4 ms·

Questionable take. The best road "citizens" are trams, trains, and subways. They all obey traffic laws and are reliable. Self-driving cars don't exist in any me

Questionable take. The best road "citizens" are trams, trains, and subways. They all obey traffic laws and are reliable. Self-driving cars don't exist in any meaningful way. The most realistic route to walkable neighborhoods is good public transit, bike infrastructure, and repealing of restrictive zoning. Walkable neighborhoods already exists all over Europe and work today unlike the pipe dream of self-driving cars.

xnx 3y ago
There are definitely situations where legacy public transit makes sense, but at up to $1 billion/mile for urban railway that doesn't seem a practical future for the US. I'd love to snap my fingers and make more cities in the US to be like Amsterdam, but there are hundreds of historical, political, and climactic reasons why that is not a feasible path for US cities at this point. The consistent and deliberately boring progress of Waymo has me very optimistic that there is a better way. For tech crowds, the best analogy I have is the switch from dedicated copper to packet-switched networks. We're on the verge of unleashing dramatically more efficient utilization of existing pipes (road infrastructure).
Racing0461 3y ago
Why is point to point travel blahphemy to urbanists?
ben_w 3y ago
> Self-driving cars don't exist in any meaningful way Agreed, but I wouldn't call them a "pipe dream" — Musk's timelines may all be pipe dreams, but the tech exists (and isn't just from Tesla) and can be used where legislation allows. On the scale of changing urban infrastructure, even if these take another decade, I'd expect them to be widely available faster than new train and subway lines. Bike infrastructure should be an easy win, if only it wasn't for the political aspect that makes many see cyclists as "other". I'd be inclined to vote for people who promise more of it.

4 ms·

Questionable take. The best road "citizens" are trams, trains, and subways. They all obey traffic laws and are reliable. Self-driving cars don't exist in any me

by latortuga 3y ago

xnx 3y ago
There are definitely situations where legacy public transit makes sense, but at up to $1 billion/mile for urban railway that doesn't seem a practical future for the US. I'd love to snap my fingers and make more cities in the US to be like Amsterdam, but there are hundreds of historical, political, and climactic reasons why that is not a feasible path for US cities at this point. The consistent and deliberately boring progress of Waymo has me very optimistic that there is a better way. For tech crowds, the best analogy I have is the switch from dedicated copper to packet-switched networks. We're on the verge of unleashing dramatically more efficient utilization of existing pipes (road infrastructure).
Racing0461 3y ago
Why is point to point travel blahphemy to urbanists?
ben_w 3y ago
> Self-driving cars don't exist in any meaningful way Agreed, but I wouldn't call them a "pipe dream" — Musk's timelines may all be pipe dreams, but the tech exists (and isn't just from Tesla) and can be used where legislation allows. On the scale of changing urban infrastructure, even if these take another decade, I'd expect them to be widely available faster than new train and subway lines. Bike infrastructure should be an easy win, if only it wasn't for the political aspect that makes many see cyclists as "other". I'd be inclined to vote for people who promise more of it.