Elevators in Penn's three high rises have been stopping, bouncing, opening inches below the floor and even failing altogether, leaving residents frustrated and questioning when the faulty system will be fixed once and for all.
"The elevators get stuck, and people get caught in there for half an hour, forty-five minutes," said Harrison College House Faculty Master Alan Strudler, who was trapped in a Harrison elevator just a couple of weeks ago with his dog before their morning walk.
Just last week, one of Harnwell College House's elevators was marked "out of order" for several days, and in both Harrison and Hamilton college houses three elevators were down at once, leaving residents with just one elevator to service the buildings' 24 residential floors during the evening rush hours.
"And last year, we once had no elevators," Strudler said, remarking that the unreliability of the high rise elevators is not a recent phenomenon.
"I was stuck in the elevator once last spring when I was trying to get to the gym," Harrison College House Dean Frank Pellicone said. "I was in there from 5:30 until 6:15 in the morning."
And now, dealing with the elevators' idiosyncrasies has become an unwelcome way of life for students.
"I wouldn't get in that one," Wharton freshman Cecilia Rabess warned another student yesterday afternoon in Hamilton's lobby as the doors of an elevator opened. "It stops at every floor."
Students said the elevators are more than an inconvenience -- some felt that they are a genuine safety concern.
"It's annoying, and when you think about it, it's also dangerous," Rabess said. "Elevators aren't toys."
"It is a serious problem," Strudler said. "People are scared to get on the elevators, and students are budgeting more time because of them, and none of that makes any sense."
What makes even less sense to many residents is that these problems are occurring in elevators that the University has upgraded in recent years. Two of Hamilton's elevators were equipped with new parts last summer, while the rest of the thirty-year-old elevators will be similarly outfitted over the academic year. Several renovated units, however, already have posed difficulties.
And seven years ago, Harrison and Harnwell elevators were upgraded to more current technology.
"We rebuilt the elevators completely," University Engineer Juan Suarez said, noting that Penn restored all the control mechanisms and power relays and that the elevators should have a life expectancy of 40 to 50 years. "We replaced everything except the cars, the rails and the counterweight. They are brand new elevators with the latest technology."
One engineer said that the elevators should not be experiencing problems after this short a period of time.
"Seven years is not long enough to cause a new system to collapse," said Jay Preston, a self-employed safety engineer and consultant.
The mystery surrounding the elevators -- which are maintained through a University contract with Otis Elevator Company -- is due in part to lack of written evidence of malfunctions over the years.
"People haven't been keeping good records," Strudler said.
But this semester, housing services are keeping a log of residents' elevator complaints.
"Once we have a log going, we'll have a better idea of what's going on," Housing Services staff member Beonca Washington said.
According to Strudler and Pellicone, Harrison staff members met with Otis to uncover the root of the problem but left with few definite answers.
"Elevator service maintains that there are no mechanical problems," Strudler said. "They say the problems are in the programming."
"There have been rumors that the prior company sabotaged the system," he added.
Otis also told house staff members that glitches possibly were caused by overuse and student vandalism, Pellicone said.
According to Preston, however, neither heavy traffic nor over-occupancy contributes to elevator failure, since elevators should be programmed to bypass floors and let occupants off at the ground floor if they exceed the car's weight limit.
Student vandalism could contribute to failure of button controls, but not the stoppage or outright failure of an elevator, according to Preston.
"Students don't have access to that," Preston said.
Housing and Conference Services Director Doug Berger said that there are no plans to furnish the high rises with a completely new elevator system, and that the University calls Otis to make repairs when the college houses report them.
Preston said that because elevator failure is not a life-threatening situation -- there is virtually no chance of the elevators falling -- many institutions adopt a "fix on failure" approach to cut financial corners instead of repairing on intervals.
He added that if elevators are maintained properly, there is no reason why they should not run without hitches.
"Take a place like Las Vegas, where elevators are operating 24 hours a day at full volume with no problems," he said.
While few people would hold Harrison, Harnwell and Hamilton to the standards of the Mirage, Monte Carlo or MGM Grand, most residents said that for up to $900 per month in housing fees, dependable elevators should be a guarantee.
"We should have at least four working elevators," Rabess said.
