TORONTO has gone from low-rise to a high-rise city almost overnight – over the last decade anyway. An essential part of skyscrapers is a functioning bank of elevators, and lately there have been some rather dramatic breakdowns. There were over 2,800 elevator-related emergency calls in TORONTO in 2015 according to Canadian Press.

The new 79-storey AURA condo tower had a shutdown in elevator service last week. City councillor KRISTYN WONG-TAM says “rumours are we’ll soon be having a 100-storey residential building. It’s unrealistic to continue to rely on old (provincial-regulated) service standards that were created with a mindset that those elevators will never break down.”

Today I did a walking tour with an Icelandic couple who were stuck in their elevator yesterday. After notifying management by phone, help arrived and they (along with wine and groceries) had to crawl out through the elevator doors mid-way between the 28th and 29th floors. Otherwise they were very enthusiastic about TORONTO.  They said it was a “relaxed New York” – except when it came to elevators.