4 ms·

People don't want to be underground for extended periods. If I were building an autonomous world from scratch, I'd want to design it so people are always above

People don't want to be underground for extended periods. If I were building an autonomous world from scratch, I'd want to design it so people are always above ground but "things" travel below ground. There's an Amazon patent for an underground delivery system via tunnels that would mitigate against some problems that autonomous cars will bring. Once we have fully autonomous cars that don't need people, most cars on the road won't have anyone in them. Rather than pizza delivery people, shipping delivery, etc -- even something like "oh let me send my friend a key to my apartment while I go on vacation." It will completely take over the roads unless we do something drastic. So send THAT traffic underground. We are going to need traffic lanes for "stuff." Let somebody commuting to work see the sun during their commute. Edit: One thing I'd add is that New York and other places used to have a basic version of this - a series of pneumatic tubes that connected the city. There's a city in the U.S. that does trash via pneumatic tubes. I don't think that's the ideal delivery system for other reasons, but worth pointing out that this isn't an entirely new idea. Here's a map: https://untappedcities-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Pneumatic-Tube-Mail-Network-NYC-Kate-Ascher-e1363302482168.jpg https://untappedcities-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/up...

nradov 8y ago
People drive through long tunnels or ride on subways every day. Being underground is not a problem.
- elicash 8y ago
  I used to take the DC Metrorail to work. Being above ground is absolutely nicer than being below ground if you've got the choice. I looked forward to the parts of that train commute that were above ground. There was even a part where we would come out of the tunnel and I'd look behind me to view the Washington Monument. It was great, especially at night.
  - rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
    I would rather take a short trip underground as the alternative to a long trip above ground, given the option. When I need to get from A to B, I just want to be there quickly. I can enjoy the surface of the Earth on my own time.
    - elicash 8y ago
      My specific point was about how to address a coming traffic crisis, sorry if that was unclear. I'm suggesting that 90% of traffic will be unaccompanied "stuff" and that moving it underground will free up traffic for people above ground. So either way, we're both talking about getting from A to B more quickly. I'm sure there will be a need that arises for more tunnels for people, too. But I think the place to START and allocate resources is tunnels for stuff since that's where the problem will come from.
      - rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
        I think that we should consider total underground transportation as a design goal. Even if we reduce, say, the highway traffic by 90%, the remaining 10% will still deal with weather conditions, peak usage times, and bottlenecks such as construction or traffic accidents. There are plenty of reasons to move people underground rather than above, along with goods. My personal interest in this is that a scalable 100% underground transportation system would make for a better model for life on the moon or Mars than anything we currently have on Earth. Besides, traveling underground doesn’t have to be a dreary, dystopian experience. If we moved people in rectangular structures resembling elevators, we could cover the floor and ceilings with LCD screens, so instead of feeling like you’re inside an elevator, you could set the screens to show a panorama of the city you’re in, or the Swiss Alps, or if you throw a camera and microphone in there, you could attend a meeting while you’re on your way to that meeting. Even if we get goods moving off the roads, personal transportation still has enormous costs. Just ask any American who has had to choose between paying high rent to live close to work, or buying a car to commute further away from their lower-rent home.
- breadAndWater 8y ago
  Driving doesn't fit into such a world view. Driving through a long tunnel never lasts up to 30 minutes, and tunnel lengths are never such that if your car got stranded, walking out on foot to reach the surface would challenge people with small children. Subways are categorically a different animal. Of lesser endurance than light rail networks, the excess of amount of time spent within them is due to unintended delays and speed limits that draw out travel times. Spending more than 45 minutes on a subway trip is often viewed as unhappily inconvenient and/or an error.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Driving through a long tunnel never lasts up to 30 minutes, and tunnel lengths are never such that if your car got stranded, walking out on foot to reach the surface would challenge people with small children. Aside from unusual traffic delays, you are probably right about the 30 minutes thing (the longest road tunnel is just over 15 miles long), but it also has no emergency exits other than the ends, and the maximum 7.6 mile trek to an exit with both ends clear (and, a fortiori, the longer possible exit journey if not starting at the middle but a near end exit is not possible) are likely to challenge people with small children. LLP
johnmaguire2013 8y ago
OTOH, if I can commute to work underground in less than 5 minutes, but it takes me 20-30 minutes above ground, why not use that space above ground to build out more places where humans will actually "be"? e.g. Convert roads in cities to pedestrian/bicycle only traffic, or add housing.
- elicash 8y ago
  What I'm suggesting is that traffic is going to be almost entirely "stuff" in the future and that it creates a crisis that we will need to address. The idea is that when we think of traffic today, we're obsessed with moving people. But that's not what most traffic will be in the future... 90% of it will be deliveries of goods of different kinds. Maybe that's wrong. But I don't believe so. But I'm not arguing that it's wrong to ever have tunnels for moving people.
  - bigtunacan 8y ago
    Can you elaborate why/how you think most traffic will be "stuff" instead of people? Is everyone going to stop working and never go more than a couple of miles from home? I don't see this happening anytime soon. While some office jobs can be transitioned to work from home that does not account for the majority of workers even.
    - elicash 8y ago
      Could write a lot here, but it's not that people will travel less but that we'll ship more stuff. Basic idea is that as the cost of shipping goes down, we should expect to see much more of it. And for a variety of reasons I see shipping costs just being decimated in the next couple decades.

