4 ms·

Cars and trucks are relegated to the 2d grid of streets. They consume an inordinate amount of space, and require that all travel occur in series down a road.

by uptown 10y ago

Cars and trucks are relegated to the 2d grid of streets. They consume an inordinate amount of space, and require that all travel occur in series down a road. When an accident occurs, this disrupts the flow of traffic down that path, and also frequently disrupts the flow of surrounding roads as drivers seek alternate routes around the problem. Roads wear down over time, and require maintenance to repair. Salt and chemicals placed on roads to melt ice and snow can have adverse impacts on the local water tables and have other negative ecological impacts. Air-travel doesn't have those same constraints. Travel could be more point-to-point. An accident by one or two aircraft doesn't need to inhibit the travel of all other crafts flying in the general vicinity. Air space, while regulated and crowded in some urban areas, is largely under-utilized and expansive. It's also not a space that is shared with foot traffic, so pedestrians could reclaim some of the space currently allocated to roads since the volume of vehicular traffic would likely drop. That's not to say that personal air travel doesn't introduce an entire set of new problems and challenges - it absolutely does, but there are many problems that cars and roads cause which air-travel avoids by-design. Think of air-travel in the context of this cartoon: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24948/to-a-pedestrian-a-roads-a-tiny-space-with-danger-just-beside/ http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24948/to-a-pedestri...

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
This doesn't solve the parking problem. Sure, you get to work a bit faster but now you need to put that thing down. In a downtown area where there's a major price premium for parking. Getting to work in 10 minutes instead of 30 is going to be attractive and that'll raise parking demand, but there's only going to be so much parking available. Tearing down profitable office buildings to make flying car parking lots will be cost prohibitive and I doubt Joe Officeworker is interested in a $500+ a month flying car space. Its also worth mentioning that none of these proposed designs are vtol, so you'll need a real runway to land or take off. Worse, how do you leave the massive underground parking lot? Drive to the street then somewhere you can safely lift off? Now you have to wait to taxi to the proper runway or lift off zone or whatever these things will ultimately be allowed to use. Double worse, now we're less invested in solutions that actually work and don't require massive parking spaces like public trans via light rail, e-bikes, traditional bikes, etc. There's a reason why the personal plane never took off. I'm pretty bearish about the flying car concept, even if all the technical and regulatory issues are easily solved (hint: they wont be) there's still pricing and safety issues on top of the parking problem. Oh and 9/11 is fresh in everyone's minds. Can you imagine anyone approving these things flying near the skyscrapers we work in? I suspect that if that these things catch on, they'll be like the Concorde. A toy for rich people in a hurry but with so many strict regulations and limitations that it'll ultimately be infeasible in the long run. If Page and Google have shown anything, they're poor futurists outside of the information realm. When it comes to hardware, they're batting very poorly. They let Valve and Oculus take the VR crown, they let Musk take space tourism and electric cars, they let Jobs take the first mass market smartphone, let Amazon take the e-book crown, etc.
- uptown 10y ago
  "Tearing down profitable office buildings to make flying car parking lots will be cost prohibitive and I doubt Joe Officeworker is interested in a $500 a month flying car space." Rooftops have been used for ages as landing pads for helicopters. I don't see why you couldn't do the same for these. And the article mentions adoption of the uber-model of non-ownership, so it's not like you'd need a parking lot of these sitting idly at the workplace for end-of-day. They'd come and go on-demand.
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    My rooftop is full of HVAC equipment and my building is 28 stories high. Even if it was engineered to hold that much weight and redone to make it safe for landing a vtol plane, we're looking at what? 3 or 4 spaces at most in a building that holds over 2,000 people.
  - joosters 10y ago
    A helicopter pad on a rooftop can generally only hold one helicopter. Where would the other people in the office park? Besides, hardly any of these flying car designs take off & land vertically.
  - _audakel 10y ago
    You could have the tesla self park / pick up feature. It drops you off and then Flys off some here where there is much space. Then you just call it back when you ready to leave.
    - rileyteige 10y ago
      Sounds like a lot of wasted energy if that thing has to fly any reasonable distance.
- Nav_Panel 10y ago
  > This doesn't solve the parking problem. Sure, you get to work a bit faster but now you need to put that thing down. In a downtown area where there's a major price premium for parking. What I envision instead is an extension of the office park concept, but suddenly there's no traffic congestion. You could have massive suburban/exurban growth and still have incredibly short commutes -- employees fly to their offices and park on the grounds. Folks who work downtown should probably live in the city/commuter suburbs and would be better served by other types of transit such as rail. I doubt this type of vehicle would even be allowed in a dense urban area. Flying cars in Manhattan sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
knodi123 10y ago
> An accident by one or two aircraft doesn't need to inhibit the travel of all other crafts flying in the general vicinity lol, an accident by one or two aircraft might not immediately inhibit the travel of nearby crafts, but it will certainly cause a legal storm that will eventually inhibit it!
chris11 10y ago
I'm actually currently working on projects related to traffic management systems for UAS. I'd say that currently air travel is much more complicated than street travel. And there is a lot of research and engineering that needs to be done before we can safely handle large amounts of UAS traffic. For one, UAS take up more space than cars. Sure they can be smaller, but operators/systems need more space to safely fly. Two, we don't have systems in place to handle large amounts of traffic. Traffic on roads is much simpler. You have well defined routes, and you have well-defined regulations to safely handle adverse driving situations. UAS do not currently have systems that can automatically handle large amounts of traffic or adverse flying conditions. Plus the autonomous systems are currently not quite up to a human pilot's ability to fly. There may be some very advanced autonomous flight systems, but there isn't anything that could handle the amount of traffic comparable to current street traffic. I think this is definitely an exciting time for autonomous flight. But I also think we are just really starting to get around to solving the problems caused by UAS. I don't know if it's fair to compare large amounts of UAS traffic to street traffic. I think the state of UAS traffic management is closer to the state of street traffic 100 or so years ago. UAS safety systems and airspace regulations definitely aren't sophisticated.
skrause 10y ago
Bicycles also solve all the problems you listed.
- uptown 10y ago
  Bicycles are a great alternative for many commuters but they can't match the range that cars or planes can provide for most cyclists.

