Everyone hates the Swing Space elevators, but are they really dangerous?

In an environment as divisive as the California Legislature, it takes a common enemy to unite the community.

Republicans and Democrats, aides and outside advocates, Assembly and Senate, they may not agree on much. But there does appear to be consensus on at least one critical issue: the Swing Space elevators. They’re awful. Everyone seems to agree on that.

Just check out the chatter on Twitter over the past few months.

“Rode the Tower of Terror today, AKA #caleg Swing Space Elevator E,” tweeted Alex Graves, vice president of government relations for the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, or AICCU.

“I just watched a swing space elevator nearly close on a small child,” wrote Bethany Renfree, legislative director for Sen. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles. “I used my very stern mother voice to stop it from happening and everyone looked at me like I’m a mean lady. But I’m not taking any chances with these elevators.”

“Someone told (m)e elevator E plunged 5 floors,” tweeted Bob Becker, an education consultant with the Assembly Republican Office of Policy and Budget.

“This elevator rumor is the worst #CALeg game of telephone ever. It just keeps getting more and more dramatic,” wrote Shanna Ezzell, the Capitol director for Assemblyman Brian Maienschein, D-San Diego.

“Can we get a Swing Space elevator hashtag going just for this?” asked Melanie Perron, deputy executive director of advocacy for the League of California Cities.

“More shocked that there is no Swing Space Elevator account established yet,” replied Brian Ebbert, the floor director for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount.

Terry Schanz, past chairman of the Democratic Party of Sacramento, posted a video of him trying to use the bank of Swing Space elevators when Elevator E was out of order. The touchscreen panel assigned him to… Elevator E.

“This swing space elevator situation is something else,” said M. David Ruff, chief consultant for the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation.

The Swing Space, the temporary home of legislative and executive officials and staff while the Capitol Annex is under renovation, is a project of the California Department of General Services, otherwise known as DGS.

So, to set the record straight, the Swing Space elevators never plummeted. No matter what you might have heard.

Its elevators, like all elevators in the state, are regulated by the Elevator Unit within the Division of Occupational Safety and Health at the California Department of Industrial Relations, AKA Cal/OSHA.

The elevators were manufactured by Otis, the global elevator and escalator company headquartered in Farmington, Conn.

In an attempt to separate fact from fiction, Capitol Weekly decided to find out what’s really going on with these reportedly inefficient, confusing – and quite possibly terrifying –public-access elevators.

“We did see the rumor on Twitter that one of the elevators dropped several floors, but nothing was ever reported to us,” said Monica Hassan, deputy director of DGS, in an email to Capitol Weekly. “We did have the elevator company come and inspect the elevators after seeing the Tweet, but they did not find any evidence that it occurred.”

Likewise, Cal/OSHA told Capitol Weekly that it has received no complaints or concerns about the Swing Space elevators. Cal/OSHA last inspected the elevators on May 12, and they were found to be in compliance with all applicable elevator safety orders.

So, to set the record straight, the Swing Space elevators never plummeted. No matter what you might have heard.

Still, DGS acknowledges some challenges with the Swing Space elevators, particularly their touchscreen interface, which many have complained are confusing to use.

“The elevators are destination dispatch elevators, which are becoming the norm in new builds, as they are more efficient,” Hassan said in another email. Destination dispatch elevator control uses computer tech to group passengers together based on the floors they’re headed towards. The technology leverages “queuing theory” to – in theory at least – optimize elevator-use efficiency.

But, as Capitol denizens have complained, it’s not exactly intuitive, especially compared to the simple push-button jobs we’re all used to.

“As many people may not be used to this new technology, we expect a learning curve,” Hassan wrote. “Elevators are some of the most used infrastructures in a building, and that is certainly no exception at 10th & O” (which is the location of the Swing Space, if you didn’t know).

Some in the Capitol community have also complained that the Swing Space doesn’t have the same number of elevators as the Capitol itself, which they say makes travelling the Swing Space more cumbersome than if we were back at the Capitol.

Hassan said the Swing Space was built as a temporary replacement specifically for the Capitol Annex building, which has four public elevators. The Swing Space has three elevators that are public access, but Hassan said with the destination-dispatch system those three elevators should be able to handle about the equivalent amount of traffic as the Annex’s four traditional, push-button elevators.

“Of course,” Hassan noted diplomatically, “it is reasonable that peak usage at certain times of the year can be taxing on capacity.”

In other words, the folks at DGS know the Capitol community is frustrated by the Swing Space elevators. But while they might be something everybody enjoys griping about, the elevators are designed to function as closely as possible to the elevators in the Capitol Annex.

And, more importantly, they’ve never been found to be dangerous.

So, you know, it might be a good idea to cool it with the elevator rumors. But then again, we at Capitol Weekly know rumors around here have a tendency to persist, even in the face of facts, so don’t expect the elevator complaints to cease anytime soon.