[glenra]

> if it snows, now you are carrying tons of snow until you devote a small army of trucks to go clean the snow

I don't think you've thought this part through. Not that snow isn't a problem that needs dealing with, but "carrying tons of snow" is not the problem you have. If this works anything like a traditional conveyor belt then while it is running it is dumping all the snow at one end, the same end where it is dumping all the passengers, whereupon you are no longer "carrying" that snow. There could be heating elements or blowers along the way that melt the snow such that it drains off the side, or perhaps the slowing-down-at-the-end step involve grating separation such that snow falls through to some lower level? Something along those lines. I'm not sure what the precise solution for snow-on-a-conveyer-belt is but surely it would make use of the massive running conveyer belt as part of the solution, not rely on a "small army of trucks".

[rebootthesystem]

No, I thought it through. I am actually very surprised anyone would even argue in favor of any version of this hair-brained idea.

Do the math on the cost of accelerating and decelerating people + snow and melting of moving the snow. Calculate the cost of the personnel needed to manage that and the cost of the trucks needed to manage equipment, etc.

The entire thing is dumb beyond description.

Let's put it this way. If you had to pay for it yourself you'd take a look at the outrageous immensity of the bill, turn around and say "hey guys, what's wrong with a couple of buses?".

[glenra]

This seems to be the paper behind the article: http://www.academia.edu/7952415/Accelerating_Moving_Walkway_...

What's wrong with buses includes that they take up a lot of space, have a high energy cost to run, tend to have a relatively low peak throughput, tend to be noisy and polluting, and you often have to wait a long time for the next one.

It's expensive to build these contraptions now but the cost is likely to come down over time. Once built, by energy cost per person they don't compete with "make people walk on a non-moving sidewalk" but do compete pretty well with most of the alternatives. You COULD build them in such a way that the cost of dealing with snow is minimal, it's just a matter of deciding on a suitable strategy and implementing that strategy. The dumbest, simplest strategy would be to add some sort of roof or canopy or shade structure such that snow and rain fall on either side of the conveyer belt. (Like, say, the conveyer belt entrance to Bally's Casino in Las Vegas: https://rlv.zcache.com.au/ballys_las_vegas_conveyor_belt_pos... )

Other options include digging a suitable drainage/collection area that snow can fall into as the belt turns or, yes, melting snow with a heater as it passes a grating. The heater option is only energy expensive while it's snowing but it's still likely cheaper than having guys with trucks clear it. But if the area just plain has too much snow for melting it to be practical you go with the roof option.

[rebootthesystem]

We'll agree to disagree. The paper is academic nonsense. Pointing to a paper doesn't mean the thing paper is about makes sense. All it means is that someone wrote a paper about it.

In the real world, to those of us with experience in non-trivial construction projects, such an idea is ridiculous beyond comprehension.

Take a look at the insanity that the California high speed train has become. A train to nowhere that nobody is going to use and will not be high speed and will cost massively more than the sixty billion politicians promised it would cost. And that's a "simple" project compared to tearing-up a city.

But,yeah, cool science fiction.

EDIT: Just thought of adding one thing. This is the same kind of "there's a paper about this" project as flying cars. There are people --and INVESTORS!!!-- who keep throwing time and money at flying cars. They don't make sense. It's a bad, bad, bad idea. Yet here we are, every six months someone wants to build a flying car.