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Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
- nashashmi 1y agoThat kid getting slapped on the face in the film! What did he do?
- deadbabe 1y agoDoesn’t matter, he’s dead now.
- delichon 1y agoCould you ask him, deadbabe?
- netsharc 1y agoSomeone else in these comments said s/he wonders what lives the people ended up living who were seen in old photos/videos. Your comment makes me wonder what life this boy (well, he's our senior) lived, and what his impact is beyond being a participant of a curious event in a YouTube video. I guess he had a paper trail, relatives, etc, but there's probably no way to identify him from the present (except if someone's grand-grandkid can give us an anecdote about his grand-grandfather seeing a kid being shoved at the moving walkways in Paris..
- arlcode 1y agoThere's a good chance he was fighting in WWI being in his mid 20s. If he survived that he lived through economic crisis in the twenties and thirties and ultimately WWII including occupation and terror in France. And ultimately if he got old enough he could have witnessed the early cold war but also European economic bounce back and begining reconciliation between former enemies.
- hshdhdhehd 1y agoWhich also applies to all history?
- vondur 1y agoI think he was spinning on a pole adjacent to the sidewalk.
- austinjp 1y agoHe 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.
- delichon 1y agoI'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 faster and faster, until the express strip in the center rushed past at a hundred miles an hour. -- The Roads Must Roll, Astounding Science Fiction, June 1940. https://ia601208.us.archive.org/32/items/calibre_library_178.219.147.208/Robert%20A.%20Heinlein%20-%20The%20Roads%20Must%20Roll_4359.pdf https://ia601208.us.archive.org/32/items/calibre_library_178...
- troupo 1y agoIt was a recurring theme throughout most of Golden Age fiction. E.g. Clifford D. Simak mentions them as a mode of transportation in The Goblin Reservation, Asimov has them in Robots of Dawn, and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty more. It could be that it was Heinlein who kicked of the trend.
- bobthepanda 1y agoPeople 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.
- Animats 1y ago> 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 where there are turntable sections between the cars. Powered by motors on the tracks. Possibly the first application of distributed power, with many motors pulling together in a controlled way. Disney's PeopleMover, also powered by track motors and friction, can be thought of as a descendant. Disney had elaborate plans for little cars on tracks for EPCOT, but that never worked out. [1] https://www.worldfairs.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=125-les-moyens-de-locomotion-terrestre https://www.worldfairs.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=125-l...
- al_borland 1y agoI like that the fence moves with it. It seems like more of a complete vision than the moving sidewalks we have today, which always look like they were just dropped into a hallway. We also seem to be unable to perfectly match food and hand speed these days. I’m not sure if this is a “feature” somehow, but it bothers me a lot. They didn’t seem to have this issue with the floor and fence, as far as I could tell.
- bobthepanda 1y agoThat’s because the systems are designed to be dropped into a hallway. In modern moving walkways and escalators, the treads and handrail belt return on the underside. The system used in Paris requires a giant bulb shape to turn around the fence, which is generally a lot harder and more expensive to accommodate.
- ItsHarper 1y agoI believe it's to allow room for the handrail belt to wear down, which brings its speed closer to the stairs until it starts de-syncing in the opposite direction. If it started perfectly, you'd have to replace the belt more frequently to maintain the same level of tolerance.
- al_borland 1y agoIf I’m understanding what you’re saying, couldn’t that be solved with some kind of belt tensioner?
- tfvlrue 1y agoAccording to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ8ehplVFp4&t=636 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ8ehplVFp4&t=636 the handrail is driven by a friction wheel that wears out over time, so its diameter gradually decreases and the handrail speed slows down (until it gets too out of sync, and the friction wheel is replaced).
- tdeck 1y ago
- commandersaki 1y agoI remember reading about this in Devil in the White City.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoMegalopolis
- LiquidPolymer 1y agoI love the kid who is hamming it up at the bottom of the frame. I've been a photographer/videographer for my entire professional career and have run into this kid many, many times. Adults exhibit this behavior too but it is usually much more moderated. This kid had to know what a camera was, which end was filming (some early film cameras appeared to be simple boxes), and wanted to make his mark on the final product.
