4 ms·

Even if all cars were fully connected and automated, I don't see traffic lights going away outside specific types of areas (rural areas, etc.). In cities, pedes

Even if all cars were fully connected and automated, I don't see traffic lights going away outside specific types of areas (rural areas, etc.). In cities, pedestrian infrastructure is pretty much built around the presence of intersections and pedestrian walkways. To keep pedestrians moving relatively quickly, you need those intersections. And while there are options (elevated pedestrian walkways, etc.), those have their own problems (size, expense, ADA compliance, etc.). If you enforce delays for people to cross, which would be the cheapest option, you've just got a stop light by another name. Make it too annoying for people, and they'll run across when they think there's room. With as cautious as autonomous cars have to be with pedestrians, you'd probably wind up with more traffic delays than what we have now. We already have traffic controller systems, but I'd imagine that vehicle communication would allow them to be even more sophisticated.

masklinn 9y ago
> If you enforce delays for people to cross, which would be the cheapest option, you've just got a stop light by another name. If you go to Germany, or Belgium, cars generally stop whenever somebody gets close to the border between the sidewalk and the road, at which point the pedestrian just goes across (then wait 5 minutes and crosses back because they weren't actually trying to cross the road, they were just a foreigner not expecting this). And these are human-driven cars. This can just be universal policy for self-driving cars. It will necessarily be anyway since they will have to deal with people just running across without warning. > And while there are options (elevated pedestrian walkways, etc.) That would be very dumb, one of the benefits of self-driving cars is that you can significantly scale back the car-centric infrastructure and especially affordances towards drivers, there is no risk of drivers being bothered or annoyed or taking rash decisions, the cars just follow policy which is whatever you want to be, every merge is now a proper zipper at the very end of the merge lane & all that. And wherever that's an option you can just bury the road entirely and keep pedestrians in the sun up top as they did for the centre of the planned city of Louvain la Neuve in Belgium: > one of the main points of the urban design of Louvain-la-Neuve was to make it people rather than automobile centred. As a consequence, the city center is built on a gigantic concrete slab, with all motorized traffic travelling underground. This allows most of the ground level of the city center to be car free. (when they need new accommodations, they expand the slab and build the buildings at the same time) > I'd imagine that vehicle communication would allow them to be even more sophisticated. That's a really sad lack of imagination.

masklinn 9y ago

> If you enforce delays for people to cross, which would be the cheapest option, you've just got a stop light by another name. If you go to Germany, or Belgium, cars generally stop whenever somebody gets close to the border between the sidewalk and the road, at which point the pedestrian just goes across (then wait 5 minutes and crosses back because they weren't actually trying to cross the road, they were just a foreigner not expecting this). And these are human-driven cars. This can just be universal policy for self-driving cars. It will necessarily be anyway since they will have to deal with people just running across without warning. > And while there are options (elevated pedestrian walkways, etc.) That would be very dumb, one of the benefits of self-driving cars is that you can significantly scale back the car-centric infrastructure and especially affordances towards drivers, there is no risk of drivers being bothered or annoyed or taking rash decisions, the cars just follow policy which is whatever you want to be, every merge is now a proper zipper at the very end of the merge lane & all that. And wherever that's an option you can just bury the road entirely and keep pedestrians in the sun up top as they did for the centre of the planned city of Louvain la Neuve in Belgium: > one of the main points of the urban design of Louvain-la-Neuve was to make it people rather than automobile centred. As a consequence, the city center is built on a gigantic concrete slab, with all motorized traffic travelling underground. This allows most of the ground level of the city center to be car free. (when they need new accommodations, they expand the slab and build the buildings at the same time) > I'd imagine that vehicle communication would allow them to be even more sophisticated. That's a really sad lack of imagination.