
10 Mph Moving Sidewalks Could Make Crosstown Buses Obsolete - russell
http://nymag.com/speed/2016/12/10-mph-moving-sidewalks-could-make-crosstown-buses-obsolete.html
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gshubert17
Robert A. Heinlein wrote a short story in 1940, "The Roads Must Roll",
featuring long-distance, high-speed moving roads, not just sidewalks.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll)

~~~
i80and
An idea not entirely unlike this was also used in Isaac Asimov's "The Caves of
Steel".

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guard-of-terra
And the entirety of Strugatskies' XXII Century Noon.

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wazoox
There was a fast (10 kph) moving sidewalk in the Paris metro station
"Montparnasse" for 12 years or so. It never worked out. You can't easily step
on it; for years they had to have employees helping people stepping on the
fast lane without falling down. And the thing broke down all the time, it was
barely available half the time. Finally they replaced it with a good old
fashioned 4 kph moving sidewalk.

Faster isn't always better. Moving faster is overrated.

~~~
shawkinaw
This article is about a walkway that moves slower at the ends, like a ski
lift.

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wazoox
The Paris metro one was slower at the ends. The ends were made of gradually
faster rolls, so you had to let your feet flat on the ground and dont try to
walk until on the main, faster part of the sidewalk. Trying to walk on the
gradually accelerating parts was a sure way to fall.

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rubyfan
In related news, _Teleportation Could Make Airplanes Obsolete_ if only
physicists can figure out how to transmit and re-assemble humans correctly.

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mikeash
Nobody knows how to build a teleporter, whereas moving sidewalks are pretty
mundane technology by now.

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gumby
Not outdoors!

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hourislate
I visit Toronto quite often. They have a moving sidewalk (conveyor system) in
Terminal 3 when you arrive and disembark from your plane. The video of the
moving sidewalk they link looks to be the one I'm referring to and if you look
at the date it's from 2009. That's probably the last year it was in operation.

In the last 2-3 years (and I'm there at least once a month) the moving
sidewalks have maintenance signs on them and have never worked. As a matter of
fact I put a small sticker on the belt/handrail and it hasn't moved guaranteed
in about a year. It makes the walk to Customs and Immigration quite the haul.

It could be that they have disabled them permanently so people don't get to
the customs/immigration area to quickly and overwhelm an already overwhelmed
system. Don't know....

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Pixeleen
The moving walkway pictured in the article is the same one, and it worked two
years ago. It was a rush to glide past even the regular moving walkways. A
futuristic treat after a long flight and grouchy border guards.

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enf
There actually is a sidewalk conveyor belt (and some sidewalk escalators) in
operation in Bilbao. I'm not sure how much of a maintenance headache it is in
practice, but it does make a hilly neighborhood more easily accessible.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/18345027333/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/18345027333/)

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buzzybee
This has been proposed many times. Here is one plan from 1937 that would have
been located where the Market Street BART tunnel is now:

[http://blog.sfgate.com/thebigevent/2015/07/10/35-years-
befor...](http://blog.sfgate.com/thebigevent/2015/07/10/35-years-before-bart-
a-subway-and-moving-sidewalk-on-market-st/)

~~~
internaut
The future used to be much more interesting.

Check out Whale Bus:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/Fr...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/France_in_XXI_Century._Whale_bus.jpg/800px-
France_in_XXI_Century._Whale_bus.jpg)

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Tade0
Waaaay too many moving parts if you ask me.

I have an alternative idea: Electric monowheels(or kick scooters):

-Not fixed-route.

-Barely any maintenance.

-Even the non-exploding ones cost as much as (subsidized) public transport over their lifetime.

-Same speed as this moving sidewalk and bicycles - could potentially share the bike lanes with the latter.

Two major disadvantages though are weight and usability in bad weather. I
guess nothing beats cars when it comes to comfort of _traveling_.

~~~
derefr
Why is being fixed-route a bad thing? When you already have city-scale
capacity-planning data saying that 100k people make a particular trip on a
particular route daily, building fixed infrastructure to accommodate that
route usually ends up with a much lower TCO than the equivalent mobile
infrastructure. A subway train costs less in maintenance, fuel, and road-
congestion than the equivalent number of busses, to serve the same load on the
same route. Mobile infrastructure only gains an advantage where the load on a
route isn't enough to pay back the capital costs of fixed infrastructure (e.g.
busses out to a depopulated exurb.)

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afarrell
I wish Boston would put one (or a 4mph one) underground walking path between
Bowdoin station and MGH so that people could easily transfer without having to
either clog the green line or cross traffic in the rain/snow.

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massysett
The DC Metro talked about putting tunnels between some close downtown stations
so people could walk rather than take trains for close transfers. For now,
they have programmed the electronic fare system so that if you walk between
the stations on the street you don't pay twice.

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Animats
The Thyssen-Krupp walkway at the Toronto airport is only 7.2 KPH (4.5MPH) in
the middle, fast section.[1] Wikipedia claims it's usually broken. The Paris
Montparnesse 9 KPH moving sidewalk had too many falls, was slowed down, and
later removed. The "10 MPH moving sidewalk" is a discussion item in a paper,
not a working system. This is a tough mechanical problem, with no really good
solutions.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4UF6LQKMps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4UF6LQKMps)

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rmason
I don't really want to be on a moving sidewalk when its ten below zero
fahrenheit and snowing - but hey that's just me. But if they could enclose
them in a glass or plastic dome it would be far more preferable than riding
the bus.

