#hyperlook

Tesla’s Hyperloop ‘pusher pod’ sets 220MPH speed record

After dropping the idea for the Hyperloop, leaving the development to others, then getting back into the game, Elon Musk is showing a lot more interest in it. He recently held a student competition at his SpaceX headquarters, helping one team hit 201MPH on the 0.77 mile-long track. Now, Telsa itself beat that record with the “pusher pod” vehicle, which hit a new mark of 355 km/h (220MPH),…

The 1900 World's Fair and the Hyperlook - a Moving Sidewalk

There was a new attraction at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris - an innovative, futuristic installation called the Hyperlook, a strange Victorian moving sidewalk. The two and a quarter mile long moving sidewalk, what some referred to as the "wooden serpent," influenced how many people thought about the future of urban transportation. Standing at almost thirty feet tall, you got quite a view while riding it, with its top speed at 6 miles per hour.

The concept of a moving sidewalk was novel to the attendees of the fair. Technology was certainly coming on strong at the turn of the century. Most urban areas had electricity and indoor plumbing, but the technology of permanent moving sidewalks was perhaps a bit ahead of its time - and still is since it never took to the streets as initially envisioned.

A book published in America about the 1900 World's Fair, Paris Exposition Reproduced From The Official Photographs, had this to say about the Hyperlook:

The Exposition grounds occupy certain parks and esplanades in the very heart of the city, so that anyone who makes the circuit on the rolling sidewalk views not only the wonders of the Exposition, but likewise considerable portions of some of the most attractive localities in Paris. The whole of the Champ de Mars has been devoted to Exposition purposes, also the Esplanade des Invalides, the Trocadero Park, the space around the Eiffel Tower, and other similar localities...No city has a better location to insure the artistic perfection of a great world's exposition than Paris...so that one enjoys all the pleasures of the Exposition without the fatigue or inconvenience of going out of the city.

The only place moving sidewalks are common place today are in airports. Its not that it could not be useful in our culture, but its just not practical. Given our litigious society, there would be lawsuits filed daily if moving sidewalks were widespread. And if they were commonplace, our population would grow even larger, by the pound that is.