The rue de l'Avenir ( Street of the future) was an electric

moving walkway A moving walkway – also known as an autowalk, moving pavement, moving sidewalk, travolator, or travelator – is a slow-moving conveyor mechanism that transports people across a horizontal or inclined plane, over a short to medium distance. T ...

installed at the

1900 Exposition Universelle The Exposition Universelle of 1900 (), better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate develop ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. It ran along the edge of the Exposition site, from the Esplanade of

Les Invalides The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and an old soldi ...

to the

Champ de Mars Champ, CHAMP or The Champ may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Champ (cartoon character), an animated dog introduced in 1960 * The Champ, played on radio and created by Jake Edwards (radio personality), Jake Edwards * Champ ...

, passing through nine stations along the way, where passengers could board. It was designed by architect

Joseph Lyman Silsbee Joseph Lyman Silsbee (November 25, 1848 – January 31, 1913) was a significant American architect during the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was well known for his facility of drawing and gift for designing buildings in a variety of styles. His ...

and engineer Max E. Schmidt, designers of ''The Great Wharf Moving Sidewalk'' installed at the

1893 World's Fair The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ce ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, the first-ever moving walkway.

Features

The moving sidewalk was a very popular and useful attraction, given the large size of the Exposition. It consisted of a fixed platform and two mobile platforms, on a viaduct above the ground level, that covered a loop around the exhibition site with nine stations. The passengers stepped from the platform onto an access sidewalk wide traveling at , then onto a faster sidewalk wide moving at . The sidewalks had posts with handles which passengers could hold onto, or they could walk. The fast sidewalk made it possible to complete the loop in 26 minutes. The fare was an average of fifty

French franc The franc (; , ; currency sign, sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amoun ...

centimes. The sidewalk went counterclockwise along the following

circle route A circle route (also circumference, loop, ring route, ring line or orbital line) is a public transport route following a path approximating a circle or at least a closed curve. Definition The expression "circle route" may refer in particular ...

: Esplanade des

Invalides The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and an old sold ...

along the Rue Fabert, Le Rue des Nations along the

Quai d'Orsay The Quai d'Orsay ( , ) is a quay in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is part of the left bank of the Seine opposite the Place de la Concorde. It becomes the Quai Anatole-France east of the Palais Bourbon, and the Quai Branly west of the ...

, the

along the Avenue de La Bourdonnais and the Avenue de La Motte-Picquet to connect again with the Rue Fabert. It could simultaneously accommodate 14,000 people; during the afternoon of Easter Day, it carried 70,000 people, while the busiest tram and bus lines carried little more than 40,000 passengers a day on average. A

Decauville Decauville () was a manufacturing company which was founded by Paul Decauville (1846–1922), a French pioneer in industrial railways. Decauville's major innovation was the use of ready-made sections of light, narrow-gauge track fastened to st ...

electric train followed the same route, running at a maximum speed of in the opposite direction to the moving sidewalk. The rail track was sometimes at 7 meters high like the moving sidewalks, sometimes at ground level and sometimes underground.

Mechanism

The originality of the system of movable sidewalks, adopted for the 1900 Exhibition, lay in the fact that the propulsion components were absolutely distinct from the supporting and running components. The propulsion was provided for each sidewalk by a roller acting by friction on a beam fixed along the center line of the trucks and these were, two by two, provided with two pairs of wheels carried and guided by side rails established under the floors. Electric power was supplied by the Moulineaux factory of the Compagnie de l'Ouest, and was transformed into

direct current Direct current (DC) is one-directional electric current, flow of electric charge. An electrochemical cell is a prime example of DC power. Direct current may flow through a conductor (material), conductor such as a wire, but can also flow throug ...

because of the ease of starting and speed adjustment it provides. This current was brought to the platforms by nine cables and received on a distribution board which enabled the walkway to run in either direction, or to stop immediately.

Gallery

References

{{coord missing, France Exposition Universelle (1900) World's fair architecture in Paris Former buildings and structures in Paris