Hotel Stairs (From September 2008)

Here is an example of competing interests, power groups and unintended consequences.

On our recent New England trip we observed that in hotels built before about 1980 the stairs were a usable alternative to the elevator.  At the Inn at Essex a three story hotel in Burlington, Vermont the stairs wrap invitingly around the elevator column. They are wide, carpeted and well lit.  As a result the stairs are easy to use. In the newer hotels we stayed at the stairs were always at the end of the corridor away from the elevator and often led to the outside of the building not the lobby of the hotel.

These changes were implemented by architects and builders to make buildings safer.  And it may have worked but at a cost.  The plans of all new hotels have to be approved by departments of public safety and they have been adapted to maximize safety.  As a result in new hotels the stairs are built in ugly fireproof columns at the ends of the corridors.  These new safer stairs are less user friendly, they discourage exercise, waste time and consume more energy than the stairs in old hotels.  The focus on fire safety regulations has made the stairs in new hotels almost unusable, so people with rooms on the lower floors don’t walk to the lobby.  They wait for the elevator wasting time, electricity and getting fatter.

So healthy living, convenience and energy conservation are compromised to slightly improve fire safety.  I say it is a bad bargain and one that needs to be rethought.

it is time to make hotel stairs people friendly again!

I have framed this argument as a hit on regulation but there is another way to look at it.  A clever builder could design people friendly stairs that meet fire code and a hotel chain could promote the idea.  It would give them a slight competitive advantage for a time and would encourage all hotels to make stairs workable again.  Another win-win safety, conservation (now called lower carbon footprints), exercise and convenience. Stairs return to hotels.