- jacobsenscott 1y agoSome guy smacks the kid with a light left hook at about 1:14.
- JoeAltmaier 1y agoThere even appear to be two guys dressed in uniforms, chivvying kids off the roadway?
- illusive4080 1y agoIt’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.
- TacticalCoder 1y ago> 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. I've got movies (black & white, no audio) recorded on a "Pathe-Baby" camera [1] from my grand-mother and her sister, my great-aunt, in the early 1920s, where they're both little girls playing. I knew them both very well, they lived through WWII in Europe and they both died old. My great-aunt lived until her 100th year. Very few things are as moving as this little, short Pathe Baby vids I've got of them. A few years ago we asked a little local shop to convert these to digital format and these files are precious treasure in the family. [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9-Baby https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9-Baby
- TOGoS 1y ago1900s MPEG compression was pretty intense.
- thomastjeffery 1y agoThankfully the second video contains a much more watchable film rip.
- throawayonthe 1y agoi think it's a reupload of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Edison,_Panorama_of_the_Moving_Boardwalk.ogv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Edison,_Panorama_o... which links to https://lccn.loc.gov/00694271 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.loc.gov/mbrs/edmp/1771.mpg https://web.archive.org/web/20231016184047if_/http://memory....
- ProllyInfamous 1y agoAt 5m39s of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1900_-_The_Paris_Exposition_Universelle.webm 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]
- excalibur 1y ago> 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.
- userbinator 1y agoI've seen them in airports.
- nlehuen 1y agoThere 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_roulant_rapide_(TRR) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway#Trottoir_roulan...
- netsharc 1y agoMan, 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.
- seszett 1y agoThat one was in activity about the same period I took the Montparnasse station somewhat regularly, and over those years I couldn't ever take it as it was always either broken or running opposite to my direction. I do think a concept with parallel tracks moving at different speeds would have been easier to use and more reliable though. But it might not have been revolutionary/over-engineered enough to attract attention and subsidies.
- thrance 1y agoDecomissioned but still rolling, just slower.
- mlok 1y agoWikipedia has a nice page about it : "Rue de l'Avenir" (Street of the future) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_de_l%27Avenir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_de_l%27Avenir
- userbinator 1y agoScroll down to the photos and be momentarily surprised at the fact that some are in colour.
- card_zero 1y agoHand-colored, "photochromes". One of them is in Commons category "1900 black and white photographs". Check out "autochromes", though: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Autochromes https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Autochromes Leonid Andreev's moody selfie poses amuse me. (Circa 1910.) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Autochromes_by_Leonid_Andreev https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Autochromes_by_L...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bofadeez 1y agoTime 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!"
- cogman10 1y agoCars 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 after expansion of personal vehicles.
- bluGill 1y agoThat 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)
- wongarsu 1y agoBeing walkable doesn't preclude having transit though. It does clash with cars because cars need parking, and parking takes so much space that walking distances quickly become an issue. But subways, trams or even buses don't have that issue, they don't meaningfully decrease walkability European cities are also quite car-infected, but in many the older core still work somewhat similar to how cities worked back then: you have the daily necessities within a 10 minute walk, for anything else you can fetch transit to the city center within 15 minutes, where you generally get everything else (except Ikea)
- bluGill 1y agoMy point was historical - in 1915 cars were a revolution to the few who had them, and there were so few in cities the downsides were not noticed.
- tomcam 1y agoZZ Top's name before it was ZZ Top was Moving Sidewalks
- Timsky 1y agoI like how people getting caught by the cameraman greet him with all little social niceties of that time.
- galaxyLogic 1y agoAt around 1.10 in the video something curious happens: a grown up "passenger"throws a young boy who tries to enter the sidewalk off it. What is going on? Were people more rude in those days?
