New Scientist has an article up from their August issue about the big futurist dreams of the early twentieth century for what the French call trottoir roulant: moving walkways. Author Paul Collins describes the fad then for "many-ringed, multispeed systems with multiple points of entry and exit," and the plans at times for walkways across the Brooklyn Bridge and underground beneath Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, the Capitol, and Los Angeles. It's not too late for us--the French eventually got a walkway in 2003 that moved at up to 11 km/h (So what if it only lasted six years?), and we know that LA and Paris have similar transit profiles. This could be way easier than building a subway. [New Scientist, image via]
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