by uptown 10y ago

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

This doesn't solve the parking problem. Sure, you get to work a bit faster but now you need to put that thing down. In a downtown area where there's a major price premium for parking. Getting to work in 10 minutes instead of 30 is going to be attractive and that'll raise parking demand, but there's only going to be so much parking available. Tearing down profitable office buildings to make flying car parking lots will be cost prohibitive and I doubt Joe Officeworker is interested in a $500+ a month flying car space. Its also worth mentioning that none of these proposed designs are vtol, so you'll need a real runway to land or take off. Worse, how do you leave the massive underground parking lot? Drive to the street then somewhere you can safely lift off? Now you have to wait to taxi to the proper runway or lift off zone or whatever these things will ultimately be allowed to use. Double worse, now we're less invested in solutions that actually work and don't require massive parking spaces like public trans via light rail, e-bikes, traditional bikes, etc. There's a reason why the personal plane never took off. I'm pretty bearish about the flying car concept, even if all the technical and regulatory issues are easily solved (hint: they wont be) there's still pricing and safety issues on top of the parking problem. Oh and 9/11 is fresh in everyone's minds. Can you imagine anyone approving these things flying near the skyscrapers we work in? I suspect that if that these things catch on, they'll be like the Concorde. A toy for rich people in a hurry but with so many strict regulations and limitations that it'll ultimately be infeasible in the long run. If Page and Google have shown anything, they're poor futurists outside of the information realm. When it comes to hardware, they're batting very poorly. They let Valve and Oculus take the VR crown, they let Musk take space tourism and electric cars, they let Jobs take the first mass market smartphone, let Amazon take the e-book crown, etc.

uptown 10y ago
"Tearing down profitable office buildings to make flying car parking lots will be cost prohibitive and I doubt Joe Officeworker is interested in a $500 a month flying car space." Rooftops have been used for ages as landing pads for helicopters. I don't see why you couldn't do the same for these. And the article mentions adoption of the uber-model of non-ownership, so it's not like you'd need a parking lot of these sitting idly at the workplace for end-of-day. They'd come and go on-demand.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  My rooftop is full of HVAC equipment and my building is 28 stories high. Even if it was engineered to hold that much weight and redone to make it safe for landing a vtol plane, we're looking at what? 3 or 4 spaces at most in a building that holds over 2,000 people.
- joosters 10y ago
  A helicopter pad on a rooftop can generally only hold one helicopter. Where would the other people in the office park? Besides, hardly any of these flying car designs take off & land vertically.
- _audakel 10y ago
  You could have the tesla self park / pick up feature. It drops you off and then Flys off some here where there is much space. Then you just call it back when you ready to leave.
  - rileyteige 10y ago
    Sounds like a lot of wasted energy if that thing has to fly any reasonable distance.
Nav_Panel 10y ago
> This doesn't solve the parking problem. Sure, you get to work a bit faster but now you need to put that thing down. In a downtown area where there's a major price premium for parking. What I envision instead is an extension of the office park concept, but suddenly there's no traffic congestion. You could have massive suburban/exurban growth and still have incredibly short commutes -- employees fly to their offices and park on the grounds. Folks who work downtown should probably live in the city/commuter suburbs and would be better served by other types of transit such as rail. I doubt this type of vehicle would even be allowed in a dense urban area. Flying cars in Manhattan sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

knodi123 10y ago

> An accident by one or two aircraft doesn't need to inhibit the travel of all other crafts flying in the general vicinity lol, an accident by one or two aircraft might not immediately inhibit the travel of nearby crafts, but it will certainly cause a legal storm that will eventually inhibit it!

chris11 10y ago

I'm actually currently working on projects related to traffic management systems for UAS. I'd say that currently air travel is much more complicated than street travel. And there is a lot of research and engineering that needs to be done before we can safely handle large amounts of UAS traffic. For one, UAS take up more space than cars. Sure they can be smaller, but operators/systems need more space to safely fly. Two, we don't have systems in place to handle large amounts of traffic. Traffic on roads is much simpler. You have well defined routes, and you have well-defined regulations to safely handle adverse driving situations. UAS do not currently have systems that can automatically handle large amounts of traffic or adverse flying conditions. Plus the autonomous systems are currently not quite up to a human pilot's ability to fly. There may be some very advanced autonomous flight systems, but there isn't anything that could handle the amount of traffic comparable to current street traffic. I think this is definitely an exciting time for autonomous flight. But I also think we are just really starting to get around to solving the problems caused by UAS. I don't know if it's fair to compare large amounts of UAS traffic to street traffic. I think the state of UAS traffic management is closer to the state of street traffic 100 or so years ago. UAS safety systems and airspace regulations definitely aren't sophisticated.

skrause 10y ago

Bicycles also solve all the problems you listed.

uptown 10y ago
Bicycles are a great alternative for many commuters but they can't match the range that cars or planes can provide for most cyclists.