Can't believe those guys won. The rest of the ideas must've been terrible. There are so many reasons why that system wouldn't work: People are out of shape, how do you pass someone going slowly, what if someone stops mid-track for any reason, how do you bypass people at a station, where would the room be found to install this, etc... This idea seems like a closeted geek idea for getting around that Google campus and dependent on that "Can't we all get along?" mentality that expects and/or believes people will provide equal effort to make something work. Try installing something like that in Boston, I can see the fights already. I can already see Americans wanting to put motors in them as well; why pedal?
Google should've awarded something practical that could have been implemented realistically, not a gee-whiz impractical idea.