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

Posted by rbanffy 11/2/2025

Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)(www.openculture.com)

409 points | 206 commentspage 2

randomtoast 11/3/2025|

Does anyone know why we don't have these anymore, except in buildings like airports and shopping malls?

slightwinder 11/3/2025||

Probably because for most locations, they are actually not very useful, but quite expensive and just cumbersome. They take up space, and create artificial travel-zones, and at the same time they don't even enhance the flow, because most people tend to stand still on them. For safety-reasons (and probably costs) they are usually just around walking speed. So it's overall just a fancy gadget which is only beneficial for heavy luggage or people with special demands. For those situations, we often have better and cheaper solutions.

laurent123456 11/3/2025|||

Maybe 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 11/3/2025||

I 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 11/3/2025||

The 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 11/3/2025||

> 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.

bluGill 11/3/2025||

Moving sidewalks are worse than cars. At least with cars if you want to cross in the middle of the block you might find a break in traffic where you can do it. The moving sidewalk blocks crossing the street (except at intersections) 100% of the time.

TheOtherHobbes 11/3/2025||

They're very unreliable because of the constant wear, slow compared to other modes, and dangerous for crowds and demographics with limited mobility.

Outdoor variants don't protect riders from weather, and having to deal with extremes of cold, damp, and heat makes them even less robust.

djmips 11/2/2025||

Filmed by James Henry White. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._White

gcanyon 11/3/2025||

Anyone 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 11/3/2025|

Previous comment thread has an interesting conversation about why it hasn’t became a thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793466#45793922

socalgal2 11/3/2025||

If 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

jmkd 11/3/2025||

London had a spiral escalator in 1906, sadly not captured on film

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/blog/spiral-escalator-engineering...

Aissen 11/3/2025||

During 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...

dustincoates 11/3/2025|

You can see it in action here: https://youtu.be/FBzlEG3tMuw?t=399

TOGoS 11/2/2025||

1900s MPEG compression was pretty intense.

throawayonthe 11/2/2025||

i think it's a reupload of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Edison,_Panorama_o...

which links to 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....

ProllyInfamous 11/3/2025||

At 5m39s of 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]

thomastjeffery 11/2/2025||

Thankfully the second video contains a much more watchable film rip.

batisteo 11/3/2025||

As 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

Martin_Silenus 11/3/2025||

Asimov 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.

maxglute 11/3/2025|

Between 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?

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