Heidi Cuevas | Opinion Director
I haven’t been comfortable riding an FIU elevator in months and it’s not because I prefer hiking up six flights of stairs.
The elevators have always been a bit untrustworthy since I began at FIU three years ago. They are constantly out of order or they take forever to get to my floor which is not just inconvenient but alarming.
Understandably, some garages can have maintenance issues because they’re so old. The Gold Garage, for one, was built in 1998 so it’ll have some quirks. But it is also everyone’s go-to parking garage so when there is only one of two elevators working, it’s a problem.
But there are the newer garages like PG6 that were built in 2015 that have the same issues— so what’s the real problem?
Just like any other commuter, parking is a hassle. Unless I’m on campus at eight in the morning, the best parking spot I’ll get is on the top floor of any garage. And with the added inconvenience of elevators being out of order, being on time to class keeps getting harder.
The elevator nightmare is nothing new and what’s worse is that it’s normal here.
Every semester one of my friends or classmates will tell me one of their elevator horror stories. Either the elevator wouldn’t come up to their floor, the doors took too long to open, they were stuck between floors or they were completely out of service.
And in PG6 it has gotten so bad that someone is leaving us warnings.
Yet these stories and warnings are quickly brushed off as just another reason why the elevators suck. At this point we all just expect the elevators wouldn’t work and plan an extra ten minutes to take the stairs and walk to class.
Except this isn’t a solution.
We shouldn’t forget about students with disabilities who have designated parking spots at each floor. The parking spots are there to be used but without elevators working they remain empty throughout the day.
Students should be able to depend on something as simple as elevators everywhere on campus, it shouldn’t matter how old the building is.
Taking the elevators here are a headache. If students can’t trust the elevators, stairs will continue to be everyone’s go-to during their time at FIU.
About Post Author
