The Moving Walkway Story

The first moving walkway debuted at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, in Chicago, Illinois and was designed by architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee. It had two different divisions: one where passengers were seated, and one where riders could stand or walk. It ran in a loop down the length of a lakefront pier to a casino. Six years later a moving walkway was also presented to the public at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900. The walkway consisted of three elevated platforms, the first was stationary, the second moved at a moderate speed, and the third at about ten kilometers per hour (six miles per hour). These demonstrations likely served as inspiration for some of H. G. Wells' books.

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#MovingWalkway

[appa]

This is my dream. Imagine three walkways at 15 mph increments. You run up to full speed on one to reach the next and you can cruise around at a continuous 45 mph

[AddictedtoProjects]

I like this sort of trivia geekery. And of course, delivered with your usual high level of detail and thoroughness. Thank you! :)

[YouAreBreathing]

1:58 I love those people rowing on the walkway.

[lemonofish]

Never knew the high speed moving walkway at Toronto Pearson Airport is the only one that exists in the world

[anthoslykos]

That sub-surface moving walkway infrastructure idea is pretty cool idea.

[samspencer]

That Toronto one is genius! I'd like to see how far we can safely push that idea. I don't like the look of the handrail however hehe I worry I'd trap my fingers as it compresses and would likely just not use it :)

[StevoE]

Power walking on that Toronto T1 walkway is incredibly fun. You quite literally race past anything else.

[OscarScheepstra_Artemis_]

How come I just found this channel yesterday? Love your videos - they are short, but don’t feel too short. You get straight to the point. You speak clearly. Amazing!!

[patricksanders]

Robert Heinlien used this idea extensively most notably in the story, "The Roads must Roll"

[edipyuksel]

Great video. Thank you. Well, now Beltways is taking the challenge to accelerate moving walkways to 10 miles/hour speed. God willing, our pilot system will be installed at CVG airport by the end of this year.

[dijikstra]

The idea of multiple parallel walkways at different speeds is a pretty cool one. You could start of going onto the slow walkway at any point, move onto the medium speed walkway, high speed walkway and then perhaps finally like what is depicted at 0:55, sit down for even higher speeds.

[FeedScrn]

Good video. Awesome year 1900 footage. // I didn't even know that they had walkways today that were that fast.

[PachoAst]

I've been working for three years in the High Speed Walkways installed in Toronto, six Spanish people team working on it. The maintenance is 10 times more complicated than an usual Walkways and maybe 20 times more hard.

[shaunw]

Interesting stuff . Another great video thanks 👍

[samuelross]

My thanks to the producer! I love your series.

[NLBassist]

This is a subject nobody thinks about, but you do, and I like it!

[xdeler]

Wow, this is an underrated channel! Subscribed. Great video. Keep it up!!

[markwright]

0:34 That lady to the right of shot doesn't quite seem to get how it works. :)

[neldablanco]

So interesting!! ❤! Airports are so cool to have...

[canadaehxplained]

Your comment on the accelerating walkways in France threw me for a second - I suppose I spend so much time travelling through Pearson, that I had never put much thought to it... So, in my mind I was like 'but what about the ones like at Pearson, those can't be all that unique by now'... then not a second later you brought it up and I was corrected!