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Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

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Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#51

Post by dboreham »

kergonath wrote: post #39
excalibur wrote: post #15

> It’s fair to say that few of us now marvel at moving walkways, those standard infrastructural elements of such utilitarian spaces as airport terminals, subway stations, and big-box stores. You've gotta be referring to escalators here. Never seen a moving walkway in a big-box store, or a subway station for that matter.

> You've gotta be referring to escalators here. Never seen a moving walkway in a big-box store I have seen some occasionally in stores, in or around Paris. They usually are on an incline to allow trolleys to be taken up or down a level. Or similarly outside malls to get trolleys to the upper level of a car park. That’s in places where you have to stack car parks instead of just having them sprawl all over the place,…

There's one in a Target in the LA area. I forget exactly where it is.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#52

Post by netsharc »

nlehuen wrote: post #26
excalibur wrote: post #15

> It’s fair to say that few of us now marvel at moving walkways, those standard infrastructural elements of such utilitarian spaces as airport terminals, subway stations, and big-box stores. You've gotta be referring to escalators here. Never seen a moving walkway in a big-box store, or a subway station for that matter.

There are at least some in the Paris subway, including one that went at 12 km/h but was decommissioned in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway#Trottoir_roulan...

Man, they should've designed it similarly to the video, with parallel tracks with differing speeds. But people's lack of attention would probably lead them to park a foot on each track and causing a tumble.

Speaking of speed, in the Stockholm main station the escalators go faster than others I've experienced... But I don't know if they've adjusted the speed since my experience years ago.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#53

Post by bluGill »

cguess wrote: post #47
moritzwarhier wrote: post #32

Modern urban car infrastructure is neither space- nor energy-efficient, but urban planning is long-term, and decisions shift all efficiency considerations in the long-term in a way that's hard to undo. For example, transportation of people with the modern extensive net of streets would be most convenient and efficient if there was some kind of public transportation in small buses, available on demand and price being…

> available on demand This doesn't work in cities. The vast majority of peoples movement are not immediately necessary. They can wait 10-15 minutes (or plan ahead) for efficiency. This also cuts down on costs for everyone.

On demand is bad but not for that reason. people have places to be and are bad at planning. You should be running every 5 minutes so even if they are running late it still isn't very long until you get there.

every 10-15 minutes is cheaper and so because of cost you are often forced to be this bad (or worse) just to be affordable, but it isn't what anyone wants and people who use such systems will dream of ways to make a car work where they are

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#54

Post by bluGill »

userbinator wrote: post #33
moritzwarhier wrote: post #32

Modern urban car infrastructure is neither space- nor energy-efficient, but urban planning is long-term, and decisions shift all efficiency considerations in the long-term in a way that's hard to undo. For example, transportation of people with the modern extensive net of streets would be most convenient and efficient if there was some kind of public transportation in small buses, available on demand and price being…

Efficiency should not be pursued to the exclusion of everything else. As the article itself says: trans­porta­tion should be about more than just get­ting from A to B; it should be a plea­sure as well

That is stupid. people have places to be. Only a tiny minority are on transit for fun. Everyone else just wants to be there. you do these people a massive disservice by not making their ride efficient.

and the minority who are for the ride will figure out how to make it work.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#55

Post by bluGill »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #32

Modern urban car infrastructure is neither space- nor energy-efficient, but urban planning is long-term, and decisions shift all efficiency considerations in the long-term in a way that's hard to undo. For example, transportation of people with the modern extensive net of streets would be most convenient and efficient if there was some kind of public transportation in small buses, available on demand and price being…

On demand is bad! People have places to be and they need to be able to depend on arriving on time. on demand means they can't be sure when the transport will detour to pick someone else up thus making them late. what we need are reliable fixed routes that are predictable.

making on denand reliable means that there are more vehicles driving around than we now have cars - as empty vehicles reposition just in case someone else wants to go someplace right after you.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#56

Post by austinjp »

nashashmi wrote: post #2

That kid getting slapped on the face in the film! What did he do?

He was a child and probably of a lower (aspirational) class that the guy who slapped him. Children and working-class people having rights is a surprisingly recent concept.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#57

Post by bluGill »

cogman10 wrote: post #29
bofadeez wrote: post #20

Time traveler: "No, in 120 years we won't have moving sidewalks almost anywhere" Tech enthusiasts: "Oh what a luddite, didn't you see the demo? This is the future!"

Cars really messed a lot of that up. In the 1900s every city was walkable. Most cities had trains of some sort for the majority of transport and bikes or horses for the last mile. It really makes me sad to see even old cartoons showing off the tram systems of the day. Those all got pulled up for "progress" thrusting us all backwards into bumper to bumper traffic. Whats incredible is that happened almost immediately a…

That is looking at the past through rose colored glasses. Walkable cities are too small to have the wealth of options a car (or transit) city does.

trains are nice but cars were faster for most (until congestion - but by then there were so few users that service was bad)

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#58

Post by emmelaich »

excalibur wrote: post #15

> It’s fair to say that few of us now marvel at moving walkways, those standard infrastructural elements of such utilitarian spaces as airport terminals, subway stations, and big-box stores. You've gotta be referring to escalators here. Never seen a moving walkway in a big-box store, or a subway station for that matter.

There's one in Sydney, from a carpark to near the city centre, of 207m.

Quoting wikipedia:

> The walkway has been the longest continuous moving walkway in the world since its construction in 1961.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#60

Post by ProllyInfamous »

throawayonthe wrote: post #30
TOGoS wrote: post #14

1900s MPEG compression was pretty intense.

i think it's a reupload of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Edison,_Panorama_o... which links to https://lccn.loc.gov/00694271 , but that does not seem to have a digital copy available edit: well here's an archive but it's not any better https://web.archive.org/web/20231016184047if_/http://memory....

At 5m39s of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1900_-_The_Paris_Expositi... is a higher quality view of the walkway (plus thirty minutes of other sights to behold from that World's Fair).

7m20s of the same video clip features a clip shot of riders on the overhead converyor/walkway.

[the original film was silent, audio is faked]

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