Employers draft new rules for going up
Office elevator rides could look different when businesses restart
Kiss the elevator pitch goodbye — at least if it actually takes place in an elevator.
Change is coming to the daily vertical commute, as workers begin to return to tall office buildings in New York and other cities.
The simple elevator ride, a previously unremarkable 90 or so seconds, has become a daunting puzzler in the calculus of how to bring people back to work safely after the coronavirus pandemic kept them home for months.
Employers and building managers are drafting strict rules for going up: severe limits on the number of riders (four seems to be the new magic number), designated standing spots to maximize social distance, mandatory masks, required forward-facing positions — and no talking.
Some companies are hiring “elevator consultants” to figure how best to get thousands of people to their desks, balancing risk of elevator density against a potential logjam as riders wait — at least 6 feet apart — for their turn.
Reflecting the widespread interest and concern, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to weigh in as early as next week with guidance for elevators and escalators. For escalators, it will advise one rider every other step and hand sanitizer at the top.
For elevators, it will recommend limiting the number of riders but won’t specify a number; arrows showing different paths to get on and get off; masks; and signs urging people to “not talk unless you have to,” said Nancy Clark Burton, a senior industrial hygienist at the CDC who is part of the group developing the new guidance.
The changes are the result of clear science. COVID-19 is most transmittable when people are in tight confines, particularly indoor settings, where invisible droplets can travel from one person to the next, collateral damage of a seemingly innocuous conversation.
“The good news is: If you don’t like small talk in the elevator, those days are over,” said Jonathan Woloshin, head of U.S. real estate at UBS Global Wealth Management’s chief investment office, who has spoken to executives from major companies rethinking elevator policy and technology, including the eventual use of elevators called by voice command or app.
Richard Corsi, dean of engineering and computer science at Portland State University, has calculated how much virus would remain in an elevator if an infected person rode 10 floors, coughing once and talking on a smartphone.
After exiting the elevator — an act that released some of that person’s emissions from the elevator — approximately 25 per cent of the person’s discharge would remain by the time the empty elevator returned to the first floor, he estimated.
Given all the unknowns with the coronavirus — like how much is needed to cause illness and how much of the aerosol would spread to another rider’s lungs — Corsi couldn’t determine the likelihood of transmission.
But he said that the excretion from an infected person not wearing a mask would make an elevator far riskier than, say, standing in much less confined space, for the same amount of time, even indoors — “100 to 1,000 times more particles per litre of air,” he estimated.
Part of the challenge is that commercial elevator dimensions, while they vary, aren’t built for social distancing; to meet most state standards, an elevator should be 51 inches deep and 68 inches wide (4 feet 3 inches by roughly 5 feet 8 inches), according to Stanley Elevator Co. Even many larger elevators won’t leave riders 6 feet apart.
“More like 3 to 4 feet,” said Douglas Linde, president of Boston Properties, which owns such landmark buildings as the Prudential Tower in Boston, General Motors Building in New York City and Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.
“But, again, you have a mask on and you’re not speaking to each other.” But some companies are taking issue with the limits on the number of riders, arguing that they test patience and promise more safety than can be guaranteed.
“I can’t give you the 6 feet in an elevator — you’d have to have someone on the ceiling and someone on the floor,” said Andrew Hardy, head of operations at JEMB Realty, a privately held company that owns and operates residential and c ommercial properties, including Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, a retail space in Herald Square and a 33-story commercial building in the financial district in New York.
“Our sign is going to say, ‘When riding elevators we recommend using your best judgment,’” Hardy said.
“If an elevator comes and two or three people are in it and you feel comfortable, you’ll get in, and if and you don’t feel comfortable, wait for the next one.”
“If I put two circles in an elevator and four people get in, what am I going to do: Arrest these people?”