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I hate it. I hate it so much. I think if we spent $50,000,000,000 on infrastructure to support autonomous vehicles it would both be better and we'd see returns

I hate it. I hate it so much. I think if we spent $50,000,000,000 on infrastructure to support autonomous vehicles it would both be better and we'd see returns sooner. Light rail is expensive to build, slow to build, more expensive to maintain, and completely inflexible as needs of the city change. I will vote no in the fall. And I'll encourage my friends to do so. This makes me a minority in Seattle but I'm ok with that. Some additional food for thought: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-dont-we-know-where-all-the-trains-are/415152/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-do...

manacit 11y ago
I'm not trying to change your opinion (HN is not the place to change one you clearly hold very strongly), but as someone who lives in NYC and spent 4 years living in Seattle (I moved away in 2014), I will happily say that the article you posted has nearly no correlation to your earlier points about light rail, and that the NYC Subway is an amazing piece of (partially) publicly funded work that has shaped NYC and the surrounding region in innumerable positive ways. There are about 1.7 billion rides taken on it every year with over 200 miles of track. It'd be an understatement to say that the city could not exist the way it does now without it - autonomous vehicles won't get the sheer number of people moved every morning and every night that the subway does. A full order of magnitude more people take the subway on a daily basis than there are taxi rides, all for a maximum of $2.75 regardless of how far they're traveling. It might not be the best thing for Seattle (personally, I am a big proponent), but a blanket distaste for light rail is antithetical to what has proven fundamental for cities around the world. As far as spending public money, there are already efficiency concerns (something that your article definitely demonstrates) - I'm curious how you think public money could help fund technology that fundamentally does not exist today? Is that not a higher risk for future technology?
marssaxman 11y ago
I'll vote no but for the opposite reason: I think we need lots more light rail and we need it in Seattle, not in the suburbs. Autonomous vehicles cannot possibly solve our transportation problems because the best they can do to reduce congestion is nothing; at worst, they will aggravate problems by increasing the number of trips taken.
- forrestthewoods 11y ago
  Sure autonomous vehicles can solve it. I believe that if every car on the road was autonomous tomorrow that traffic flow rates (cars/hour) would at least double. Maybe even triple. The amount of congestion from human bullshit is insane. Cars slow down entering tunnels for no reason. Cars slow down leaving tunnels when their eyes adjust to the brightness. I-90 gets slower on sunny days than on cloudy days. I-5 north out of Seattle backs up because of a hill. I get excited if I can go a full week with an accident on 90 causing backup. Even when it's cleared to the side humans rubber neck. And that's just getting started. Once we start making changes to street design to enable autonomous it gets even better. Elimination of street parking alone would do wonder. Things get really fun when riders don't need to get their car back. When it's a ride share model. Parking garages are relatively inefficient now. You need to be able to get any car out at any time. But what if you didn't? What if you just needed a car. It'd be a first-in, first-out queue. We'd be able to cram 3x to 4x as many cars in a garage. You'd also be able to order a car that fits your needs. Most trips don't require a trunk. Most cars for most trips could be smart car sized. You'd only need a bigger car if, well, you needed it. No. I believe that asking for more light rail is asking for a faster horse. It's ancient technology. We should be looking forwards, not backwards.
  - marssaxman 11y ago
    Even if the development of autonomous vehicles eventually reaches the level you're hoping it will, and none of the obstacles which might prevent the realization of your vision actually occur, induced demand means that any reduction in the level of congestion will be temporary. Anyway, you're suggesting that we could get a 2x or 3x improvement in 20-30 years by completely overhauling all of our transportation infrastructure: but we can get a 10x improvement in the same span of time at a lower cost with less risk using proven technology. I'm happy to see people proceed with research on autonomous cars, and can certainly see the value of an Uber/Lyft type service using robot drivers, but it would be a mistake to sit and wait for speculative technology research to maybe solve the problem when we can for sure solve the problem if we just get going with what we already have. What's the worst that can happen, we end up with lots of good options? Robot cars might make cabbies obsolete, and it is likely that they will change the way we use other transportation technologies, assuming they work the way people are hoping they will, but they won't make light rail obsolete any more than the invention of the jet engine made the automobile obsolete.
yazaddaruvala 11y ago
Autonomous vehicles are great for increased speed, improved (i.e. no) parkability issues and lower car accidents. However, like any latency improvement, they will not (can not) improve throughput. Trains on the other hand are optimized for throughput and cost. Point: They are complementary technologise, solving fundamentally orthogonal problems, and can and should co-exist to create the best possible infra. (P.S. I already train from CapHill to UDistrict then get an Uber within the UDistrict) That said, you're welcome to argue that Seattle does not and will never need the throughput optimization provided by trains. That cars alone are enough. But I don't believe it's in your best interest, to compare the throughput of cars to trains. Actually it may even be an active disservice to the autonomous car movement to try and compare them to trains (regarding throughput). Meanwhile, anecdotally, living and working on Denny (20 min hilly-walk, 7min bus no traffic): It is consistently bumper to bumper (at all times that matter) and only getting worse. We seem to have a throughput problem! With similar issues on Mercer. If your data is different, I'd love to hear more about that.
- forrestthewoods 11y ago
  I'm not sure your throughput assertion is correct. As stated in another reply I-5 North congests every single day between the 520 and 45th st exits. Why? Because of a hill. There's a big hill there. And every meatbag driver slows down going up it. Which causes people behind to brake. Which creates a shockwave traffic jam. That wouldn't happen with robot drivers. Nor would cars slow down when they enter a tunnel for reasons I've yet to figure out. Nor would they slow down when exiting that tunnel when their eyes adjust to the summer brightness. Traffic is actually worse on I-90 on bright, sunny days than on overcast (but not rainy) days! Again, that slow down would not happen at all with robot drivers. So I disagree. Autonomous cars can very much improve throughput. The maximum number of cars that can cross a stretch of road at rush hour is significantly higher with autonomous cars than with meatbag drivers. In my opinion. What I really want is Seattle to throw a few million bucks at Google to do a study. Show us a vision of an autonomous Seattle. Build a simulation and present it. If Google gives us a "best case" and we still think light rail is better then great. I'm sold. Let's pick the better option. But right now we're not truly considering all options.
jinushaun 11y ago
What about autonomous mass transit? Why are these two things mutually exclusive?
- transitthrow 11y ago
  I felt compelled to create an account because of this misconception (not really your comment, just within the whole thread) that mass transit isn't already automated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_... Metros in most major cities already have trains that drive themselves. There may be a driver, but all they do is open and close the doors. Some systems (like Vancouver) don't have drivers at all.

