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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)

#81

Post by bluGill »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #69
bluGill wrote: post #54

Earlier 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)

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)

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

#82

Post by bluGill »

econ wrote: post #67
bluGill wrote: post #54

Earlier 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.

I'm not sure. I want to see public transport in a city done with rollercoasters. The amount using it for fun would go up dramatically. It would change overnight from just another utterly boring city not worth visiting into a tourist hot spot. Similarly, people who need to be places will make it work. Life is about the journey. All those roads and other boring means of transportation are just places no one wants to be…

That is great for the first week or two, and then it is common place and you just want to be there. It will be old faster if you happen to ride at the same time as someone who gets motion sickness. (or worse if you are the person with motion sickness)

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

#83

Post by Loughla »

rootbear wrote: post #65
JKCalhoun wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, love that idea of progressive velocities. I ant someone to at least build a short test track like this so we can play with it. Seem to recall they were called "slidewalks" by some Sci-Fi author—probably Heinlein, eh?

Larry Niven called them slidewalks and I've always been sorry this terminology never caught on.

The things I took away from reading Niven was transfer booths. The world has homogenized because information and people were transmitted instantly one from corner of the globe to another.

Ooohhh boy.

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

#84

Post by bluGill »

schrodinger wrote: post #71
econ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. I want to see public transport in a city done with rollercoasters. The amount using it for fun would go up dramatically. It would change overnight from just another utterly boring city not worth visiting into a tourist hot spot. Similarly, people who need to be places will make it work. Life is about the journey. All those roads and other boring means of transportation are just places no one wants to be…

I love this. As another poster brought up, plenty of people buy enjoyable cars and motorcycles for the pleasure of driving. Why not add a little spice to life?

Spice is fine - but you still need to get places and that is the primary goal of most cars. People who have the car/motorcycle for fun only nearly all have some other vehicle they use as the "daily driver" to get places. I might take a train on a sunday drive myself once in a while.

The majority of uses should be for people trying to get someplace. If the trip is also fun that is a bonus, but if it is only fun but otherwise worthless (that is something else is enough better) your system won't get many riders.

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

#85

Post by rkagerer »

Animats wrote: post #78
bobthepanda wrote: post #13

Earlier 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. In practice, everyday transportation systems need to accommodate a wide variety of users safely, like a toddler, or a commuter holding a cup of coffee, or a grandmother with a walker.

> 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…

That link is fantastic, thanks!

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

#86

Post by 999900000999 »

econ wrote: post #67
bluGill wrote: post #54

Earlier 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.

I'm not sure. I want to see public transport in a city done with rollercoasters. The amount using it for fun would go up dramatically. It would change overnight from just another utterly boring city not worth visiting into a tourist hot spot. Similarly, people who need to be places will make it work. Life is about the journey. All those roads and other boring means of transportation are just places no one wants to be…

Lawsuit city.

For many disabled people driving isn’t really possible. Now they have to hop on a rollercoaster ?

High speed rail would be more than enough for me. DC to NYC in 1 hour flat. Philly to NYC in 30 min.

Sacramento to SF in 1 hour, which would allow for normal people to buy homes and commute into town.

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

#87

Post by xarope »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #63
hmmokidk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two planes are headed towards new york. The first is descending into the city at 805 miles per hour. The second 846 miles per…

given these facts that I have already laid out, which terrorist has the blue handlebar mustache?

what color was the bike the ape was riding, when the terrorist with the blue handlebar threw his nails?

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

#89

Post by [deleted] »

ggm wrote: post #66
timcobb wrote: post #64

> moving walkways, those standard infrastructural elements of such utilitarian spaces as airport terminals, subway stations, and big-box stores big-box stores? where??

used to go between levels so a flat escalator, can take trolleys or there is a trolley chain haul beside. Bunnings (Hammerbarn if you must) have them. Giant tilt slab constructed category killers. Where sprawl is permitted they're a one layer building but in space constrained areas they have two or three (carpark under a 2 layer building) and these walkways exist to get your inflatable shark, chainsaw and bucket of c…

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by wordpad »

cogman10 wrote: post #77
bobthepanda wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Romanticizing horses, specifically, is a very rose colored glasses situation. At the turn of the last century, cities were getting overwhelmed by thousands of tons of horse feces, a similar volume of their urine, and the carcasses of overworked horses dropping dead in the street.

> Romanticizing horses, specifically, is a very rose colored glasses situation. Apologies, I wasn't trying to romanticize the horse aspect. Rather, the public transit and train shipping aspect. In the US, at one point trains were so popular that even rural farms would have small train depots to load up crops on and ultimately ship goods wherever they need to be. You'd even find stores with train station docking. In f…

Rail can't take you to suburbs is basically the main reason this happened.
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