nradov 8y ago

People drive through long tunnels or ride on subways every day. Being underground is not a problem.

elicash 8y ago
I used to take the DC Metrorail to work. Being above ground is absolutely nicer than being below ground if you've got the choice. I looked forward to the parts of that train commute that were above ground. There was even a part where we would come out of the tunnel and I'd look behind me to view the Washington Monument. It was great, especially at night.
- rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
  I would rather take a short trip underground as the alternative to a long trip above ground, given the option. When I need to get from A to B, I just want to be there quickly. I can enjoy the surface of the Earth on my own time.
  - elicash 8y ago
    My specific point was about how to address a coming traffic crisis, sorry if that was unclear. I'm suggesting that 90% of traffic will be unaccompanied "stuff" and that moving it underground will free up traffic for people above ground. So either way, we're both talking about getting from A to B more quickly. I'm sure there will be a need that arises for more tunnels for people, too. But I think the place to START and allocate resources is tunnels for stuff since that's where the problem will come from.
    - rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
      I think that we should consider total underground transportation as a design goal. Even if we reduce, say, the highway traffic by 90%, the remaining 10% will still deal with weather conditions, peak usage times, and bottlenecks such as construction or traffic accidents. There are plenty of reasons to move people underground rather than above, along with goods. My personal interest in this is that a scalable 100% underground transportation system would make for a better model for life on the moon or Mars than anything we currently have on Earth. Besides, traveling underground doesn’t have to be a dreary, dystopian experience. If we moved people in rectangular structures resembling elevators, we could cover the floor and ceilings with LCD screens, so instead of feeling like you’re inside an elevator, you could set the screens to show a panorama of the city you’re in, or the Swiss Alps, or if you throw a camera and microphone in there, you could attend a meeting while you’re on your way to that meeting. Even if we get goods moving off the roads, personal transportation still has enormous costs. Just ask any American who has had to choose between paying high rent to live close to work, or buying a car to commute further away from their lower-rent home.
breadAndWater 8y ago
Driving doesn't fit into such a world view. Driving through a long tunnel never lasts up to 30 minutes, and tunnel lengths are never such that if your car got stranded, walking out on foot to reach the surface would challenge people with small children. Subways are categorically a different animal. Of lesser endurance than light rail networks, the excess of amount of time spent within them is due to unintended delays and speed limits that draw out travel times. Spending more than 45 minutes on a subway trip is often viewed as unhappily inconvenient and/or an error.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Driving through a long tunnel never lasts up to 30 minutes, and tunnel lengths are never such that if your car got stranded, walking out on foot to reach the surface would challenge people with small children. Aside from unusual traffic delays, you are probably right about the 30 minutes thing (the longest road tunnel is just over 15 miles long), but it also has no emergency exits other than the ends, and the maximum 7.6 mile trek to an exit with both ends clear (and, a fortiori, the longer possible exit journey if not starting at the middle but a near end exit is not possible) are likely to challenge people with small children. LLP

johnmaguire2013 8y ago

OTOH, if I can commute to work underground in less than 5 minutes, but it takes me 20-30 minutes above ground, why not use that space above ground to build out more places where humans will actually "be"? e.g. Convert roads in cities to pedestrian/bicycle only traffic, or add housing.

elicash 8y ago
What I'm suggesting is that traffic is going to be almost entirely "stuff" in the future and that it creates a crisis that we will need to address. The idea is that when we think of traffic today, we're obsessed with moving people. But that's not what most traffic will be in the future... 90% of it will be deliveries of goods of different kinds. Maybe that's wrong. But I don't believe so. But I'm not arguing that it's wrong to ever have tunnels for moving people.
- bigtunacan 8y ago
  Can you elaborate why/how you think most traffic will be "stuff" instead of people? Is everyone going to stop working and never go more than a couple of miles from home? I don't see this happening anytime soon. While some office jobs can be transitioned to work from home that does not account for the majority of workers even.
  - elicash 8y ago
    Could write a lot here, but it's not that people will travel less but that we'll ship more stuff. Basic idea is that as the cost of shipping goes down, we should expect to see much more of it. And for a variety of reasons I see shipping costs just being decimated in the next couple decades.