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massysett
The problem with the bus is you have to wait for it outside, when it's ten
below and snowing. The sidewalk would run continuously.

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stevenwadejr
Costanza was ahead of his time.

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tromp
JERRY: The only thing I can think of is I told her we should have those moving
walkways all over the city.

GEORGE: Like at the airport? (getting excited)

JERRY: Yeah.

GEORGE: That's a great idea!!!

JERRY: Tell me about it!

GEORGE: We could be zipping all over the place.

JERRY: They could at least try it.

GEORGE: They never try anything.

JERRY: What's the harm?

GEORGE: No harm!

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machinshin_
Louis Wu would approve

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ironyguard
Great idea. Much more power efficient than bus. And roads require maintenance
when its raining, freezing or snowing. This thing will just work.

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brianwawok
A moving sidewalk will just work in the ice and snow? Is that sarcasm?

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astrodust
I'm sure it will be totally fine being iced over, being inundated with salt,
and will never, ever have any problems with a car being parked on it.

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stereo
I have an idea: bicycles.

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digi_owl
Trams anyone?

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finid
Sounds like a good idea. Wonder what the maintenance costs would be.

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astrodust
Hint: Way more than a bus.

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rebootthesystem
Doesn't pass physics or business tests. Yeah, bat-shit-crazy fits this. But,
hey, NY Mag needed to fill some much needed space to generate clicks. Mission
accomplished.

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fsloth
What's the business test? The point of municipal transportation is to
facilitate the rest of economy, not be a profit unit in itself.

~~~
rebootthesystem
Well, I thought it was obvious. Let's see...

You have to dig up and destroy hundreds of miles of walkways.

You have to replace brick, concrete and tiles with hundreds of miles of very,
very expensive electromechanical technology.

You have to do this in TWO directions.

You have to hire thousands of workers, technicians and engineers.

You have to fund the development of the technology because it doesn't exist
for this application.

You have to provide power, lighting, etc.

If this is in snow country, you have to provide a small army of snow removal
trucks and crews to keep the darn things clean. Even then you'll still pay to
move tons of snow, which won't be cheap.

You'll have to widen sidewalks in lots of places in order to accommodate all
forms of traffic and work around existing infrastructure (subway station
entrances?).

You'll have to have medical services available because you will have people
getting hurt as they fall off the thing and do stupid stuff at 10 miles per
hour.

Liability is likely to be huge.

And, of course, there is no practical way to charge for usage so we are
probably going to sock everyone with yet more taxes to build yet another
bullshit project nobody is going to use.

If the context is to replace "crosstown buses" you are talking about tens to
hundreds of miles of sidewalks and all of the organization, infrastructure,
cost and support to take something simple (buses and bus routes) and turn it
into something complex, pointless, questionable and unlikely to really work.

The cost of such a ridiculous system would be staggering. Not sure why anyone
who reads HN would need this spelled out.

~~~
fsloth
I think you are presuming a method of implementation and routing with some
location in mind where this would not be that applicable.

I disagree most strongly about the need to dig up and destroy walkways. We
have 3 dimensions to work with - to go up, or, down. In any case I would see
this analogous to a public urban rail system such as a metro or a tram.

I don't see it as a big issue to dig a tunnel for this - lots of cities
implement rails and such that go wherever public transportation is needed.

The only argument which I agree is the biggest hurdle - which is actually an
unknown - is how to make the system sufficiently robust so you don't need an
army of engineers to maintain it. The fact that there are no known robust
systems is not a good enough argument. Lots of mechanical systems were in the
development over a century after someone figured out how to make them as
practical to make a major impact(steam engines, automatic weapons).

How robust is the most robust implementation possible and how expensive it is
are the two major questions to my mind. If it's too expensive to maintain -
then it's too expensive to maintain.

~~~
rebootthesystem
The point you should be agreeing with is that regardless of how you build it
--dig a tunnel, rip-up the sidewalk or go vertical-- the cost of such a system
defies a comparison to a simple fleet of buses by a huge margin. I would
venture to say one, if not two orders of magnitude.

I mean, the thing is ridiculous to such a degree that it is surprising to see
anyone arguing in favor of it.

Buying a fleet of electric buses would make far more sense than this insanely
ridiculous idea.

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gurneyHaleck
And that's because buses are THE WORST form of transportation imaginable.

Anything is better than a bus.

Buses have never been the opposite of obsolete. They were always a step
backwards.

Trolleys with dedicated lanes make sense.

When travelling distances of less than 30 miles, buses are for people who hate
themselves.

~~~
gkya
You're probably American, I've learnt from HN that you have a sub par bus
network there. I live in Istanbul and find buses quite pleasing. Your city
design and your public transportation system are to blame.

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gurneyHaleck
Traffic and the comparative size of automobiles, compared to buses, means
buses get stuck in congestion and delayed more readily in shared roadways.
Buses almost always have to compromise with the surrounding vehicles and yeild
right-of-way to others, which pretty much means they go slower, and you suffer
a longer ride.

Waiting for a bus usually means waiting outdoors. There are tons of reasons
why bus stops are no fun at all.

~~~
gkya
Everything need not be fun and comfortable. Publ7c transport is cheaper, safer
and better for environment. Also you can only drive when driving a car, but
when you are not driving the vehicle you're on you get to make use of the
travel time.

