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In private conversations with the local city mobility department (which covers public transport and parking), there is a lot of tension building up due to the e

by luma 8y ago

In private conversations with the local city mobility department (which covers public transport and parking), there is a lot of tension building up due to the expectation of autonomous vehicles coming online within a decade. Floating a 20 year bond to build new parking structures used to be a safe investment but there is now a widespread expectation that personal vehicles will not require parking facilities well before that bond could be paid off. It is forcing a re-evaluation of the traditional regulatory, zoning, and financial instruments historically employed by cities to address these problems, and nobody is certain of the answer.

joe_the_user 8y ago
Good. It would ironic if an expectation of autonomous vehicles actually forced cities to create public transit if they failed to appear.
mc32 8y ago
It's reasonable to be tentative given the uncertainty. Is it possible to build a mixed use structure with parking at the lower levels that are designed with enough use flexibility that they could be converted into regular occupancy use if (when) parking demand is reduced?
ghaff 8y ago
Those cars still need to go somewhere. Maybe there's more sharing from the outskirts? But if you assume that cars will just drop off and then drive out to some vaguely defined area outside of the city where parking is plentiful, you're going to massively increase congestion.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  Self-driving cars technically wouldn't have to go anywhere besides the roads - except maybe periodically to charging and a repair station. Of course, by 3 am, it might be cheaper to have them parked. But there's a lot of parking currently available at 3 am. Of course, these cars occupy space, which means the road they'd be on would be a good deal more occupied. But remember, parking and traffic aren't static per-car, it's all a matter of rates.
- luma 8y ago
  That’s presuming individual private ownership of those vehicles. Detroit seems convinced that a fleet approach (think Uber without the driver) is the most likely outcome. In this case, the fleet moves around as needs require, generating revenue as riders are hailing then moving to an inexpensive staging area when demand decreases.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    I do not expect individual ownership of vehicles to decline much. People trash vehicles they don’t own. Fleet-shared driverless cars will be filled with bad smells, weird stains, cigarette butts, and leftover fast food wrappers. Anyone who can afford to buy a car for themselves will do it.
    - joe_the_user 8y ago
      The stain theory would depend on control and management. That said, only a percentage of people would want to just discard the car they've spent considerable money on. Self-driving fares can never be as cheap as regular driving seems. With regular driving, you are silently depreciating the value of your vehicle whereas a self-driving car would have to include depreciation in each ride.
      - mikepurvis 8y ago
        That assumes a typical daily usage pattern, though, for which yeah owning, fuelling, maintaining, and insuring your own vehicle will probably always make the most sense. However, for people who do (or plan to) use bicycles or mass transit a significant proportion of the time, being able to fall back on an hailed autonomous car in case of rain, haste, whatever is very appealing. It just depends on being able to look at a monthly bill of $200 (or whatever) in on-demand rides and see it as a huge step forward from what you used to pay in all the fixed costs of car ownership whether you used it or not. The real trick will be having a workable solution for families with kids— that's an area where current taxis/rideshare have a gap, since they're not willing to supply their own carseats for liability reasons.
- slavik81 8y ago
  I've heard that a surprising percentage of trip time in the downtown core is spent looking for nearby parking. Having the car drop people off and drive away to park somewhere where parking is less scarce might not actually increase time on road. You could also greatly increase parking density in parkcades if all vehicles had autonomous parking. For example, it would be no problem to box cars in if vehicles could move on their own to let them out. I bet you could easily double parking density.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    Plus some sort of vertical parking elevator starts to become much more reasonable. They already exist but when the whole thing is 100% automated including the car you could get more parking out of the vertical space then you do with a current garage.
    - mikepurvis 8y ago
      It'll be possible to pack them way, way more tightly if a) the structure itself is able to move the cars around at will, and b) you can give it an estimate of what time you'll be back (or 30 mins notice for the "standby" option).
      - MBCook 8y ago
        Excellent point. I hadn’t even thought of all the driving lanes and ramps that you no longer need.
      - derefr 8y ago
        At that point, it's less of a parking structure and more of an automated valet service. You get out of your car and only your car enters. Taken to the limit of the idea, the whole parking structure could be entirely sealed to the outside, and maybe even evacuated or filled with a non-oxygenated medium (e.g. nitrogen) to prevent car fires and reduce rusting from long-term storage. Sort of like a modern grain silo.
        8y ago
maym86 8y ago
You don't need atonomous vehicles to make this work. A good public transit system within the city, decent bike lanes and some park and ride options for getting in from the outskirts could be enough to make up for the reduced parking options.
- luma 8y ago
  While I appreciate the wisdom of this approach, the concept of mass transit isn’t new, and for large parts of the US has never worked out for one reason or the other. There are obvious exceptions in high density urban centers, but your typical mid sized midwestern city has never seemed to make mass transit take hold. For better or worse (mostly worse), people by and large continue to prefer private automobiles as their primary (or only) mode of transportation.
  - maym86 8y ago
    Sure, but the parking requiments mentioned above only really an issue in high density cities. I don't think requiring adequate parking is an issue in the lower density areas. Hopefully this will encourage people to consider other options if parking becomes to difficult or expensive.

