5 ms·

I'd rather have frequent, reliable and safe public transport than self-driving cars. Can we pour billions of dollars into that instead, please?

tobyhinloopen 7y ago
Self-driving cars are the future of frequent, reliable and safe public transport. Why own a car when you can have a self-driving car pick you up from anywhere, bring you anywhere, and drive away to the next customer when it's done. Sure some people would still want to own a car, or drive one themselves, but eventually I can imagine self-driving shared cars will become cheaper and are still a reliable way of transportation. For many people, owning a car will no longer be desirable since shared self-driving cars suit their needs.
- gambiting 7y ago
  >>Why own a car when you can have a self-driving car pick you up from anywhere, bring you anywhere, and drive away to the next customer when it's done. That's called a taxi and I don't see them replacing personal cars en-masse[0]. Even once autonomous cars are ubiquitous I'd still like to own one, not share it with other people. [0] Taking an uber to work and back every day would already be cheaper for me than what I'm paying for my car + petrol + insurance + servicing, and yet I prefer to have a vehicle and drive it myself.
- erfgh 7y ago
  So how did you update your view after reading the article?
- ulldoitforever 7y ago
  Cars that carry less than 4 passengers aren't viable as a replacement to existing public transport in terms of capacity or price.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  Because where I live it takes at least an hour for a taxi to decide to come get me (and that's being generous: last time it was about 4 hours). Uber simply says "no cars available" and Lyft frustratingly shows cars 10 miles away that simply disappear. Just because the car has no driver doesn't mean that the economics change enough to service a low population density area. The reality is that there are huge swaths of the US where you need personal transportation.
  - danans 7y ago
    > The reality is that there are huge swaths of the US where you need personal transportation. Yes, but 80% of the population lives in urban areas, so would be better served by improved public transit. That doesn't mean anyone is taking your personal car away if that's the best way to get around in a low population density area.
canuckintime 7y ago
A minor, but still significant, area of research to great public transport adoption is the last mile problem. Bicycles, scooters, Segways, OneWheel... hoverboards? If there was a sci-fi hoverboard that could be used in rain/snow to easily connect to the nearest public transit node, and easily carried until disembarkation, then car use would decline. On a different tangent, I am curious about societies where motorcycles are a significant fraction of private transportation. What's their outlook on self-driving cars?
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  The last-mile problem is solved by reducing it to a last-quarter-mile problem: improving public transportation density.
  - 0x262d 7y ago
    the last-mile problem is made up to justify post-hoc why public transit sucks, when really it sucks because it is underfunded (as an intentional act of sabotage)
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    I wonder who exactly would vote to pay for that. Covering the entire US to a quarter-mile resolution would probably be the most expensive project ever undertaken.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  > A minor, but still significant, area of research to great public transport adoption is the last mile problem. Bicycles, scooters, Segways, OneWheel... hoverboards? The big problem here at this point is not individual innovation into new devices. We already have folding scooters, folding bikes, bike share, scooter share, etc. I already combine a folding scooter with public transport in Munich and it works fairly well for me for many trips. The real problem is that in many cities, the infrastructure to support these things is extraordinarily terrible. For example, there are literally zero cities in the US with decent bike infrastructure -- and it's bike lanes/paths that fit the kind of devices you're talking about -- let alone good infrastructure. The city I'm in, Munich, hits the decent mark, but still has a ways to go before being 'good'. And it only works well for me because I'm a relatively healthy/fit adult, an elderly person or a child would have more problems.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
These are completely orthogonal things. "We" the people can already invest billions into public transport if we collectively decide to do so. What the car companies are investing in has nothing to do with that. Your comment is disingenuous, because it implies that one is blocking the other, but it's obviously not.
- pepper_sauce 7y ago
  My original comment is a criticism of how investment is allocated in society. Self-driving cars are (in my opinion) a much lower priority than public transport. If the current allocation mechanism prefers wasting billions (in mine, and the article's, opinion), over investing in a chronically underfunded public transport system then something is wrong at a high level.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    But you're still conflating two different things. There's no 'instead' here. Companies are correctly investing into a potentially profitable thing that makes sense for them, and for whatever reason, society has democratically chosen to not invest very much into public transport. Short of arguing for FULL COMMUNISM NOW, where society would also be democratically telling businesses exactly what to do, these two things are not meaningfully connected. If the people decided to take public transport more seriously, we could do so at any time.
    - pepper_sauce 7y ago
      I agree with you that there's no direct zero-sum connection between public transport investment and self-driving cars but I'd say that's missing the point. This is a tangent, but there aren't two separate pots of currency labelled 'PRIVATE FUNDS' and 'PUBLIC FUNDS' in society. Nor does private industry have a monopoly on R&D. As you acknowledge, it's entirely feasible through political action to change society's declared priorities, and there's nothing 'full communism' about it: Private companies operate within the market defined and backed by the state and legal system. Self-driving cars, even if ready to go tomorrow, present a worse value proposition than public transport unless we enter into the realms of a post-scarcity society. My opinion is that it's a shame that the current sociopolitical system has ended up offering better incentives by having half a dozen mega-corps pump endless amounts of money into their own proprietary research of something less useful to society than public transport, which provides similar functionality. Is it a useful, actionable statement? No, of course not! We're wasting time on HN not debating in parliament ;-)
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
We do, but in most urban markets billions isn't enough to do much. SF spent $2 billion just on building a new transit hub.
- ummonk 7y ago
  That isn't a whole lot. SF will be spending a billion dollars on the Presidio Parkway project for example.
crazygringo 7y ago
Why not have both? Fast public transit for busy routes, and self-driving cars that bring you to/from public transit? It's a false dichotomy.
- qnsi 7y ago
  Bicycle brings you to public transit. Problem solved
  - fred_is_fred 7y ago
    I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic but this only works in specific cities. Lots of cities have issues with sprawl, weather, lack of bike lanes, or even a place to lock your bike. It's also extremely difficult to do with a young family.
  - pembrook 7y ago
    Only in warm climates. Also good luck carrying your children on your bike.
    - Moter8 7y ago
      Never heard of child carrier trailers? http://images.esellerpro.com/2475/I/100/58/BIKETRAILER-NA-SUSP-VAR-KMSWM.jpg http://images.esellerpro.com/2475/I/100/58/BIKETRAILER-NA-SU...
  - quest88 7y ago
    Perfect for an non-handicapped person responsible only for themselves!
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      And who lives in the city not far from the public transit.
- danans 7y ago
  You can merge them also: Self driving public transit.
luckydata 7y ago
Unfortunately the USA wasn't built or zoned with that in mind, so public transportation while necessary can't be a complete solution for too many. I don't condone it, the majority of cities in this country are true horrors and make no sense and we should aggressively zone in a way that gets rid of the majority of los Angeles to make an example of one of the worst offenders, but we can't ignore the problem exists.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

