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High Speed Travelator

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the umbrella-jousting dept.

Anonymous Award writes "Remember those old Isaac Asimov tales of cities of the future, where everybody walked along on moving sidewalks, sometimes clear across a country? Today's airport travelators have always been disappointingly pale imitations of these, but now in Paris we may be seeing the true birth of this wonderfully dangerous mode of mass transportation. Its already as fast as a bus, but when they can crank them up to motorway speeds... well, lets just say this may have a better chance of having cities designed around it than certain other recent innovations."

2 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Re:You know... by archeopterix · · Score: 5, Informative
    When it gets up to a certain speed, the wind resistance against your body will be greater than the friction of the belt against your feet, and you will cease to move forward...
    Now this should look funny. But if you enclose the belt in a tube, with air moving with the speed of the belt (either artificially propelled or just "pulled" by the belt), the wind resistance becomes less of a problem.
  2. This travelator is a lot of fun by James+Durie · · Score: 5, Informative

    I went Paris for the weekend in March and we went through Montparnasse one day and went on this travelator.

    They have guys watching to stop certain people getting on, I have heard they have had to pay out for injuries to some people.

    First it accelerates you to 9kph then it is exactly like a normal travelator only much faster.

    I loved it.

    The only problems are the acceleration and deceleration phases. It's very bumpy. You have to hold on to the rail. If they can fix those aspects these things will start appearing in airports everywhere.