manacit 11y ago

I'm not trying to change your opinion (HN is not the place to change one you clearly hold very strongly), but as someone who lives in NYC and spent 4 years living in Seattle (I moved away in 2014), I will happily say that the article you posted has nearly no correlation to your earlier points about light rail, and that the NYC Subway is an amazing piece of (partially) publicly funded work that has shaped NYC and the surrounding region in innumerable positive ways. There are about 1.7 billion rides taken on it every year with over 200 miles of track. It'd be an understatement to say that the city could not exist the way it does now without it - autonomous vehicles won't get the sheer number of people moved every morning and every night that the subway does. A full order of magnitude more people take the subway on a daily basis than there are taxi rides, all for a maximum of $2.75 regardless of how far they're traveling. It might not be the best thing for Seattle (personally, I am a big proponent), but a blanket distaste for light rail is antithetical to what has proven fundamental for cities around the world. As far as spending public money, there are already efficiency concerns (something that your article definitely demonstrates) - I'm curious how you think public money could help fund technology that fundamentally does not exist today? Is that not a higher risk for future technology?

marssaxman 11y ago

I'll vote no but for the opposite reason: I think we need lots more light rail and we need it in Seattle, not in the suburbs. Autonomous vehicles cannot possibly solve our transportation problems because the best they can do to reduce congestion is nothing; at worst, they will aggravate problems by increasing the number of trips taken.

