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Yes, why don't we just do the easy thing and fundamentally rework all the physical infrastructure of every locality all at once. Gosh, why didn't we think of t

Yes, why don't we just do the easy thing and fundamentally rework all the physical infrastructure of every locality all at once. Gosh, why didn't we think of that.

rglullis 4y ago
It doesn't have to be all at once. The point is that all the money, time and intellectual capital put into the "building FSD cars" are not going to solve the most fundamental problems that exist in car-dependent cities and societies.
- aetherson 4y ago
  I guess I have a few responses: 1. If fully self-driving cars come along at some point in the recognizable future, I would bet pretty large amounts of money that they'll be extremely popular in Europe or whatever else you're thinking of as not "car-dependent." 2. The amount of money, time, and intellectual capital put into building driverless cars is an infinitesimal drop in the bucket compared to the money, time, and intellectual capital that would be necessary to make a gigantic change in the US physical infrastructure. Particularly time -- there's no way that America is going to change into Europe, well, ever, but particularly not in our lifetimes, so if you want a better transportation system, I wouldn't bet on that. 3. But also, the time, money, and intellectual capital spent on driverless cars is non-rival to any (limited, local) makeovers that American localities are going to get.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    1. "Extremely popular" compared to what? Non-autonomous cars? Taxis? Bikes? Buses? Trains? Yeah, I could see people thinking it would be cool to get a self-driving car as a replacement for the occasional taxi, but why would people stop using the existing public transit alternatives that already work? 2 and 3. The American way for city growth is the cause of financial troubles for most cities. And I cited Amsterdam exactly why it works as an example of how you can redesign a city to reduce car-dependency step-wise. Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6... to see the economic problems that plague cities in the US, and how a lot of them are improving simply by changing zoning laws.
    - syntheweave 4y ago
      There is no world in which robotaxis exist that would inhibit robobuses and robobikes from also existing and being integrated into one coherent transportation network. The existing toolkit of pricing controls makes it easy to pull a lever to get more people onto the smaller or shared vehicles as needed, and with roughly linear ability to expand the fleet in any of these axes, the roads they're running on already built and paid for, and the cost of deployment rapidly dropping, nothing will stop them from taking over in a span of 5-10 years. It'll be the biggest boon to urban transit we've ever seen, because what self-driving actually does is make modality, routing and scheduling less important to individual trip planning.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        > the roads they're running on already built and paid for Roads still require maintenance, and without a profound change in how cities are organized, these costs are always going to be overwhelmingly large compared with the cost of everything else. > self-driving actually does is make modality, routing and scheduling less important to individual trip planning. That is the worst type of optimization. It still keeps people in desolate suburbia and makes millions of people across America with the sensation that "commute time" is a constant that can not be avoided, so it should be at least made comfortable. Investing to make the transportation systems smarter without even looking at how the urban spaces could be changed to get rid of cars is like the (myth) story of NASA putting millions of dollars to make a space pen, instead of using a pencil.
    - aetherson 4y ago
      1. You seem to think that driverless cars are unimportant for places like Europe. I think you're deeply wrong. If cars that can equal or exceed the performance of median humans come to the market without adding more than a few tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of the vehicle, I expect that they will rapidly become more popular than current automobiles in Europe (and Europe is far from car-averse -- the Netherlands has about one car per two people), and that they will on the margin significantly (but not catastrophically) reduce usage of public transport. (EDIT: If the pattern of driverless cars is dominantly one of rides-for-hire rather than ownership, the total unit sales of driverless cars might be significantly lower than current unit sales of normal cars, but I would expect driverless cars to rapidly eat most of the passenger-miles of automobiles plus a significant share of the passenger-miles of public transit). 2 and 3: You didn't even remotely address anything I said.

Yes, why don't we just do the easy thing and fundamentally rework all the physical infrastructure of every locality all at once. Gosh, why didn't we think of that.

rglullis 4y ago

It doesn't have to be all at once. The point is that all the money, time and intellectual capital put into the "building FSD cars" are not going to solve the most fundamental problems that exist in car-dependent cities and societies.

aetherson 4y ago
I guess I have a few responses: 1. If fully self-driving cars come along at some point in the recognizable future, I would bet pretty large amounts of money that they'll be extremely popular in Europe or whatever else you're thinking of as not "car-dependent." 2. The amount of money, time, and intellectual capital put into building driverless cars is an infinitesimal drop in the bucket compared to the money, time, and intellectual capital that would be necessary to make a gigantic change in the US physical infrastructure. Particularly time -- there's no way that America is going to change into Europe, well, ever, but particularly not in our lifetimes, so if you want a better transportation system, I wouldn't bet on that. 3. But also, the time, money, and intellectual capital spent on driverless cars is non-rival to any (limited, local) makeovers that American localities are going to get.
- rglullis 4y ago
  1. "Extremely popular" compared to what? Non-autonomous cars? Taxis? Bikes? Buses? Trains? Yeah, I could see people thinking it would be cool to get a self-driving car as a replacement for the occasional taxi, but why would people stop using the existing public transit alternatives that already work? 2 and 3. The American way for city growth is the cause of financial troubles for most cities. And I cited Amsterdam exactly why it works as an example of how you can redesign a city to reduce car-dependency step-wise. Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6... to see the economic problems that plague cities in the US, and how a lot of them are improving simply by changing zoning laws.
  - syntheweave 4y ago
    There is no world in which robotaxis exist that would inhibit robobuses and robobikes from also existing and being integrated into one coherent transportation network. The existing toolkit of pricing controls makes it easy to pull a lever to get more people onto the smaller or shared vehicles as needed, and with roughly linear ability to expand the fleet in any of these axes, the roads they're running on already built and paid for, and the cost of deployment rapidly dropping, nothing will stop them from taking over in a span of 5-10 years. It'll be the biggest boon to urban transit we've ever seen, because what self-driving actually does is make modality, routing and scheduling less important to individual trip planning.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      > the roads they're running on already built and paid for Roads still require maintenance, and without a profound change in how cities are organized, these costs are always going to be overwhelmingly large compared with the cost of everything else. > self-driving actually does is make modality, routing and scheduling less important to individual trip planning. That is the worst type of optimization. It still keeps people in desolate suburbia and makes millions of people across America with the sensation that "commute time" is a constant that can not be avoided, so it should be at least made comfortable. Investing to make the transportation systems smarter without even looking at how the urban spaces could be changed to get rid of cars is like the (myth) story of NASA putting millions of dollars to make a space pen, instead of using a pencil.
  - aetherson 4y ago
    1. You seem to think that driverless cars are unimportant for places like Europe. I think you're deeply wrong. If cars that can equal or exceed the performance of median humans come to the market without adding more than a few tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of the vehicle, I expect that they will rapidly become more popular than current automobiles in Europe (and Europe is far from car-averse -- the Netherlands has about one car per two people), and that they will on the margin significantly (but not catastrophically) reduce usage of public transport. (EDIT: If the pattern of driverless cars is dominantly one of rides-for-hire rather than ownership, the total unit sales of driverless cars might be significantly lower than current unit sales of normal cars, but I would expect driverless cars to rapidly eat most of the passenger-miles of automobiles plus a significant share of the passenger-miles of public transit). 2 and 3: You didn't even remotely address anything I said.