6 ms·

I think sprawl will increase when self driving cars become a thing. Long commutes will be a lot more tolerable, parking a non issue, and the cost of owning a ca

• angersock 10y ago
  Long commutes always suck, and having something else drive for you won't make that change. Parking as a non-issue is an argument for denser and tighter organization of cities instead of sprawl. Self-driving taxis and buses are another reason to prefer living in the city, least of all because they are cheaper in a denser area.
  • nine_k 10y ago
    A long commute in a self-driving car, even more than in a comfortable train, can be a part of your work day, or even your leisure. Commute while driving is manual labor, preventing any meaningful concentration, be it watching a movie or writing code.
    • sotojuan 10y ago
      I wonder how long it'll take for people to be comfortable enough with self driving cars that they stop paying attention to the road.
      • icebraining 10y ago
        No time at all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXls4cdEv7c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXls4cdEv7c
      • nine_k 10y ago
        I think that the whole point of a self-driving car is that the passenger can pay no attention to the road. Else it's not self-driving.
        • sotojuan 10y ago
          Of course, but if you take some random people and put them on the road in a self driving car, most will pay attention out of nervousness/habit.
          • eru 10y ago
            Tell that to Tesla's autopilot users..
    • angersock 10y ago
      It is a sad state of affairs when labor is convinced that spending more of their time in a little box (regardless of pilot) in order to show up to work is somehow any sort of leisure at all. Why is all this tech being used to solve the goal of self-driving cars, and yet remote work is still somehow in the realm of fantasy to most people?
      • Noos 10y ago
        because only a tiny amount of the workforce does the kind of hands-off knowledge work than can be done remotely, and without the need for significant employee control.
      • nine_k 10y ago
        Working remotely can be great; I worked this way for several years. But not all jobs are like programmer's. Think of e.g. medical personnel, overworked as they usually are, being able to sleep for an extra hour while being taken to / from a hospital. Think of a teacher who could spend an hour of commute preparing to the lessons instead of holding the steering wheel. Think of a plumber who can settle some business affairs while on the road, and spend an extra hour with his kids instead.
  • gcr 10y ago
    It's far easier to get work done or to read some nice books when you're not also swerving to avoid oncoming traffic. Caltrain and Amtrak provide A+ reading experience. Even MTA or PATH are bearable. I rate them a B- if your book is one-handed.
    • angersock 10y ago
      Wouldn't you prefer just to have that extra time to enjoy the book in a cafe, in a park, or in the comfort of your own home?
      • chroma 10y ago
        Yes, but not so much that I'm willing to pay significantly higher rent or mortgage. And many people can't afford life in denser areas.
• hiphipjorge 10y ago
  I don't think the move from the suburbs to the city is a technology issue. There are certainly trade-offs to both of them. The reason a lot of people (especially young people) have been flocking to walkable cities has a lot more to do with self-identity and lifestyle choices than with just merely commuting time. No self-driving card will change that. Keep in mind that the opposite is also true. Self-driving cars make city-living (where owning a car is unaffordable and unpractical) much easier, since it increases the access to cars.
  • LA_Banker 10y ago
    >The reason a lot of people (especially young people) have been flocking to walkable cities has a lot more to do with self-identity and lifestyle choices than with just merely commuting time. These are drivers to be sure, but the biggest is the network effects of being in a denser metro. The more people there are in a given area, the more human resources: job options, entertainment options, dating options, knowledge-sharing (the form that can only be done via meeting people in person), collaboration, and other forms are human and knowledge-derived capital. It's easier to form a rock band or hire for a startup idea in NYC than it is Duluth, Minnesota where there are fewer musicians and programmers. This is why rural areas, unless undergoing some sort of unique boom (e.g. the Bakken Formation or Athabascan Oil Sands) or hosting a college/university, sustain much older average populations. Unless one's career allows them to live/work remotely, it's often necessary to move to the city to pursue most career options. Aside from the self-identity and lifestyle points you mention.
  • nimos 10y ago
    >The reason a lot of people (especially young people) have been flocking to walkable cities has a lot more to do with self-identity and lifestyle choices than with just merely commuting time. No self-driving card will change that. For me personally having a self driving car would make suburban living much more attractive. For a lot of people having a yard/garage/space to tinker is a really big selling point. There is a big difference between having to spend an hour driving yourself and having an hour of freeish time to read/watch netflix/do work. I think the other big factor is being able to go out for drinks. Living in the suburbs today means either insane cab bills, having to organize a dd or driving drunk.
