elevators across campus, including herself, deserve access to real-time information about what and when elevators are down.
“There are things being done about it,” Mooney said, “But the elevators that are being renovated are not all of the elevators that need it.”
Have you been trapped or otherwise affected by elevator issues? Let us know at as.review.editor@wwu.edu.
View our data here. Numbers in this story come from a spreadsheet created by Erasmus Baxter, Julia Berkman and Hailey Murphy. Data for the spreadsheet was taken from logs scraped from University Police’s website and compiled into a PDF.
Updated 4/23: Updated to reflect that another person was trapped in a Viking Union elevator after this story was finished last Thursday, and correct minor grammar and AP style issues. Also, this story was co-written by Julia Berkman, who we miss dearly.