Fixing America's elevators is becoming a heavy lift
axios.com
axios.com
I can understand saying there are some issues here, but "elevator crisis"? Yeah OK.
Something as simple as municipal cash accounting (instead of double entry accounting) is how tons of cities are finding themselves broke after a maintenance cycle without growth.
>The maintenance things they write about are a small percentage of budgets and so cannot be why cities go broke.
The thesis is that the maintenance things they write about are only small because they are based on significant growth of revenues. The other issue they note is that maintenance costs are non-linear, in that they are irregular from year-to-year, so large cost all hit at once, even if they are predictable.
Again, the issues that Strong Towns addresses is that the costs are not generally visible in the budgets, because they are on a cash accounting basis, and not an accrual accounting basis. There is no balance sheet in the traditional sense, and the spending on infrastructure is non-linear. So here, there is no depreciation of infrastructure in this budget except for city automobiles. The worry that Strong Towns is exactly that the depreciation and amortization expenses will overwhelm a budget when they come due.
We know that the city has limited borrowing capacity from their most recent airport expansion, where they are giving up parking revenue to investors: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/devel...
Again, if I'm wrong, I want to know, but the entire point that Strong Towns illustrates is that these cash accounting based budgets, like this one, do not illustrate future liabilities in terms of ongoing revenues.
can't wait for my lease to end.
Duopolies grow out slow growth, once the pie stops growing stealing customers is hard and is a zero sum game, reaching a comfortable stasis which then becomes the status quo is how organisms in these environments behave
man, someone needs to disrupt the elevator business.
For example, why can't personal homes have elevators? The arguments of older people not being able to take stairs or getting hurt apply at home.
Or maybe busboys for groceries from the garage to the kitchen? Make them go sideways like the enterprise (the ncc-1701 enterprise)
some commercial builings use hydraulic elevators which when they break just slowly lower you to the bottom floor . Again much less inspections needed because they are desirned safe. but the slow speed and cost mean only a few floors are possible
That said I'm not an elevator expert. The details I've given so far is about all I know. So if/when someone claims to be an expert and contradicts me - well they could be right.
Why not? Never mind that steel cables have been standard in elevators for literally a hundred years, have never had any systemic problems, and aren't expensive.
Or some things are simply hard.
Getting billions across many different cultures to trust you with money is hard.
They have numerous competitors, from American Express to PayPal. Even crypto could be a competitor. But they have trust problems, are too expensive, or provide no benefit to the purchasers.
Credit cards in general are hard to disrupt as they pay a substantial kickback to the people who would otherwise be adopters of a new technology.
As a high income, technologically savvy, globally mobile person, I am who a payment company would need to flip to drive broad global payment adoption. Unfortunately for them, credit cards are enormously valuable to me as is due to points and perks.
There is a case for regulation blocking crypto in some areas, but certainly not all and it still has yet to find meaningful traction as a payment processing mechanism.
I used this reasoning to argue that a “take the stairs” campaign by the healthy workplace committee at work was a bad idea. They didn’t want to hear it.
Further, for people under 60 a significant factor in falling down stairs is alcohol (about 30%).
Finally, if you look at who ends up in the emergency room, it's generally old people with brittle bones. In fact, that appears to be where the 1.1 million number comes from, people over 65. https://nfsi.org/national-floor-safety-institute-comments-on...
If you are sober, younger than 65, and capable, taking the stairs is a good choice. It's a decent low impact cardio exercise.
Yes and statistically, that's rare and those individuals will be fine [1]. The danger increases exponentially with age primarily because bones get brittle and muscles weaker as you get older.
> And my office had its share of older, unfit people (not sure about drinkers).
Who I specifically mentioned should probably not take the stairs. I'm not on an anti elevator crusade. I'm also not universalizing stair usage. However, using the slip and fall statistic to say "take the stairs is a bad idea" is simply a bad argument.
[1] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demograph...
Yes, anyone can sue over anything. No, you won't win a stairway lawsuit if the stairways are maintained and other alternatives exist. You are unlikely to find lawyers to represent you (at least not on contingency) if there's nothing wrong with the stairway. A good lawyer would advise you not to sue.
This is a bad argument because it assumes that lawsuits over injuries are always easy to win and costly. They aren't.
Here's a California slip and fall ambulance chaser laying out exactly these facts. [1]
I know it's likely stairs killed your grandma but give it a rest. As I stated in the beginning and gave facts/figures for, stairways are safe for most everyone. Just avoid them if you've been drinking or you're old.
[1] https://www.salamatilaw.com/slip-and-fall-lawyer-los-angeles...
While climbing stairs is fairly low impact on the joints, descending is high impact (depending on how fast you go).
There are not much health benefits from going down stairs beyond what you'd get from regular walking. There are some (mostly minor) risks.
Just something to think about. (yes, I take the stairs up and down).
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/08/sp...
I cannot understand what this could mean.
> the U.S. would benefit from federal elevator standards
What would the constitutional basis for those be?
I think it's a little bit forced with the elevator example, but I fully agree with the argument that "We all need the accessibility features sometimes". It can be something as small as needing crutches for a sprain (elevator), your arms being full of groceries or bringing coffee by for coworkers (door-opening button), or because your toddler struggles with stairs (and a ramp is less of a tumble if they take one)
Interstate commerce just like almost everything else.
• if you are lucky enough to live until old, you'll likely need an elevator. • if you are unlucky enough to die young, you'll likely not need an elevator.
Those are the two extremes (babies, and old people).
And everyone in between would also benefit any time they have to carry anything up a flight of stairs, of course.
We need to consume less, so we need new buildings, and that's will be as well in the future, so we need to been able to rebuild at little costs, HOMES and SHEDS respond to such needs, not high rise. High rise nowadays respond only to construction industry need to maximize their own profits.
What does this saying mean?
And what's with the weird article formatting? Is it targeted at people with short attention spans or is it some kind of AI garbage?
Something doesn't add up.
Thanks unions