• iiiggglll 10y ago
  Long commutes? Once vehicles are self-driving, there will be whole swaths of the population who will simply live in their cars and not have another home. Imagine reddit's "vandwellers" times ten. Then there will be political fights over city congestion taxes and other ways of extracting money from people who do that. Interesting times...
  • andy_boot 10y ago
    I don't think it will happen that way. It's as easy to live in a regular van as a self driving van. Sure some people do it but not many. I imagine that far less people will own cars and instead there will be a fleet of self driving taxis. But I'm not sure, interesting times - like you said.
• sotojuan 10y ago
  Unless the self driving cars can make an hour commute be half an hour or less, they'll still suck. All you gain is the ability to read, eat, play games, or even sleep during the commute and no one will be comfortable doing that for a few years.
  • ocb 10y ago
    Additionally, plenty of people already commute long distances in relative comfort without having to drive themselves--it still sucks.
  • Houshalter 10y ago
    I've gotten more than one response saying that, but I don't understand it. I would find it very enjoyable to read, play games, or sleep during a commute. There's not that much I can't do in a car, that I can do on my couch. Much more enjoyable than spending hours focusing on the road. If you move further out of the city, you have much cheaper rent and taxes. Saving that much money would make it totally worth it to spend a few hours in a car everyday.
    • alkonaut 10y ago
      Relaxing during a commute seems only marginally better than driving. What makes a difference is if you can work during the commute, so an entire 8h workday will be 2h commute and 6h work. In large metropolitan areas most people will end up spending what they can afford on housing, the choice is just between a 1h commute and large back yard and forest/beach within walking distance, versus the city with short commutes and shops/services within walking distance. You could live in a small flat in suburbia and save a ton, but it doesn't appear to be a popular choice.
      • Johnny555 10y ago
        If your company is ok with you working for an hour or two on the way in to the office, then why not just work at home for an extra 90 minutes until after peak commute hours and zip into the office when traffic is light? Or better, just stay home entirely. Many companies still don't embrace full-time telecommuting (including tech companies like Apple and Google that have unlimited technology resources to make it work), so it's going to take a big paradigm shift for those companies to accept that workers driving in are actually "working" before they get to the office. My company doesn't offer shuttle buses, but of the people I do know that ride tech shuttles, while they do tend to work on the shuttle, it's usually just catching up on emails before they get to the office to do the "real work", and 2 hours on the bus is not equivalent to 2 hours in the office.
• CM30 10y ago
  I think it's more likely to increase when remote work (and maybe virtual reality) increases in popularity. When managers finally realise that you don't need everyone in the same office for a 9-5 shift (and the few advantages of such are replaced by something like VR), then I suspect urban sprawl will continue. Why care about commuting times if commuting isn't as necessary in the first place? Self driving cars may make travelling easier, but even then you've got to get somewhere. Even then the inside of a car is a less useful working environment than an office, so short commutes would be preferred.
• Johnny555 10y ago
  I think you overestimate the ability of self driving cars to make a long commute tolerable, since driving in a car for an hour (or more) each way is no fun even if someone else is driving. Getting quality work done is tough if you're at all prone to motion sickness while working on a computer in a moving vehicle, and it's hard to get in quality sleep even in a fully reclining seat. My wife and I commuted together (45 - 60 minutes) for almost a year and while I could get some work done while she drove, it was not nearly the same as when I'm working from home. Likewise, sleep was not an option, the timing wasn't right (it's hard to wake up, get ready for work, then catch a short on the way to work). While parking may be less of an issue if your car can go park itself, traffic will become a much bigger issue because all of those cars driving around looking for parking (or another passenger) after dropping off their passengers are going to double downtown congestion (i.e. instead of you driving to your parking garage and leaving your car there, your car is going to stay on the roads until it finds a place to park, perhaps outside of the city)
  • mattnewton 10y ago
    I have it pretty close to a self driving car now, with a company bus that picks me up. It has wifi and bathrooms, so I really don't mind the 1hr commute into the valley every day. It's a good time to get some email done or quietly reflect. I think that I gladly pay this price to shave 1k a month off living expenses, and probably would for even as low as a few hundred, since it's not really a big cost. The real downside is in being further away from things that are not work, if you are commuting in for pleasure on the weekends. But based on my experience, I agree with the grandparent and think once more people have drivers, sprawl will increase.
  • pfarnsworth 10y ago
    Not true, when I uber into work (my commute is over 1 hr), it's like a dream come true. I can work, I can relax, I can get my life-admin tasks done with, etc. Right now it's completely wasted. When you commute with other people, it's also annoying because you need to socialize when most times I would rather do the above. If I could get a self-driving car that worked competently, it would certainly make my commute so much more tolerable.