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Cause that would do nothing to alleviate traffic congestion.

by st3v3r 11y ago

barney54 11y ago
And neither does light rail. light rail is a bad investment. It is expensive and low capacity. It is 19th century technology. Building bus rapid transit makes much more sense because it is felixible and less expensive. But politicians don't like photo ops with buses nearly as much as with trains.
- stephenboyd 11y ago
  The proposal is for bus improvements and bus rapid transit as well as light rail.
- g8gggu89 11y ago
  There's no drawback to buying a lot more electric buses for Seattle?
- dpark 11y ago
  Politicians like trains because their constituents like trains. Buses are stuck in traffic. Light rail runs on dedicated lines. Light rail is attractive because it is more predictable. The buses in Seattle are less attractive because they suffer the same congestion and unpredictability as driving.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    Bus rapid transit specifically refers to bus lines on dedicated right-of-way. However, once you are going to the trouble of building dedicated right-of-way, the incremental cost of making it rail isn't too bad compared to the enormous efficiency/scalability of rail over buses.
praxulus 11y ago
Not exactly nothing (people won't need to drive around looking for parking, in theory self-driving cars could pack in more closely to reduce road congestion), but probably not enough to make it worth it.
natrius 11y ago
All you have to do to eliminate congestion is to raise the price of congestion until it goes away. Don't want to pay the full price? Share a ride with other people. This is only unpopular because so many people would rather have free, congested roads and expensive, slow transit than just paying for the roads. This will clearly change before most of Seattle's new plans are completed: self-driving cars will clog up our roads waiting for riders unless we charge them to be on the roads.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  The problem with that solution is that it puts most of the burden on those least able to shoulder it. Most of us here probably have flexible hours, so moving our commute by even an hour isn't that big of a deal. Someone working a lower end job has set hours, so they cannot move their commute. Meaning they have to drive when congestion happens, meaning they get hit with the price.
  - natrius 11y ago
    Very true. We can subsidize those trips if we want to, but I don't think that will be necessary. Employers in high congestion areas will have to pay more to compete with other employers. It'll probably work itself out, but if it doesn't, we should fix it directly instead of forcing everyone to endure traffic.
    - st3v3r 11y ago
      Except they won't.
marcoperaza 11y ago
Traffic exists because human drivers form a compression wave. The car in front of you accelerates, then you accelerate, then the person behind you, etc. Every time someone taps the brakes, they create traffic behind them. Self-driving cars would presumably synchronize, allowing all of the cars to start moving at almost the same time and move in unison at high speeds. Also, people don't feel safe driving at 60mph in a densely packed road, so they don't. This should be no problem for a computer, so you could have a densely packed highway but traffic still moving at very high speeds. Basically, flow velocity could remain constant as the highway becomes more congested. On city streets, your car would route around traffic light timing, in coordination with other vehicles, to distribute traffic and prevent unnecessary stopping. Edit: One caveat worth mentioning is that these optimizations would be most effective if a road is 100% automated cars, though maybe dedicated lanes are a good transition mechanism. Once the safety benefits are clear, I think adoption will be very fast. The societal cost of car accidents is absolutely massive.
- paulddraper 11y ago
  "people don't feel safe driving at 60mph in a densely packed road, so they don't" Not only do they not feel safe, they aren't safe driving bumper-to-bumper. Computers will have better reaction times, so much of that goes away. But it's still dangerous. If two cars ahead of me slows, and the car ahead doesn't slow and collides, it will decelerate very quickly, perhaps too quickly for my brakes at 60mph.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    You're right, the failure mode for self-driving cars at high speeds is catastrophic, but that's no different from many safe technologies. And the bar here is pretty low. You'd have to really screw up when designing the system for it to be even remotely as dangerous as human drivers. If everyone switched to self-driving cars, serious car accidents would probably become something you hear about in the news, not something that's happened to many of your friends.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  That kind of technology won't be commonplace, available, or in a position to do anything about the problem for a long, long time. Meanwhile, the traffic problem exists today. I'm all for self driving cars, but I'd like to see solutions for the problem today, not just letting things get worse until something magically makes it better.