forrestthewoods 11y ago
Sure autonomous vehicles can solve it. I believe that if every car on the road was autonomous tomorrow that traffic flow rates (cars/hour) would at least double. Maybe even triple. The amount of congestion from human bullshit is insane. Cars slow down entering tunnels for no reason. Cars slow down leaving tunnels when their eyes adjust to the brightness. I-90 gets slower on sunny days than on cloudy days. I-5 north out of Seattle backs up because of a hill. I get excited if I can go a full week with an accident on 90 causing backup. Even when it's cleared to the side humans rubber neck. And that's just getting started. Once we start making changes to street design to enable autonomous it gets even better. Elimination of street parking alone would do wonder. Things get really fun when riders don't need to get their car back. When it's a ride share model. Parking garages are relatively inefficient now. You need to be able to get any car out at any time. But what if you didn't? What if you just needed a car. It'd be a first-in, first-out queue. We'd be able to cram 3x to 4x as many cars in a garage. You'd also be able to order a car that fits your needs. Most trips don't require a trunk. Most cars for most trips could be smart car sized. You'd only need a bigger car if, well, you needed it. No. I believe that asking for more light rail is asking for a faster horse. It's ancient technology. We should be looking forwards, not backwards.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  Even if the development of autonomous vehicles eventually reaches the level you're hoping it will, and none of the obstacles which might prevent the realization of your vision actually occur, induced demand means that any reduction in the level of congestion will be temporary. Anyway, you're suggesting that we could get a 2x or 3x improvement in 20-30 years by completely overhauling all of our transportation infrastructure: but we can get a 10x improvement in the same span of time at a lower cost with less risk using proven technology. I'm happy to see people proceed with research on autonomous cars, and can certainly see the value of an Uber/Lyft type service using robot drivers, but it would be a mistake to sit and wait for speculative technology research to maybe solve the problem when we can for sure solve the problem if we just get going with what we already have. What's the worst that can happen, we end up with lots of good options? Robot cars might make cabbies obsolete, and it is likely that they will change the way we use other transportation technologies, assuming they work the way people are hoping they will, but they won't make light rail obsolete any more than the invention of the jet engine made the automobile obsolete.

yazaddaruvala 11y ago

Autonomous vehicles are great for increased speed, improved (i.e. no) parkability issues and lower car accidents. However, like any latency improvement, they will not (can not) improve throughput. Trains on the other hand are optimized for throughput and cost. Point: They are complementary technologise, solving fundamentally orthogonal problems, and can and should co-exist to create the best possible infra. (P.S. I already train from CapHill to UDistrict then get an Uber within the UDistrict) That said, you're welcome to argue that Seattle does not and will never need the throughput optimization provided by trains. That cars alone are enough. But I don't believe it's in your best interest, to compare the throughput of cars to trains. Actually it may even be an active disservice to the autonomous car movement to try and compare them to trains (regarding throughput). Meanwhile, anecdotally, living and working on Denny (20 min hilly-walk, 7min bus no traffic): It is consistently bumper to bumper (at all times that matter) and only getting worse. We seem to have a throughput problem! With similar issues on Mercer. If your data is different, I'd love to hear more about that.

forrestthewoods 11y ago
I'm not sure your throughput assertion is correct. As stated in another reply I-5 North congests every single day between the 520 and 45th st exits. Why? Because of a hill. There's a big hill there. And every meatbag driver slows down going up it. Which causes people behind to brake. Which creates a shockwave traffic jam. That wouldn't happen with robot drivers. Nor would cars slow down when they enter a tunnel for reasons I've yet to figure out. Nor would they slow down when exiting that tunnel when their eyes adjust to the summer brightness. Traffic is actually worse on I-90 on bright, sunny days than on overcast (but not rainy) days! Again, that slow down would not happen at all with robot drivers. So I disagree. Autonomous cars can very much improve throughput. The maximum number of cars that can cross a stretch of road at rush hour is significantly higher with autonomous cars than with meatbag drivers. In my opinion. What I really want is Seattle to throw a few million bucks at Google to do a study. Show us a vision of an autonomous Seattle. Build a simulation and present it. If Google gives us a "best case" and we still think light rail is better then great. I'm sold. Let's pick the better option. But right now we're not truly considering all options.

jinushaun 11y ago

What about autonomous mass transit? Why are these two things mutually exclusive?

transitthrow 11y ago
I felt compelled to create an account because of this misconception (not really your comment, just within the whole thread) that mass transit isn't already automated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_... Metros in most major cities already have trains that drive themselves. There may be a driver, but all they do is open and close the doors. Some systems (like Vancouver) don't have drivers at all.