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Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
171–180 of 215 posts
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s crazy to me watching this and thinking that if that kid lived to 100 he would’ve died 30+ years ago. That unknown child will be forever captured on this film. Every time I watch old films with children in them I always think about how they’ve been dead, hopefully of old age, for a long time already.
There's a German black-and-white comedy "Die Feuerzangenbowle" from 1944 and most of the actors knew this was going to be their last film. They were drafted into the war right after filming wrapped up and all of them died, apart from the main star.
You may be thinking of a different film, as all the cast members listed on wikipedia[0] are stated to have died after 1945.
The trivia section of the German wiki page of the same film says there's a disputed rumour that the film was prolonged to help the young extras avoid conscription.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Feuerzangenbowle_(1944_fil...
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#173Modern 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…
As far as I'm concerned, transportation is solved. I live in Paris, there are 14 (soon to be 15) metro lines covering the city in a dense underground mesh, and you never have to wait more the 5 minutes to hop into one.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People have tried faster moving walkways many times. The problem is getting humans on and off such a system safely in a way that is easy to maintain. Right. You can build it, but not make it ADA-compliant. One subway station in France tried a 4km/h moving sidewalk, but the accident rate was too high. The Paris system was really two trains on parallel tracks. Here's the mechanism.[1] Same concept as buses and trains…
Pearson airport in Toronto has ones that accelerate up to a fast speed. People who can’t use them can either walk beside them or hire a small electric golf cart. There is no reason to ban them just because a small portion of the population can’t use them.
Not sure but I think I read a while ago that they were removed due to unreliability (it's a while since I've been there myself).
It was very clever how they did the acceleration/deceleration - the "tiles" of the walkway fit together in such a way that each could slide on top of the next one, and at the two ends the tiles would gradually slide closer together (decelerating) or further apart (accelerating).
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Even with a job I'd rather spend an hour on a train than 35 minutes in LA traffic. (30 minutes... I guess I'd prefer the stress + a little more time for breakfast. But I'd put a 2x multiplier on not having to drive myself)
Having spent lots of time in LA traffic, I'd be surprised if an hour on a train didn't get you significantly farther than 35 minutes in traffic.
Used to take an hour to drive 11 miles down 101 to downtown vs 25 minute on the B line.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#176> 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...
Decomissioned but still rolling, just slower.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#177I ponder this kind of things from time to time. This one makes a very enjoyable puzzle because it is extremely simply to move people on a conveyor or a rolling platform but amazingly complicated to get them on and off if you want to run it at any meaninfull speed, absurdly complicated.
My mental gymnastics is mostly trying to mobilize an entire city with the concept. I see some research suggesting there is lots of room between walking and driving distance. Bringing a bicycle also has its down sides.
Because getting on and off is already so difficult one tends not to notice the other problems with the tech. A simple crossroad is already a problem.
Moving fast is no issue for the more athletic passenger without luggage. It is also the most useless device to them. People with mobility issues don't have to get on but they do have to cross the road.
You would want to slow down or stop the surface, put a fence around it, you would want chairs, a roof would be nice, perhaps walls so that you can further control the climate. And then you have a bus, metro or tram. (haha)
One cool variation (not my idea) was to have a moving platform fromwhich to get in and out of a moving train, tram or metro. You could also make vehicles that connect on the sides. Those would have lots of fragile moving parts and potential dangerous situations if they fail. I see a night train misaligned with the station one time with the last door opening above the entrance of a pedestrian tunnel. A drunk guy almost walked out into the 5 meter drop. That seems preferable over falling between two moving trains.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
That depends on what you are looking for. There are plenty of shops for the common needs - but if you want an odd niche no small walkable area can support it. How many magic stories can your city support? Even something like a guitar shop need a very dense area for people who live in walking distance to be enough to support it. I can think of dozens of other niches - many smaller the above examples.
> but if you want an odd niche no small walkable area can support it. You'd be really surprised. I knew smaller cities with shops dedicated to Warhammer 40k. [1] (Surprisingly, still in business :) ) > Even something like a guitar shop need a very dense area for people who live in walking distance to be enough to support it. A guitar shop just needs enough people interested in guitars. Being walkable doesn't mean the…
My comments (this thread) were in context of 120 years ago when cars were a rich person's toy and most people lived on farms and so didn't have access to the transit that existed. That a store can make it today is different because context is different.
How many of the customers of the Warhammer store walked there from their house? How many came from a different cities because it was the closest store? The store does well because it can draw from a much larger area than a pure walking (or the limited trams of back then)
Similar for guitars - I expect a city of 100k to support 1-2 guitar stores - but I expect the majority of customers are not walking. Maybe they drive, maybe they take transit.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#179I'd guess that Heinlein was aware of it and scaled it up in his imagination. The Roads must roll — they are the arteries of the nation. When they stop, everything stops. Factories idle, food rots, men starve. The nation cannot live without its Roads. A thousand feet wide, level as a floor, strip after strip moving past in ordered procession. The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones f…
The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones faster and faster...
Not good enough. The same strip should go faster and faster over time and decelerate near its end. It sounds impossible, but I can think of a few ways to make it work.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your goal is still being there though, not riding the train. After a few trips you have seen the scenery out the window and just want the trip over with (though maybe you can enjoy the book you are reading most days or whatever you are doing and call it relaxation)
Reading a book is being productive. You can also write, work, or nap. In contrast driving is the biggest waste of time in a persons life. I feel so strongly about this that I’d accept a vastly smaller house just to minimize time travelling. Second best to that is not driving so that I can make use of my time.
What I can't do is start making supper for my family. I can't play games with my family. I can't practice my drums. I can't make chips on my lathe. There is a very long list of things people want to do in life that cannot be done. If what you happen to want to do at the moment is something you can do on transit good for you - but for many they are doing that as a second best because they can't do whatever it is they want to do.
Time matters in the above. If your trip is 15-20 minutes time to unwind seems to be universal and so almost nobody really has anything they want to do. If you trip if an hour that is cutting into other things in life. (Note that I didn't mention how you take the trip in this part, people who drive fast the same time concerns for longer trips)