What We Need: Big Slides (11. October 2006, 11:00 by Derek Young) ~ Zoom!
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Once upon a time we talked about our pet projects – the one project that we would do to change our city. A new one has been submitted… that I really like. The Tate Modern in London has installed Carsten Höller’s Unilever Series – a set of slides that extend from the upper levels of the massively expansive turbine hall down to the floor. The longest is 56 meters long. We’re a city on a hill. We need slides. Massive slides… Connect Fireman’s Park to Dock Street with low maintenance slides and not some tram system. We can use trolley’s to get back up to downtown. Okay, I’m sure there’s some practical reason (like the objections of lawyers and our insurance agent), but ahhh… to dream.
Link to The Guardian |
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Wow, and it’s not even Friday! Doesn’t look like it will pass ADA req’ments, but I love it. I don’t like the one’s that end in water. Best thing since the downtown escalators by the old Pie Patch. I’m already thinking of thinking of things I want to put down the tube. Marbles, bowling balls, cats…
1 | Posted by Dave L. | Oct 11, 11:57 AM
Doesn’t look like it will pass ADA req’ments, but I love it. I don’t like the one’s that end in water. Best thing since the downtown escalators by the old Pie Patch
True. Something not too dissimilar was tried with escalators to connect pedestrian traffic between Commerce and Pacific Avenue. I suppose it was an effort to try to mitigate the problems created with the parking garages.
The escalator passage was vandalized and crime ridden and had to be shut down. Now the escalator run is entombed behind a mosaic wall by the fountain on Pacific Avenue. Hopefully, the whole area will be opened up again to allow pedestrians to be able to walk a wide open area to and from Pacific.
I am so there! Until we get personal jet packs, I guess slides will have to do!
3 | Posted by morgan | Oct 11, 01:23 PM
Until we get personal jet packs, I guess slides will have to do!
Ooh! Ooh! Did anyone see this article about jet packs in Slate? Don’t miss the video clip!
4 | Posted by jamie from thriceallamerican | Oct 11, 01:36 PM
The slides remind me of the suction tubes in Futurama.
5 | Posted by Jesse | Oct 11, 03:53 PM
I for one believe the slide technology is ripe for exploitation. It is time for city officials to pick up the clue phone. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens says: “Tubes: Yes Please!”
6 | Posted by RR Anderson | Oct 12, 02:39 PM
This will give new meaning to Pete Townshend’s line, “I took the tube back out of town…†Getting home from Doyle’s via gravity would be quick and safe.
In the bocce group alone, I think we have enough piping, dirt, and civil engineer types that we could come up with a preliminary design, perhaps coordinating the routes in conjunction with the future trolley lines. Trolley goes up; tube goes down. Trolley goes up; tube goes down….
7 | Posted by Dave L. | Oct 13, 08:56 AM
Not wanting to bump an old thread again (I’m slow), but heck, it’s Friday and I think this ties in with Steve’s developing vision of this PorTac transportation system. There’s nothing new under the sun, so, reading Panati’s book again, and about the origins of the subway system, and Scientific American-Ely Beach’s original pneumatic tube idea, I realized adding pneumatics to this tube is an idea who’s time has come, and this is the place. Here’s the all-authoritative Wiki version of this wonderful science of blowing passengers through such a tunnel. Screw gravity.
8 | Posted by Dave L. | Oct 27, 11:17 AM
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