Comment by tensor
6 days ago
Pearson airport in Toronto has ones that accelerate up to a fast speed. People who can’t use them can either walk beside them or hire a small electric golf cart. There is no reason to ban them just because a small portion of the population can’t use them.
Not sure but I think I read a while ago that they were removed due to unreliability (it's a while since I've been there myself).
It was very clever how they did the acceleration/deceleration - the "tiles" of the walkway fit together in such a way that each could slide on top of the next one, and at the two ends the tiles would gradually slide closer together (decelerating) or further apart (accelerating).
They were still there pretty recently when I was there. All escalators are a pain for maintenance though. Sure it's cheaper to force people to walk but that's not the point.