New Roc City Escalators Shut Down To Conserve Energy?

NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Discovering that the escalators aren't working at the city-owned New Roc City parking garage isn't rare, but the sign posted on the main level was certainly a new one to most visitors.

The sign from the City of New Rochelle read, "In order to conserve electricity the escalators have been shut down until further notice." Just to add insult to injury, a second sign noted that one of the two nearby elevators was temporarily out of service (in this case, there was no mention of energy conservation being the reason for the "out-of-order" sign).

While efforts to reduce electricity consumption are certainly admirable, the escalators providing access to a busy parking garage seemed like an odd place to start when looking to lower the power bill.

Inside the retail and entertainment complex, there was an even more striking contradiction. With access to the top floors of the complex restricted in the morning, signs at the bottom of the escalators warned visitors, "Do Not Enter" — in this case, the empty escalators were not only in working order, but also humming away non-stop.

A spokesperson for the city of New Rochelle told Patch that energy-saving wasn't actually the reason that the parking garage escalators were unavailable. The signs have since been removed, according to the spokesperson who said they were "put up in error while they were fixing the escalators."

The "error" would have included printing the signs and posting them at the escalators. More likely, the explanation for the out of service equipment was a tongue-in-cheek joke. Given the amount of time the equipment is out of order, it's an admittedly funny joke (at least until a nosy reporter started asking questions).

In jest or not, the modest proposal at a downtown parking garage does beg the question, are escalators a waste of energy? According to a 2010 Slate article, the answer depends on how and when the escalators are used.

An escalator uses more energy when it's full than when it's empty and uses more energy carrying people upstairs than downstairs. Escalators are generally more energy-efficient than elevators when moving crowds during peak traffic times, but considerably less efficient during slow periods when an elevator can sit idle, but the moving stairs continue to chug along.

There are a few ways to make escalators more energy-efficient, but many of those efforts take a backseat to safety concerns. In Barcelona, there is a series of escalators that will take trekkers up an actual mountain to the former site of venues from the 1992 Olympics. Those escalators only begin moving when someone steps on the first step.

In the U.S., that sort of energy-saving feature is generally prohibited by code, but in recent years, the codes have been modified to let some escalators and moving sidewalks save electricity by slowing down when not in use.

Whether or not shutting down escalators entirely to conserve energy is a viable strategy is open to debate. Turning off the escalators might not help to save the environment, but taking the stairs instead has undeniable health benefits to those getting a little extra exercise.