Cause that would do nothing to alleviate traffic congestion.

by st3v3r 11y ago

Cause that would do nothing to alleviate traffic congestion.

And neither does light rail. light rail is a bad investment. It is expensive and low capacity. It is 19th century technology. Building bus rapid transit makes much more sense because it is felixible and less expensive. But politicians don't like photo ops with buses nearly as much as with trains.

stephenboyd 11y ago
The proposal is for bus improvements and bus rapid transit as well as light rail.
g8gggu89 11y ago
There's no drawback to buying a lot more electric buses for Seattle?
dpark 11y ago
Politicians like trains because their constituents like trains. Buses are stuck in traffic. Light rail runs on dedicated lines. Light rail is attractive because it is more predictable. The buses in Seattle are less attractive because they suffer the same congestion and unpredictability as driving.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Bus rapid transit specifically refers to bus lines on dedicated right-of-way. However, once you are going to the trouble of building dedicated right-of-way, the incremental cost of making it rail isn't too bad compared to the enormous efficiency/scalability of rail over buses.

praxulus 11y ago

Not exactly nothing (people won't need to drive around looking for parking, in theory self-driving cars could pack in more closely to reduce road congestion), but probably not enough to make it worth it.

natrius 11y ago

All you have to do to eliminate congestion is to raise the price of congestion until it goes away. Don't want to pay the full price? Share a ride with other people. This is only unpopular because so many people would rather have free, congested roads and expensive, slow transit than just paying for the roads. This will clearly change before most of Seattle's new plans are completed: self-driving cars will clog up our roads waiting for riders unless we charge them to be on the roads.

st3v3r 11y ago
The problem with that solution is that it puts most of the burden on those least able to shoulder it. Most of us here probably have flexible hours, so moving our commute by even an hour isn't that big of a deal. Someone working a lower end job has set hours, so they cannot move their commute. Meaning they have to drive when congestion happens, meaning they get hit with the price.
- natrius 11y ago
  Very true. We can subsidize those trips if we want to, but I don't think that will be necessary. Employers in high congestion areas will have to pay more to compete with other employers. It'll probably work itself out, but if it doesn't, we should fix it directly instead of forcing everyone to endure traffic.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    Except they won't.

marcoperaza 11y ago

Traffic exists because human drivers form a compression wave. The car in front of you accelerates, then you accelerate, then the person behind you, etc. Every time someone taps the brakes, they create traffic behind them. Self-driving cars would presumably synchronize, allowing all of the cars to start moving at almost the same time and move in unison at high speeds. Also, people don't feel safe driving at 60mph in a densely packed road, so they don't. This should be no problem for a computer, so you could have a densely packed highway but traffic still moving at very high speeds. Basically, flow velocity could remain constant as the highway becomes more congested. On city streets, your car would route around traffic light timing, in coordination with other vehicles, to distribute traffic and prevent unnecessary stopping. Edit: One caveat worth mentioning is that these optimizations would be most effective if a road is 100% automated cars, though maybe dedicated lanes are a good transition mechanism. Once the safety benefits are clear, I think adoption will be very fast. The societal cost of car accidents is absolutely massive.

paulddraper 11y ago
"people don't feel safe driving at 60mph in a densely packed road, so they don't" Not only do they not feel safe, they aren't safe driving bumper-to-bumper. Computers will have better reaction times, so much of that goes away. But it's still dangerous. If two cars ahead of me slows, and the car ahead doesn't slow and collides, it will decelerate very quickly, perhaps too quickly for my brakes at 60mph.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  You're right, the failure mode for self-driving cars at high speeds is catastrophic, but that's no different from many safe technologies. And the bar here is pretty low. You'd have to really screw up when designing the system for it to be even remotely as dangerous as human drivers. If everyone switched to self-driving cars, serious car accidents would probably become something you hear about in the news, not something that's happened to many of your friends.
st3v3r 11y ago
That kind of technology won't be commonplace, available, or in a position to do anything about the problem for a long, long time. Meanwhile, the traffic problem exists today. I'm all for self driving cars, but I'd like to see solutions for the problem today, not just letting things get worse until something magically makes it better.