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  #1  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2015, 5:10 PM
Sheba Sheba is offline
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Design firm proposes replacing London’s Circle line with a giant travelator

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NBBJ, an architecture and design firm based in London, has proposed that London removes the trains from the Underground's Circle line and replaces them with moving walkways. These travelators would move at speeds of up to 15mph (24km/h), which, funnily enough, would actually get you around London faster than the Circle line's rather dismal average speed.

NBBJ's design, which is entirely conceptual at this stage, would pull out the tracks and trains and replace them with three colour-coded (yellow, orange, and red) moving walkways. The yellow lane would start at 3mph, allowing people to get on safely at stations, and then build up to 9mph between stations. Once you're up to speed on the yellow lane, you could switch to either the orange or red walkways, which would move at 12mph and 15mph respectively.

...

The topic of urban travelators comes up more regularly than you might think, especially in cities where public transport and good ol' ambulation are the most popular modes of getting from A to B. The rationale is fairly simple: they work quite well in airports, so why not replace some stretches of city pavement, or at least long stretches between subway stations, with moving walkways? In practice, despite various design and architecture firms pitching exciting concepts, it's exceedingly rare to see travelators outside of major transport hubs or convention centres. Paris deployed an experimental high-speed (12km/h) walkway at a Metro subway station in 2002, but it was slowed down to 9km/h after users kept losing their balance, and in 2011 was abandoned entirely.

It's unlikely that the Circle line (or any of the Underground lines) will ever be replaced by a moving walkway; the amount of work required and the disruption caused would be untenable. The more likely scenario for fixing commuter congestion in big cities is the deployment of new transportation systems, such as the rather wonderful Thames Deckway (a proposed pedestrian and cycle route floating on the Thames), or SkyCycle, a network of elevated cycle paths above London's railways.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2015/0...nt-travelator/

I can't see moving sidewalks taking hold here anytime soon, but the elevated bike paths look interesting.
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  #2  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2015, 5:15 PM
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This is ridiculous and I fail to see why its in the Vancouver sub-section of this site.
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  #3  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2015, 5:44 PM
red-paladin red-paladin is offline
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Originally Posted by Jebby View Post
This is ridiculous and I fail to see why its in the Vancouver sub-section of this site.
I find myself agreeing.
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Old Posted Sep 10, 2015, 8:40 PM
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We're not allowed to look at what's being proposed for other areas and consider if it would work here? Vision wants to turn one of the viaducts into an elevated bike path.
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Old Posted Sep 10, 2015, 9:02 PM
trofirhen trofirhen is offline
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Having viewed the crazy travolator experiment failure at Montparnasse here in Paris, this project seems like science fiction doomed to failure.
à mon avis .... let the Europeans that have such systems deal with them. Just keep stuff like this out of Vancouver as much as possible.
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Old Posted Sep 10, 2015, 9:22 PM
jsbertram jsbertram is offline
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Originally Posted by Sheba View Post
We're not allowed to look at what's being proposed for other areas and consider if it would work here? Vision wants to turn one of the viaducts into an elevated bike path.
not quite true.

They want to destroy both viaducts.

And then install a 'bike escalator' to make the transition from the top of the escarpment at Dunsmuir & Beatty down to the wider new Expo Blvd at Abbott. Someone figured out that a 7% grade from Georgia & Beatty to Pacific Blvd isn't helpful for cyclists.
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  #7  
Old Posted Sep 11, 2015, 5:07 AM
Sheba Sheba is offline
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Originally Posted by trofirhen View Post
Having viewed the crazy travolator experiment failure at Montparnasse here in Paris, this project seems like science fiction doomed to failure.
à mon avis .... let the Europeans that have such systems deal with them. Just keep stuff like this out of Vancouver as much as possible.
Oh I agree. At most I can see a moving sidewalk connecting the platforms at Commerical-Broadway Station - I can't see it being a viable mode of transportation.

I was more interested in bike paths above trains and / or shared paths above water. Skytrain shouldn't be the only thing that's allowed to be grade separated.


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Originally Posted by jsbertram View Post
not quite true.

They want to destroy both viaducts.

And then install a 'bike escalator' to make the transition from the top of the escarpment at Dunsmuir & Beatty down to the wider new Expo Blvd at Abbott. Someone figured out that a 7% grade from Georgia & Beatty to Pacific Blvd isn't helpful for cyclists.
The latest I've seen is the elevated bike path. I don't know if I can trust them on any plans until work actually starts.
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Old Posted Sep 11, 2015, 5:21 AM
Infrequent Poster Infrequent Poster is offline
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Originally Posted by jsbertram View Post
not quite true.

They want to destroy both viaducts.

And then install a 'bike escalator' to make the transition from the top of the escarpment at Dunsmuir & Beatty down to the wider new Expo Blvd at Abbott. Someone figured out that a 7% grade from Georgia & Beatty to Pacific Blvd isn't helpful for cyclists.
Biking is so awsome.....oh wait there is a hill? I'm gonna just keep driving then, until something is built so I dont have to power my self powered transportation up a hill.

7% is not much of a hill in my opinion. Perhaps they should save these type of things for hills that are actually steep and long.
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  #9  
Old Posted Sep 11, 2015, 1:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Infrequent Poster View Post
Biking is so awsome.....oh wait there is a hill? I'm gonna just keep driving then, until something is built so I dont have to power my self powered transportation up a hill.
Get an e-bike.
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  #10  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2015, 12:00 AM
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aberdeen5698 aberdeen5698 is offline
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Originally Posted by trofirhen View Post
Having viewed the crazy travolator experiment failure at Montparnasse here in Paris, this project seems like science fiction doomed to failure.
It is science fiction!

The Roads Must Roll, by Robert A. Heinlein
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  #11  
Old Posted Oct 6, 2015, 1:03 AM
casper casper is offline
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Originally Posted by Sheba View Post
Oh I agree. At most I can see a moving sidewalk connecting the platforms at Commerical-Broadway Station - I can't see it being a viable mode of transportation.

I was more interested in bike paths above trains and / or shared paths above water. Skytrain shouldn't be the only thing that's allowed to be grade separated.

The latest I've seen is the elevated bike path. I don't know if I can trust them on any plans until work actually starts.
Some real world examples to consider is the tunnel that connect downtown Toronto with Bill Bishop Airport (City Centre Airport that Porter operates from).

You could see something like that connecting say "Granville Island" with downtown. Perhaps a few other isolated places where a tunnel (with moving sidewalk) would provide value. If you take a Lisbon there are several examples of public elevators to tackle hills.
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