The speed of a moving sidewalk at an airport is 2ft/sec. A person can walk 93ft forward on the moving sidewalk in the same time it takes to walk 12ft on a non moving sidewalk in the oppsite direction. At what rate would a person walk on a nonmoving sidewalk?

3 answers

let man's walking speed be x ft /s

so speed with moving sidewalk = x+2 ft/s

time taken to walk 93 ft on moving sidewalk
= 93/(x+2)
times taken to walk 12 ft in opposite direction
= 12/(x-2)

93/(x+2) = 12/(x-2)
93x - 186 = 12x + 24
81x = 210
x = 210/81 ft/s = 70/27 or appr 2.59 ft/sec

check:
time to walk 93 ft at 4.59 ft/sec = 93/4.59 = 20.26 sec
time to walk 12 ft at .59 ft/sec = 20.3 sec
small error due to round-off
Answer is correct.
Thank you so much.
24/81