tobyhinloopen 7y ago

Self-driving cars are the future of frequent, reliable and safe public transport. Why own a car when you can have a self-driving car pick you up from anywhere, bring you anywhere, and drive away to the next customer when it's done. Sure some people would still want to own a car, or drive one themselves, but eventually I can imagine self-driving shared cars will become cheaper and are still a reliable way of transportation. For many people, owning a car will no longer be desirable since shared self-driving cars suit their needs.

gambiting 7y ago
>>Why own a car when you can have a self-driving car pick you up from anywhere, bring you anywhere, and drive away to the next customer when it's done. That's called a taxi and I don't see them replacing personal cars en-masse[0]. Even once autonomous cars are ubiquitous I'd still like to own one, not share it with other people. [0] Taking an uber to work and back every day would already be cheaper for me than what I'm paying for my car + petrol + insurance + servicing, and yet I prefer to have a vehicle and drive it myself.
erfgh 7y ago
So how did you update your view after reading the article?
ulldoitforever 7y ago
Cars that carry less than 4 passengers aren't viable as a replacement to existing public transport in terms of capacity or price.
HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
Because where I live it takes at least an hour for a taxi to decide to come get me (and that's being generous: last time it was about 4 hours). Uber simply says "no cars available" and Lyft frustratingly shows cars 10 miles away that simply disappear. Just because the car has no driver doesn't mean that the economics change enough to service a low population density area. The reality is that there are huge swaths of the US where you need personal transportation.
- danans 7y ago
  > The reality is that there are huge swaths of the US where you need personal transportation. Yes, but 80% of the population lives in urban areas, so would be better served by improved public transit. That doesn't mean anyone is taking your personal car away if that's the best way to get around in a low population density area.

canuckintime 7y ago

A minor, but still significant, area of research to great public transport adoption is the last mile problem. Bicycles, scooters, Segways, OneWheel... hoverboards? If there was a sci-fi hoverboard that could be used in rain/snow to easily connect to the nearest public transit node, and easily carried until disembarkation, then car use would decline. On a different tangent, I am curious about societies where motorcycles are a significant fraction of private transportation. What's their outlook on self-driving cars?