- moritzwarhier 1y agoModern 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 determined by regular market mechanisms. The difference between what I imagine and things like Uber would be a strong integration with existing train and bus lines, and public funding and legislation. Maybe self-driving will get us there, but there are also many political hurdles that make the less efficient option (high coefficient of cars pp) more attractive than the alternative that could provide better efficiency (and, ideally, also great user experience).
- userbinator 1y agoEfficiency 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
- moritzwarhier 1y agoI would not deny this, and I don't judge people for enjoying to drive. It doesn't prevent me from thinking about alternative worlds / cities though, or in this case, just a stronger focus on establishing public car-based transportation (such as buses), in addition to train lines, which take very long to be built or are currently lacking space to be built altogether, where they would be most needed.
- bluGill 1y agoThat 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.
- econ 1y ago
- stealthlogic 1y ago[dead]
- djmips 1y agoFilmed by James Henry White. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._White https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._White
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- timcobb 1y ago> moving walkways, those standard infrastructural elements of such utilitarian spaces as airport terminals, subway stations, and big-box stores big-box stores? where??
- ggm 1y agoused 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 chips down or up, depending.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Maxatar 1y agoEvery Ikea I've been to has one.
- CodeWriter23 1y agoIt was probably pretty loud
- joshdavham 1y agoSomewhat off-topic, but why are all the men in the film wearing hats? Was this some sort of dress code?
- p1esk 1y agoWas this some sort of dress code? Yes
- JoeAltmaier 1y agoThe last US president to wear a Lincoln-style stovepipe hat was ... JFK
- kristopolous 1y agoAlmost every man wore a hat until the 1960s. There's a bunch of weird culture about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Hat_Riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Hat_Riot for instance There's lots of pictures of the event if you search
- gostsamo 1y agoPeople were spending much more time outside and the roads were much more dusty. You need a hat to keep yourself from the sun and the dust. Cars made them obsolete.
- 1718627440 1y agoThey also make it way easier to great people even over some distance, without awkwardly moving your hand in the air or shouting and annoying all the others.
- 1718627440 1y agoWhat do people downvote opinions over clothing for?
- 1718627440 1y agos/great/greet/
- socalgal2 1y agoIf you like this kind of stuff I highly recommend Expo: Magic of the White City. the first 10 mins or so are a little corny but it gets better and is super fascinating https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cpOQE5KJJds https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cpOQE5KJJds
- quantumVale33 1y agoIt’s amazing how ideas from over a century ago still feel futuristic today.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- batisteo 1y agoAs usual, Edison didn't do it himself: > Thomas Edison sent one of his producers, James Henry White, to the Exposition and Mr. White shot at least 16 movies
- atbvu 1y agoIt reminded me of those Asimov worlds where everything moves by machine and nobody really walks anymore. It sounds futuristic, but also a bit depressing. Sure, it’s more efficient but life feels flatter somehow.
- TomWhitwell 1y agoIn Hong Kong, public outdoor escalators like the Central–Mid-Levels Escalator are a big part of public transport. They go one way - down from 6am-10am, otherwise up. They’ve regenerated/gentrified a whole area of town that was previously hard to get to. Few cars = people travel differently.
- Aissen 1y agoDuring the mid 2000, an experimentation in the Montparnasse metro station in Paris transformed a moving sidewalk in order to have an acceleration ramp from 3 to 9km/h. It was slower(most of the time) than the 1900 expo's 10km/h. And there always was a "slower" sidewalk (3km/h, the default) next to it. The goal was to go up to 11km/h (it did at some point). And yet it failed, and was removed 15 years ago. Only the slow options remain. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trottoir_roulant_rapide#/media/Fichier:Parisian_high-speed_walkway.jpg https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trottoir_roulant_rapide#/media...
- dustincoates 1y agoYou can see it in action here: https://youtu.be/FBzlEG3tMuw?t=399 https://youtu.be/FBzlEG3tMuw?t=399
- sodikidos 1y ago[dead]
- randomtoast 1y agoDoes anyone know why we don't have these anymore, except in buildings like airports and shopping malls?
