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And this vision is terrible for energy efficiency and space efficiency. Look at developing countries, there's often a large dependence on taxis and three-wheele

by ant6n 8y ago

And this vision is terrible for energy efficiency and space efficiency. Look at developing countries, there's often a large dependence on taxis and three-wheelers, due to the low labor costs the economics are similar to self driving cars in industrialized countries (some scholars predict the cost of cleaning of shared autonomous cars will be substantial, which may make it similar to the drivers cost in developing countries). Meanwhile, the capacity increases are likely oversold, as you can see in developing countries that have poor transit: total grid lock. Your "Futurama" vision of car-centric cities is old, tired, and not working, throwing the words 'electric' and 'autonomuous' in there isn't gonna chance much.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> the capacity increases are likely oversold The last study I saw on the topic estimated most urban travel could be accomplished with 11% of the existing fleet if cars drove constantly. So not only do you return all the parking space to the economy, but you also increase roads' capacity by something around tenfold. Throwing "autonomous" in changes the capacity tradeoffs and throwing "electric" in makes more cars more pleasant, from both an emissions as well as noise perspective.
- ant6n 8y ago
  11% seems incredibly unlikely. How is a single car going to get 10ppl (on average!) to work during rush hour. Add in destroying transit, and the kind of sprawl that "Futurama" fantasies tend to come with, and I doubt this is going to work. Many roads are already fully congested during rush, where could a 10x capacity increase possibly come from... The last studies I heard about talked about reducing the required vehicle Fleet by 3 vor 4, while actually _increasing_ VMT.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > where could a 10x capacity increase possibly come from Eliminating street-side parking single-handedly gives you 2x to 3x on side streets. Tighter packing and better routing does a lot of the rest. You can't do the latter until a zone goes 100% autonomous, which is unrealistic for e.g. Dallas but very much so for downtown Manhattan. > Add in destroying transit Nobody said anything about destroying transit. Earlier, I explicitly mentioned rail for within-density transit.
    - ant6n 8y ago
      It you turn parking lanes into driving lanes, you're not increasing the capacity of the existing infrastructure, but creating much more driving infrastructure. It also won't 'return' parking to the economy. Consider the 'staying quality' of a <parking lane+driving lane+parking lane> residential street turned into a 3-lane thoroughfare. That's exactly the sort of dystopia that new urbanists and sustainable mobility advocates are warning about.

by ant6n 8y ago

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> the capacity increases are likely oversold The last study I saw on the topic estimated most urban travel could be accomplished with 11% of the existing fleet if cars drove constantly. So not only do you return all the parking space to the economy, but you also increase roads' capacity by something around tenfold. Throwing "autonomous" in changes the capacity tradeoffs and throwing "electric" in makes more cars more pleasant, from both an emissions as well as noise perspective.

ant6n 8y ago
11% seems incredibly unlikely. How is a single car going to get 10ppl (on average!) to work during rush hour. Add in destroying transit, and the kind of sprawl that "Futurama" fantasies tend to come with, and I doubt this is going to work. Many roads are already fully congested during rush, where could a 10x capacity increase possibly come from... The last studies I heard about talked about reducing the required vehicle Fleet by 3 vor 4, while actually _increasing_ VMT.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > where could a 10x capacity increase possibly come from Eliminating street-side parking single-handedly gives you 2x to 3x on side streets. Tighter packing and better routing does a lot of the rest. You can't do the latter until a zone goes 100% autonomous, which is unrealistic for e.g. Dallas but very much so for downtown Manhattan. > Add in destroying transit Nobody said anything about destroying transit. Earlier, I explicitly mentioned rail for within-density transit.
  - ant6n 8y ago
    It you turn parking lanes into driving lanes, you're not increasing the capacity of the existing infrastructure, but creating much more driving infrastructure. It also won't 'return' parking to the economy. Consider the 'staying quality' of a <parking lane+driving lane+parking lane> residential street turned into a 3-lane thoroughfare. That's exactly the sort of dystopia that new urbanists and sustainable mobility advocates are warning about.