Pet Please #85: Moving Walkways at Airports

5-moving-concourseMore specifically: Walking on moving walkways at airports. Standing on them is okay. Walking on them, though, is exhilarating.

Even more specifically: Walking on moving walkways at airports while other people are walking by on solid ground. Look at how fast you’re walking compared to the fools who didn’t get on the moving walkway! The time they’re wasting putting one foot in front of the other on stationary ground…it’s a disgrace.

That’s just about when you stumble off the end of the walkway. But still. It was awesome while it lasted.

When I’m waiting for a flight, I often go out of my way to walk back and forth on moving walkways. I love the sensation that much. I don’t want to look like a crazy person, so usually I’ll walk one way, then the other, and then I’ll pause to inspect something really interesting at a nearby storefront before getting back on the walkway.

I wish all sidewalks were moving walkways. Football fields should have a moving walkway strip down the middle of the field for enhanced plays. The possibilities are endless! (I could only think of two, but I’m sure there are more.)

Do you share my love of moving walkways? Where else would you put them outside of airports?

12 thoughts on “Pet Please #85: Moving Walkways at Airports”

  1. I love them too! Grocery Stores! It would be ao amazing. Fast track to the dairy isle! Or to the wine! Or to the deli! Any store really!

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  2. Just curious – do you share the same love for escalators? I mean, these are essentially moving stairs.

    I definitely support walking on escalators, by the way. 🙂

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  3. Grocery stores is a great idea! Think how efficient your grocery shopping would be!

    Escalators are good, but I prefer moving walkways. They’re usually longer, and it feels like you’re moving faster on them.

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  4. There’s an airport in China that has super long moving walkways….it’s SO FUN! I think they should have them on city sidewalks…imagine how cool it would be to zip around while traffic is standing soon 🙂

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  5. I do..but I also have a peeve about etiquette on them. You are doing all your fancy work on the left, correct? 😉 Hang/Stand on the right, walk/dance/hustle on the left, if you please.

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  6. Amusement parks! Sometimes it can be a really far walk to the next ride you want to go on, and confusing on the best way to get there. I’d take a moving walkway in a heartbeat…although they’d probably find a way to monetize the use of them. You’d have to upgrade your ticket to use it, kind of like the Fast Pass.

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  7. Was still thinking of where to implement them and I’d only do that at a place where I would not want to be in the first place, like the DMV. I love shops and grocery shopping isn’t that bad for me. I use the automated scanners anyhow. But the DMV, aww yeah, glide and sashay to renewal, hustle to registration and then hustle back out to the ice cream parlor.

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  8. That airport sounds awesome, Ansley!

    Orianna–I totally agree about walkway etiquette.

    Katie–good call on amusement parks. I would probably just ride the moving walkways instead of the roller coasters.

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    • That video is awesome, Jasmin!

      I really like moving walkways, especially the superhuman speed I feel while walking on them.

      But the truth is (here’s where I become a total party-pooper on this blog post), the idea of having them widely available taps into one of my greatest fears. Clothes or shoelaces can get stuck in the grating at the end of the moving walkway and the wearer gets relentlessly pulled into the machinery. (It’s amazing to me that there hasn’t been a Bond 007 villain who used the end-of-moving-walkway-shredder as his torture device of choice. Apparently, they’re all too fascinated with sharks and laser beams and such.)

      I actually saw this happen to a kid at an airport in South Africa once. He tripped at the end of the moving sidewalk, his little green shirt got caught in the gears, and the walkway kept moving, pulling the shirt tighter and tighter while he screamed and turned all purply-red. Luckily, I had a pair of scissors in my first aid kit and cut him loose before he got seriously hurt, but it was one of the freakiest scary things I’ve ever seen. We don’t need that happening every day at the grocery store!

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