3 ms·

Well, that depends on what problem you're solving. Self-driving vehicles aren't solving mass transportation. They're solving ubiquitous personal transportation.

Well, that depends on what problem you're solving. Self-driving vehicles aren't solving mass transportation. They're solving ubiquitous personal transportation. They may also solve mass transport by being cheap, ubiquitous, and by performing an end-run around the piles of local regulation that restrict mass transit.

benrbray 7y ago
Density + mass transport is the solution to the problem of ubiquitous personal transportation.
- jgust 7y ago
  This is the answer, but it opens up another line of questioning: do we force people to live in dense urban areas? Sometimes I wonder if pro mass-transit commenters (I'm pro mass transit, FWIW) have ever lived outside of a major metro. There are so many places where people live where mass transit is never going to be viable in way that replaces the car. Who gets to decide when/if we invalidate their way of living? Maybe I'm not seeing all the angles here.
GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
Self-driving is largely a reaction to the single-person-single-car scale problem. When you're trying to transport millions of people on a weekday, cars will never be able to meet demand. Look at China trying to vertically scale their highways resulting in 40-lane wide highways and multi-day traffic jams.
- plexicle 7y ago
  "Self-driving is largely a reaction to the single-person-single-car scale problem." What in the world? No it is not.
- twic 7y ago
  Username ... does not check out.
twic 7y ago
> the piles of local regulation that restrict mass transit Yes, that's what's stopping local governments building more mass transit, it's all those regulations imposed by the pesky local government!
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Yes. Take SF, for instance. EDIT: Rate-limited, so read response to request to elaborate below San Francisco has multiple entities involved in the process of policy relating to transit. So, while the SF MTA and Jeffrey Tumlin may want more rail (perhaps underground), more buses, and fewer car thoroughfares there are also supervisors in charge of local districts who may oppose construction on grounds that they will hurt constituents. As an example, supervisors David Campos and Hillary Ronen at different times opposed the bus-lanes along Mission St. on various grounds including (paraphrasing) "speeding up transit does not improve things for the local community", "the transit lanes lead to gentrification", "local merchants will see decreased foot traffic". That's just an example and the details are too numerous to list here but consider also that the SFFD opposes Vision Zero.
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    For someone who knows nothing about SF laws, please elaborate.

benrbray 7y ago

Density + mass transport is the solution to the problem of ubiquitous personal transportation.

jgust 7y ago
This is the answer, but it opens up another line of questioning: do we force people to live in dense urban areas? Sometimes I wonder if pro mass-transit commenters (I'm pro mass transit, FWIW) have ever lived outside of a major metro. There are so many places where people live where mass transit is never going to be viable in way that replaces the car. Who gets to decide when/if we invalidate their way of living? Maybe I'm not seeing all the angles here.

GaryNumanVevo 7y ago

Self-driving is largely a reaction to the single-person-single-car scale problem. When you're trying to transport millions of people on a weekday, cars will never be able to meet demand. Look at China trying to vertically scale their highways resulting in 40-lane wide highways and multi-day traffic jams.

plexicle 7y ago
"Self-driving is largely a reaction to the single-person-single-car scale problem." What in the world? No it is not.
twic 7y ago
Username ... does not check out.

twic 7y ago

> the piles of local regulation that restrict mass transit Yes, that's what's stopping local governments building more mass transit, it's all those regulations imposed by the pesky local government!

scarejunba 7y ago
Yes. Take SF, for instance. EDIT: Rate-limited, so read response to request to elaborate below San Francisco has multiple entities involved in the process of policy relating to transit. So, while the SF MTA and Jeffrey Tumlin may want more rail (perhaps underground), more buses, and fewer car thoroughfares there are also supervisors in charge of local districts who may oppose construction on grounds that they will hurt constituents. As an example, supervisors David Campos and Hillary Ronen at different times opposed the bus-lanes along Mission St. on various grounds including (paraphrasing) "speeding up transit does not improve things for the local community", "the transit lanes lead to gentrification", "local merchants will see decreased foot traffic". That's just an example and the details are too numerous to list here but consider also that the SFFD opposes Vision Zero.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  For someone who knows nothing about SF laws, please elaborate.