- laurent123456 1y agoMaybe because in airports people are sometimes required to walk long distances to go from one point to another, while in a city there are public transport, bicycles, taxis, etc. plenty of other options so walking long distances is usually not required.
- randomtoast 1y agoI think moving sidewalks could be more suitable for shorter distances than public transport or taxis. In many situations, it doesn’t make sense to order a taxi for a trip of less than 1,000 meters, or to walk to the nearest bus stop, then wait for the bus, just to travel a single stop. There are many people with disabilities who may struggle to walk these distances and would benefit from such an option. Additionally, moving sidewalks could reduce the time it takes to travel short distances within cities.
- bluGill 1y agoThe problem is cost/benefit. most places just don't have enough people walking far to make them worth it. They cost a fair amount to install/run, and so when few people use them they are not worth it. They also block people who are trying to cross the street (to get to the next store) instead of going down the street. They they are common in airports rare elsewhere - they don't make sense for most locations.
- randomtoast 1y ago> most places just don't have enough people walking far to make them worth it I would place them in the city centers of major cities, as there should be more than enough potential users. > They also block people who are trying to cross the street. Cities could be redesigned by banning cars from their centers, as is already the case in several places around the world.
- jmkd 1y agoLondon had a spiral escalator in 1906, sadly not captured on film https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/blog/spiral-escalator-engineering-wonder-ahead-its-time https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/blog/spiral-escalator-engineering...
- okokwhatever 1y agoOldies were more futuristic than us ;)
- gcanyon 1y agoAnyone have info on how energy-efficient moving walkways are on a person-mile basis? I'm guessing not very, but I'd love to be wrong. Taking a moving walkway instead of a subway would be awesome (assuming you could figure out the speed aspect, obviously).
- elboru 1y agoPrevious comment thread has an interesting conversation about why it hasn’t became a thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793466#45793922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793466#45793922
- Martin_Silenus 1y agoAsimov describes networks of moving walkways on Earth. There are several adjacent ones with different speeds, and the central one is the fastest. People optimize their journeys by entering the network from the outside and gradually moving to the faster inner beltway. And vice versa when they approach their destination. It's very detailed, quite realistic… and inspiring.
- broabprobe 1y agosad the compression on the video is so high
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 6510 1y agoI 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.
- 6510 1y agoIt seems disney's HollowTile floor might be just the right interface. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68YMEmaF0rs&t=181s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68YMEmaF0rs&t=181s
- initramfs 1y agoThe article nicely points out that New York City also had an elevated sidewalk (or plans) in the late 1800s! Here are the designs and sketches. It sounds so reasonable. I am curious why they didn't keep it. https://culturenow.org/site/a5883d3d-b1fa-4cb1-a6ca-a3a692e5cba4 https://culturenow.org/site/a5883d3d-b1fa-4cb1-a6ca-a3a692e5... https://www.6sqft.com/in-1872-broadway-almost-became-a-giant-moving-sidewalk/ https://www.6sqft.com/in-1872-broadway-almost-became-a-giant... Then the car industry got rid of the idea (along with the trams). https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2016/06/a-city-of-bridges-one-century-ago.html https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2016/06/a-city-of-bridges-... https://www.nytimes.com/1915/05/06/archives/elevated-sidewalks.html https://www.nytimes.com/1915/05/06/archives/elevated-sidewal... https://www.archpaper.com/2015/11/long-history-tall-sidewalk-elevated-skywalks-failed-cities-united-states/ https://www.archpaper.com/2015/11/long-history-tall-sidewalk...
- maxglute 1y agoBetween futurama pneumatic tube, and walkalators, are there any other proposals for infra scale "pedestrian" mobilitiy. Faster/less walking seemed like one of those things futurist urbanists use to waste time speculativing now, now we've settled on escooters and exoskeletons?