jacques_chester 7y ago
The last-mile problem is solved by reducing it to a last-quarter-mile problem: improving public transportation density.
- 0x262d 7y ago
  the last-mile problem is made up to justify post-hoc why public transit sucks, when really it sucks because it is underfunded (as an intentional act of sabotage)
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  I wonder who exactly would vote to pay for that. Covering the entire US to a quarter-mile resolution would probably be the most expensive project ever undertaken.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
> A minor, but still significant, area of research to great public transport adoption is the last mile problem. Bicycles, scooters, Segways, OneWheel... hoverboards? The big problem here at this point is not individual innovation into new devices. We already have folding scooters, folding bikes, bike share, scooter share, etc. I already combine a folding scooter with public transport in Munich and it works fairly well for me for many trips. The real problem is that in many cities, the infrastructure to support these things is extraordinarily terrible. For example, there are literally zero cities in the US with decent bike infrastructure -- and it's bike lanes/paths that fit the kind of devices you're talking about -- let alone good infrastructure. The city I'm in, Munich, hits the decent mark, but still has a ways to go before being 'good'. And it only works well for me because I'm a relatively healthy/fit adult, an elderly person or a child would have more problems.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

These are completely orthogonal things. "We" the people can already invest billions into public transport if we collectively decide to do so. What the car companies are investing in has nothing to do with that. Your comment is disingenuous, because it implies that one is blocking the other, but it's obviously not.

pepper_sauce 7y ago
My original comment is a criticism of how investment is allocated in society. Self-driving cars are (in my opinion) a much lower priority than public transport. If the current allocation mechanism prefers wasting billions (in mine, and the article's, opinion), over investing in a chronically underfunded public transport system then something is wrong at a high level.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  But you're still conflating two different things. There's no 'instead' here. Companies are correctly investing into a potentially profitable thing that makes sense for them, and for whatever reason, society has democratically chosen to not invest very much into public transport. Short of arguing for FULL COMMUNISM NOW, where society would also be democratically telling businesses exactly what to do, these two things are not meaningfully connected. If the people decided to take public transport more seriously, we could do so at any time.
  - pepper_sauce 7y ago
    I agree with you that there's no direct zero-sum connection between public transport investment and self-driving cars but I'd say that's missing the point. This is a tangent, but there aren't two separate pots of currency labelled 'PRIVATE FUNDS' and 'PUBLIC FUNDS' in society. Nor does private industry have a monopoly on R&D. As you acknowledge, it's entirely feasible through political action to change society's declared priorities, and there's nothing 'full communism' about it: Private companies operate within the market defined and backed by the state and legal system. Self-driving cars, even if ready to go tomorrow, present a worse value proposition than public transport unless we enter into the realms of a post-scarcity society. My opinion is that it's a shame that the current sociopolitical system has ended up offering better incentives by having half a dozen mega-corps pump endless amounts of money into their own proprietary research of something less useful to society than public transport, which provides similar functionality. Is it a useful, actionable statement? No, of course not! We're wasting time on HN not debating in parliament ;-)

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

We do, but in most urban markets billions isn't enough to do much. SF spent $2 billion just on building a new transit hub.

ummonk 7y ago
That isn't a whole lot. SF will be spending a billion dollars on the Presidio Parkway project for example.

crazygringo 7y ago

Why not have both? Fast public transit for busy routes, and self-driving cars that bring you to/from public transit? It's a false dichotomy.

qnsi 7y ago
Bicycle brings you to public transit. Problem solved
- fred_is_fred 7y ago
  I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic but this only works in specific cities. Lots of cities have issues with sprawl, weather, lack of bike lanes, or even a place to lock your bike. It's also extremely difficult to do with a young family.
- pembrook 7y ago
  Only in warm climates. Also good luck carrying your children on your bike.
  - Moter8 7y ago
    Never heard of child carrier trailers? http://images.esellerpro.com/2475/I/100/58/BIKETRAILER-NA-SUSP-VAR-KMSWM.jpg http://images.esellerpro.com/2475/I/100/58/BIKETRAILER-NA-SU...
- quest88 7y ago
  Perfect for an non-handicapped person responsible only for themselves!
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    And who lives in the city not far from the public transit.
danans 7y ago
You can merge them also: Self driving public transit.

luckydata 7y ago

Unfortunately the USA wasn't built or zoned with that in mind, so public transportation while necessary can't be a complete solution for too many. I don't condone it, the majority of cities in this country are true horrors and make no sense and we should aggressively zone in a way that gets rid of the majority of los Angeles to make an example of one of the worst offenders, but we can't ignore the problem exists.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]