Filling a City With Moving Walkways: Is This a Good Idea?

Moving walkways are typically found in airports and shopping malls, places where tiredness and sloth mix with the urgent need to get somewhere. But one city in Spain has broken out of the box with a snazzy mechanical walkway running right through the middle of town.

This is architect Roberto Ercilla's "Mechanical Ramps" in Vitoria-Gasteiz, a city of about 236,000 souls situated near the northeast coastline of Spain (for the geo-bufffs out there: 42°50'55'' N, 2°40'20'' W). The local council installed the giant treadmill in 2007 at a cost of about €3.7 million. The autowalk is split into seven segments that run more or less in a straight line up and down charmingly European but heel-bustingly steep cobblestone roads.