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Brain fart time: how about a transit system composed entirely of escalators ? When you board, you take a slow treadmill that runs in parallel to a faster one, and that in turn to another, gaining 0.3-0.6 meters/second on each lateral skip. You do the reverse when approaching your destination.

An treadmill running at 10m/s with pairs of people spaced at 0.5m has a capacity of 40 people/second, or 2400 people per minute, or one large train every 30 seconds. The average speed is higher and you no longer need to wait for a train. The only very small problem is the prohibitive cost with existing tech.



Not quite what you're talking about, but see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central%E2%80%93Mid-Levels_esc...


Robert Heinlein wrote a short story about this concept named The Roads Must Roll. He uses it to illustrate class differences.


Is it pre or post *The Caves of Steel" by Asimov?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caves_of_Steel

The Roads Must Roll was published in 1940. The Caves of Steel was published in 1953.


That doesn't really work for passengers who have trouble walking or standing like the old or disabled.




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