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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 doubl
by 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 agoEven 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.
- chillwaves 11y agoCars are the worst. Not individually, but collectively bad drivers cause exponential chaos and massive inefficiency. I see this a lot as a motorcyclist. I have a 6th sense for when to go around/between cars because the road will be open ahead and someone just REALLY wants to make a right turn from the far left lane -- like right now! But I do agree with other people that we need to redesign our transportation infrastructure in ways that reduce or prohibit cars.
- forrestthewoods 11y agoHuman drivers are the worst! Now if those cars were driven by robots...