Evening Star Newspaper, September 8, 1929, Page 99

il & E— LB _——— — - S S PSS = Seats on Moving W alkstoSolve Tra LONG the length of Woodward Ave- nue, Detroit’s busiest street, a wide belt is moving steadily underground likke the many endless carriers of mass production which have made that city so famous. Down the street for a distance of 9 miles this belt moves, now at a creeping pace, now hastening up to a brisk glide, then again slow- ing down to a creep. Alongside to the right, for the entire length of the moving belt, a stationary platform holds a continuous flow of people—all at the same time waiting for the belt to slow down, all at once stepping over to the carrier while it is going at its slowest pace, and all together proceeding with it farther up the street, Nine seconds later, and the belt speeds its pace. Alongside to its left is another moving belt with seats like those of any railroad car and with a canopy overhead. The inner belt is now moving fast at a steady pace. Reaching the speed of this seated carrier, the first belt unloads its passengers. Then it slows down again to pick up another waiting load. Out of the basement floors of the buildings along the street, out of theaters, restaurants, offices, and street corners comes the constant flow of people bound somewhere along the long straight avenue. Wherever a person happens to be he may enter this unending platform under- neath the sidewalk, drop a coin in an auto- matic turnstile, wait a few seconds for the gates of the moving belt to open and proeeed on his way over a strikingly new kind of sub- way system. There are no ear-splitting noises of rumbling trains, no yelling guards nor hur- rying gatemen. There is no station to hurry to, nor a definite stop to crowd into. There is no confusion, no pushing and jostling. NE concerted movement prevails the entire length of the street. A momentary lull, then all waiting on the platform take the same step at practically the same time over to the moving belt. Ancther lull in the movement of people, and again they step together upon the faster belt for the moment that the first one is moving at the same speed. There is a similar movement in the opposite direction, as those who want to alight step from the faster to the slower belt and then to the stationary platform. Right to their individual destinations, no distance to walk from a sta- tion. In the street overhead, no street cars are running, the tracks and overhead wires have been taken away, the entire width of the ave- nue is left to automobiles. Traffic is open, fast and free. What a change over existing systems! What 8 relief for drivers and pcdestrians! What a dream! Yet the dream promises to become a reality. In fact, it has passed the dream stage and has entered the planning phase of perhaps the most progressive transportation idea that has ever been devised. Put into practice along a street like Woodward avenue in Detroit, the system would revolutionize transportation. It would take more people off the streets, carry them safely underground and deposit them closer to their destination than any existing system. It would open the street entirely to motor vehicles and greatly reduce street acci- dents. It would hasten the home-coming of downtown workers and relieve the feet of tired shoppers. Even its originator cannot think of all the many varied benefits such a system would bring to a city. The system, as simple as it is unique, is the idea of Herman E. Taylor, supervisor of traffic for the department of street railways of De- troit. Taylor has been in the street railway business for nearly 40 years, and he has been occupied with traffic problems for at least half that time. His knowledge of Detroit traffic conditions is the result of a dozen years of activity there and the new plan he has devised is the result of this knowledge. When Taylor went to Del A. Smith, general manager of the D. S. R, and explained his plan, Smith grasped its significance. They had Gordon V. Allyn, D. S. R. mechanic, build a model to see how it would work in a semi- practical form. The model, an endless double- belt of moving gates and seats, part of it THF SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D, €, SEPTEMBER 8, 1929. Diagrammatic sketch showing how the moving-sid(ficn": will operate. How a Detroit Engineer Plans to Eliminate Street Car Lines by a System of Belt Conveyors Made of Two 18-Mile Subzay Platforms on Wheels. Left to right: Moving sidewalk inventor,-Herman E. Taylor; Detroit Sereet Railway manager, Del A. Smith, and Gordon V. Allyn, who built the model shown. along an improvised cross-section of a street, is operated by a quarter horsepower motor—and it works! This model is shown in one of the illustrations. “Let us suppose the system is installed on Woodward avenue,” Tavlor begins. “We would have a double continuous belt moving up one side of tke street, underneath the sidewalk, and down the other side. Alongside, stretching out from the buildings lining the avenue, would be a stationary waiting platform. “There would be entrances from every street corner, from office buildings, theaters, restau- rants, churches, public buildings. There could be entrances even from the basements of pri- vate homes, if their owners cared to have them. Automatic turnstiles would let the pass- engers through to the platform as they de- posited the fare alengside, “ON the platform, at whatever point a per- son happens to have entered, he could wait. Along the entire street, people would be waiting