New escalators being installed at CUNY Baruch College

Come March, stair-weary students at Baruch can again expect to see working escalators at Baruch, according to campus officials.

After some delay, the escalators in the Vertical Campus are finally being completely replaced instead of just repaired, according to Jim Lloyd, assistant vice president of campus operations. Construction began right before the winter break.

"The plan was that Kone would start the installation in late October, and complete all of the replacements by the end of October, 2011," Lloyd wrote. "The first set of escalators will be operational in March."

The first two escalators to be completed in March will be the ones in the basement, according to Lloyd. The remaining escalators will be replaced in phases and completed by October 2011.

According to Lloyd, the process was partially delayed because of a lack of funding. "Funding is never easy to come by," wrote Lloyd. "CUNY is partially utilizing our annually distributed critical maintenance funds to fund this project."

The current escalators in the building, of which only the two between the first and second floors work, are incapable of handling the high capacity of students that traffic the campus daily, former Director of Student Life Carl Aylman told The Ticker in an earlier article.

"These are a different model of escalators developed by Kone," said Lloyd. "BMCC had the same escalators installed and they are more reliable."

"We had to find the funding first, but also we wanted to see how the BMCC replacements worked before committing to this routine," wrote Lloyd when asked why this development was only happening now.

Kone is an international Finland-based escalator, elevator and automatic door company with which Baruch formulated a contract over the summer. The company is "brand new to us," wrote Lloyd.

LeVaur Livingstone, the modernization project manager at Kone responsible for Baruch's new escalator installation, spoke confidently of the new escalators' capabilities. "We did Yankee Stadium. We did the escalators in McCarran airport, in Las Vegas. We have projects all over. It's all the same model, the EcoMod."

Livingstone likened the escalator installation to the completion of an erector set, and claimed that the escalators will have more safety features and will probably break down less often.

According to a product brochure from KONE, the escalators are also designed with sustainability and efficiency in mind. Emphasized features include lower energy consumption, parts designed to minimize the need for disruptive, costly and wasteful maintenance, and an installation process that makes use of the preceding escalator's foundation trusses.

Escalators plagued by malfunctions have been a contentious issue at Baruch for years. Students have complained about and USG campaign platforms have rallied around the issue. Whether these escalators will stand up to the stress remains to be seen.