High Speed Travelator

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."

Comments

People will adjust.

[FTL]

I was at Toronto International airport last year and saw an Ethiopian woman and young child at the top of an escalator. They were clearly having problems. I took the hand of the child and helped her take "the big step". Presumably her first. She had no problems. Then I realised that I was helping the wrong person. The mother was now stranded at the top wondering what to do.

Teavelators, escalators, revolving doors, they seem natural and intuitive to those who are used to them.

Re:Transition

[The Only Druid]

I dont know; in my personal experience with these devices (in their slower, American and Australian forms), I've rarely seen people hold the railing. Most often, they're holding their bags, walking, or reading, etc.

Obviously, I'm not suggesting no one uses the railing. But the people who need the railing (i.e. the elderly, the poorly balanced) might not be well advised to use such a device as this.

Alternately: put hanging handles a la the subway system. They'd be adjustable (i.e. you could raise/lower them) with one hand, and then you'd avoid the need for a railing.

Re:You know...

[BorgDrone]

you will not cease to move forward.

Once the wind resistance equals the force from the belt against your feet, you will cease to accellerate, it's not like you're suddenly going to stop.

Note that the belt has to move pretty fast for that to happen.

The French take the lead, again.

[lpq]

Seems like the French aren't afraid to try techno-miracles -- I haven't seen any metro system as good -- London is close, but alot of inconsistencies. In Paris and France, they aren't afraid to try new things (and the US still
doesn't have any high-speed trains....bunch of cowards -- look big behind
their high-tech weapons -- but when it comes to something socially useful...
forget it. It was a shame the French became the only company to provide
Super-Sonic speeds on jets -- and, of course, what did we do in the US?
We banned their use in US airspace because Elmer's cow might stop producing
milk from the occasional bang. Big woop. We could have had coast-to-coast
in 2-3 hours, but noooOOOOOooo.... any real R&D goes to defense where
they don't have to worry about every soldier who breaks a nail suing them.

Americans are just so damn stupid so often....that and greedy. Grrr.

Why can't the US every take the lead in these areas --- because it's always
private development and unless the private developer can prove profit (minus
real or bogus lawsuits) before it is even tested, it falls dead on the design
floor.

I really thought the Casino bosses in Las Vegas just might pull off the
high speed train idea to L.A. But it's been ages since I heard that idea
float.

Everyone in the US seems to want to have the right to stop progress that can benefit large numbers of people -- like all the poltics with the "Rich"
who can buy their congressmen in Menlo Park/Palo Alto and don't want BART
to go through their town -- we were promised it would circle he Bay and have
been paying sales tax to support it since...when, 1970's? Everything
is politics and self-interest.

Grrrrrr.