at the same time until the variable speed platform alongside slowed down suffi- ciently to receive them. When it moved at three-quarters of a mile an hour, its gates would open automatically. Passengers would get on and off. For ten seconds, all along the street from one end to the other and on both sides—all at the same time—this variable speed platform would creep along at three-quarters of a mile an hour, picking up and depositing passengers.” Three-quarters of a mile an hour, by the way, is half as fast as the speed of the esca- lators which take shoppers from one floor to another in department stores, And its safety factor is double that of the escalators because it is level. “Ten seconds of this,” continues Taylor, - “and the gates would close automatically. The variable speed platform would pick up speed gradually until in nine seconds it would be run- ning apace with the constant speed platform to its left. This platform, with its seats and canopies for the protection of the passengers, would be moving at a steady rate of 20 an hour, It could be kept going at 25 or or 50 miles an hour, but 20 miles an hour fast enough, in fact faster than the a speed of our trolley system or even of the York or Philadelphia subway system. csf £ lew “WHEN the variable speed platform attained the speed of the constant speed platform, after about nine seconds, the gates of the con- stant belt would open automatically to receive passengers from the variable platform, or dis- charge others upon it. That change would last 10 seccends, the gate would close and the variable speed platforms would slow down again in nine seconds, completing a cycle in a total of 38 .seconds. “By this method, a passenger would have about half a minute to wait for his transporta- tion. Arriving on the constant speed platform he would find a seat for himself and be carried without a stop or slow-down to within half a minute’s ride of his destination. Then he would reverse the operation by which he boarded the system and arrive approximately at his destination.” Simple, isn’t it? The mechanical features of this unique rapid transit system are just as . simple, as the sketch diagram above indicates. The long moving platforms, each 5 feet wide, consist of flat cars 12 feet long and semi- circular at the ends, so that one car fits snugly into the other yet permits each to turn freely around curves. The cars are coupled together by kingbolts and drawbars, each drawbar carrying a pin that extends through a slot by means of guide rails to be engaged in the double worm of a helix on a revolving shaft underneath. The system is undoubtedly revolutionary, but its practicability is being investigated by a committee of prominent Detroit engineers ap- pointed by Mayor John C. Lodge. “Each car on the constant speed platform,” Taylor relates, “has four double chairs carrying eight passengers. There are 440 cars to @& mile, making 3.52¢ seats in that distance. Trav- eling at 20 miles an hour, therefore, this plat- form has capacity for 70,400 passengers an hour in each mile. “There is a broad aisle on the inside of the platform, so that passengers who are in a great hurry can proceed along this aisle and hasten their speed by that at which they walk. “Compare this system in speed with the sub- way and surface systems of today and we find that, while this is moving at an average rate of 20 miles an hour, the street railway speed averages 1012 miles an hour and the New York subway averages 161%. ¥ ¢¢PLATFORMS would move on rubber or fiber tired wheels along steel plates im- bedded in concrete. That would be all. There would be no individual motors for each triin or car, as at present. There would be no ex- pensive tracks '‘or understructure to suppord the system, And most beneficially, there would be a considerable decrease, if not am almost entire avoidance, of noise. “The cost of the system would be greatly reduced, both in construction and in operation. A subway system, such as Philadelphia’s or New York's, costs at least $6,500,000 a stree$ mile to construct. This system would cos§ about $5,000,000 a street mile, - The reason for this is thai the entire streets needn't be torn up, since the platforms would be under the sidewalks and there would be no need of a heavy superstructure to support vehicles on the street. There would be a lighter under- structure-than that used to support the cumse bersome trains of an electric subway system, and the cars themselves would be considerably lighter—2,000 pounds at the most against 110, 000 pounds for the steel subway cars. . “The New York subway system in 1924, which is the latest year for which I have figures, showed a gross revenue of $1,739,200 per track mile, and an expenditure of $953,755 per track mile. Our Woodward avenue line last year showed a revenue of $108,745 per track mile and an expense of $68,635 per track mile. “The proposed belt rapid transit system, fig- uring on the basis of a 10-cent fare, would earn $5,000,000 a year at an expenditure of less than $2,000,000. The mile revenue would be $277,777, and the expense per mile $105,000. One drawback seems to present itself. If there is a sudden breakdown at any point the entire system going both ways is stalled, for the whole double belt is a single unit. ‘ Yet Taylor is not unnerved by this thought. He is so confident of the prac and safety of his system that he is anxious to make himself responsible for its operation. He banks on the simplicity and sturdiness of its mechanism, (Copyright, 1929.)