by luma 8y ago

joe_the_user 8y ago

Good. It would ironic if an expectation of autonomous vehicles actually forced cities to create public transit if they failed to appear.

mc32 8y ago

It's reasonable to be tentative given the uncertainty. Is it possible to build a mixed use structure with parking at the lower levels that are designed with enough use flexibility that they could be converted into regular occupancy use if (when) parking demand is reduced?

ghaff 8y ago

Those cars still need to go somewhere. Maybe there's more sharing from the outskirts? But if you assume that cars will just drop off and then drive out to some vaguely defined area outside of the city where parking is plentiful, you're going to massively increase congestion.

joe_the_user 8y ago
Self-driving cars technically wouldn't have to go anywhere besides the roads - except maybe periodically to charging and a repair station. Of course, by 3 am, it might be cheaper to have them parked. But there's a lot of parking currently available at 3 am. Of course, these cars occupy space, which means the road they'd be on would be a good deal more occupied. But remember, parking and traffic aren't static per-car, it's all a matter of rates.
luma 8y ago
That’s presuming individual private ownership of those vehicles. Detroit seems convinced that a fleet approach (think Uber without the driver) is the most likely outcome. In this case, the fleet moves around as needs require, generating revenue as riders are hailing then moving to an inexpensive staging area when demand decreases.
- twblalock 8y ago
  I do not expect individual ownership of vehicles to decline much. People trash vehicles they don’t own. Fleet-shared driverless cars will be filled with bad smells, weird stains, cigarette butts, and leftover fast food wrappers. Anyone who can afford to buy a car for themselves will do it.
  - joe_the_user 8y ago
    The stain theory would depend on control and management. That said, only a percentage of people would want to just discard the car they've spent considerable money on. Self-driving fares can never be as cheap as regular driving seems. With regular driving, you are silently depreciating the value of your vehicle whereas a self-driving car would have to include depreciation in each ride.
    - mikepurvis 8y ago
      That assumes a typical daily usage pattern, though, for which yeah owning, fuelling, maintaining, and insuring your own vehicle will probably always make the most sense. However, for people who do (or plan to) use bicycles or mass transit a significant proportion of the time, being able to fall back on an hailed autonomous car in case of rain, haste, whatever is very appealing. It just depends on being able to look at a monthly bill of $200 (or whatever) in on-demand rides and see it as a huge step forward from what you used to pay in all the fixed costs of car ownership whether you used it or not. The real trick will be having a workable solution for families with kids— that's an area where current taxis/rideshare have a gap, since they're not willing to supply their own carseats for liability reasons.
slavik81 8y ago
I've heard that a surprising percentage of trip time in the downtown core is spent looking for nearby parking. Having the car drop people off and drive away to park somewhere where parking is less scarce might not actually increase time on road. You could also greatly increase parking density in parkcades if all vehicles had autonomous parking. For example, it would be no problem to box cars in if vehicles could move on their own to let them out. I bet you could easily double parking density.
- MBCook 8y ago
  Plus some sort of vertical parking elevator starts to become much more reasonable. They already exist but when the whole thing is 100% automated including the car you could get more parking out of the vertical space then you do with a current garage.
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    It'll be possible to pack them way, way more tightly if a) the structure itself is able to move the cars around at will, and b) you can give it an estimate of what time you'll be back (or 30 mins notice for the "standby" option).
    - MBCook 8y ago
      Excellent point. I hadn’t even thought of all the driving lanes and ramps that you no longer need.
    - derefr 8y ago
      At that point, it's less of a parking structure and more of an automated valet service. You get out of your car and only your car enters. Taken to the limit of the idea, the whole parking structure could be entirely sealed to the outside, and maybe even evacuated or filled with a non-oxygenated medium (e.g. nitrogen) to prevent car fires and reduce rusting from long-term storage. Sort of like a modern grain silo.
      - 8y ago

maym86 8y ago

You don't need atonomous vehicles to make this work. A good public transit system within the city, decent bike lanes and some park and ride options for getting in from the outskirts could be enough to make up for the reduced parking options.

luma 8y ago
While I appreciate the wisdom of this approach, the concept of mass transit isn’t new, and for large parts of the US has never worked out for one reason or the other. There are obvious exceptions in high density urban centers, but your typical mid sized midwestern city has never seemed to make mass transit take hold. For better or worse (mostly worse), people by and large continue to prefer private automobiles as their primary (or only) mode of transportation.
- maym86 8y ago
  Sure, but the parking requiments mentioned above only really an issue in high density cities. I don't think requiring adequate parking is an issue in the lower density areas. Hopefully this will encourage people to consider other options if parking becomes to difficult or expensive.