Here is the story of how the size of American elevators came to be:

Two decades ago, the fire marshal in Glendale, Arizona, was concerned that the elevators in a new stadium wouldn’t be large enough to accommodate a 7-foot stretcher held flat. Tilting a stretcher to make it fit in the cab, the marshal worried, might jeopardize the treatment of a patient with a back injury. Maybe our elevators should be bigger, he thought.

The marshal put this idea to the International Code Council, the organization that governs the construction of American buildings. After minor feedback and minimal research (the marshal measured three stretchers in the Phoenix area), the suggestion was incorporated into the ICC’s model code. Based on one man’s hunch, most of the country’s new elevators grew by several square feet overnight. The medical benefits were not quantified, and the cost impact was reported as “none.”

It is one of the many small rules that have divorced our national building standards from the rest of the world. According to research by the building policy wonk Stephen Smith, who recounted this story in a report last year, changes like these are one reason it now costs three times as much to install an elevator in the U.S. than in Switzerland or South Korea.

Someone – individual or group – have to come up with the standards and then another organization implements them and advocates for them in the future. If this particular standard seems odd to people, what would stop others from proposing a different standard and working to get that implemented? How exactly is such a decision adjudicated?

I imagine most elevator users would not think about this when stepping into or stepping out of a larger elevator. It may seem spacious. They may notice when the elevator can hold a lot of people and/or items (suitcases or household goods on moving day). Would anyone lay down in the elevator and realize they can fit?

Implementing a new standard today would take a while to work through the system as new elevators start showing up. Thirty years from now, someone could look back and mention the day when the standard changed (and perhaps give the reasons why it changed). Until then, we have a certain elevator size that can accommodate a seven foot stretcher.