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I'm not sure we need to retrofit Atlanta or Dallas, or what you might envision here. You could for example maintain existing infrastructure without spending a l

I'm not sure we need to retrofit Atlanta or Dallas, or what you might envision here. You could for example maintain existing infrastructure without spending a lot of taxpayer money on new highways and instead allocate funding to improving density, adjusting zoning, eliminating surface parking lots, and literally just paving sidewalks and bike lanes. Busses can run on existing highways and throughout cities. City streets can already accommodate trams and bike lanes. I agree that self-driving cars are "going to be a thing" but their proliferation I doubt. They're not really a category change from Uber, it's just "more efficient" as an additive solution, but we need subtractive solutions. You can think of the car and self-driving cars in particular in the same way you can think of personal digital cameras, alarm clocks, and smiliar devices before the advent of the iPhone. The iPhone (and other smart phones) was a subtractive product and eliminated the need for those devices. Similarly a sidewalk and building well (among other things) eliminate much of the need for a personal car and so Ford, GM, Toyota, Tesla, etc. can't effectively compete because they don't build sidewalks or have anything to do with this category of transit. If I can just walk over to the grocery store like I could in London or Osaka then no amount of self-driving will matter.

NegativeLatency 3y ago
Self driving cars also won’t really fix traffic, because people will send the car home (doubling the number of trips)
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  I'm hoping self driving traffic can operate at shorter following distances and doesn't make dumb mistakes that block lanes.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Self driving cars also imply you can have self driving buses. Imagine a couple small electric vans running from your cul-de-sac to a local transit center (with shopping). Since labor is the highest cost of a bus no sane transit system could do this, but a cheap self driving van means nobody on your street needs to own a car, and the local transit center lets you transfer to larger transit vehicles to other places. It might be slower than directly taking your car places, but it is a lot cheaper and better for the environment.
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    I think that the future of self driving is shuttles. Small vehicles that use the road to take you on the short journeys, where mass transit is not an option. The biggest issue with busses, for me is the timetable. Imagine having a truly 24/7 on time transit network? You'd only need a vehicle to haul something, which is not a daily operation.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Which is what I was getting at. Get people to someplace where mass transit can run 24/7 quickly, then let mass transit take over.
- Tiktaalik 3y ago
  Even if no one ever does that, sends an empty car anywhere, there will be an increase in "drivers" on the road as more people that would not be allowed to drive because they have no license (ie. the elderly and children) are now able to drive by themselves in a single car, whereas previously they would have transported themselves with other people or on public transit. Autonomous cars will result in an explosion of cars on the road and a severe increase in traffic. It'll be a disaster.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Why would you have the car drive home? That means you have to give it heads up and make a plan to leave so it can drive back to you. If it just circles the block for 8 hours while you work, it will be there within minutes to drive you home whenever you feel like it.
  - ericmay 3y ago
    > If it just circles the block for 8 hours while you work, it will be there within minutes to drive you home whenever you feel like it. Alright so what we're going to do is extract limited resources from the earth, pump out a bunch of C02, have a lot of people or machines get together in a big factory and assemble a car, someone is going to take out a loan for $40,000 or something, pay interest on that loan, pay for insurance, pay for maintenance, pay for energy/fuel, we're going to build highways and roads, and then we're going to have the car drive itself and the passenger (of course just them because nobody is sharing their car) to their computer at work, the car is then going to circle the block for 8 hours while you work (i.e. sit on Zoom calls), and then once you are ready to head home the car will stop circling the block and come and get you. Right. All to avoid walking, riding a bike, or god forbid being near other humans on a tram.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      A tram? That's basically communism! But seriously, privately owned cars are the problem here. If, instead, taxi service is normalized, then we don't have this problem, and my car doesn't need to circle the block because it isn't my car. As long as I can get home at the end of the day, a self driving taxi seems like the way for the system to be organized, to avoid precisely the stupidity you described.
- minwcnt5 3y ago
  You wouldn't send it home, you'd send it to park by the side of the street or in a parking lot. You know, the same thing Waymo does between trips.

NegativeLatency 3y ago

Self driving cars also won’t really fix traffic, because people will send the car home (doubling the number of trips)

erik_seaberg 3y ago
I'm hoping self driving traffic can operate at shorter following distances and doesn't make dumb mistakes that block lanes.
bluGill 3y ago
Self driving cars also imply you can have self driving buses. Imagine a couple small electric vans running from your cul-de-sac to a local transit center (with shopping). Since labor is the highest cost of a bus no sane transit system could do this, but a cheap self driving van means nobody on your street needs to own a car, and the local transit center lets you transfer to larger transit vehicles to other places. It might be slower than directly taking your car places, but it is a lot cheaper and better for the environment.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  I think that the future of self driving is shuttles. Small vehicles that use the road to take you on the short journeys, where mass transit is not an option. The biggest issue with busses, for me is the timetable. Imagine having a truly 24/7 on time transit network? You'd only need a vehicle to haul something, which is not a daily operation.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Which is what I was getting at. Get people to someplace where mass transit can run 24/7 quickly, then let mass transit take over.
Tiktaalik 3y ago
Even if no one ever does that, sends an empty car anywhere, there will be an increase in "drivers" on the road as more people that would not be allowed to drive because they have no license (ie. the elderly and children) are now able to drive by themselves in a single car, whereas previously they would have transported themselves with other people or on public transit. Autonomous cars will result in an explosion of cars on the road and a severe increase in traffic. It'll be a disaster.
fragmede 3y ago
Why would you have the car drive home? That means you have to give it heads up and make a plan to leave so it can drive back to you. If it just circles the block for 8 hours while you work, it will be there within minutes to drive you home whenever you feel like it.
- ericmay 3y ago
  > If it just circles the block for 8 hours while you work, it will be there within minutes to drive you home whenever you feel like it. Alright so what we're going to do is extract limited resources from the earth, pump out a bunch of C02, have a lot of people or machines get together in a big factory and assemble a car, someone is going to take out a loan for $40,000 or something, pay interest on that loan, pay for insurance, pay for maintenance, pay for energy/fuel, we're going to build highways and roads, and then we're going to have the car drive itself and the passenger (of course just them because nobody is sharing their car) to their computer at work, the car is then going to circle the block for 8 hours while you work (i.e. sit on Zoom calls), and then once you are ready to head home the car will stop circling the block and come and get you. Right. All to avoid walking, riding a bike, or god forbid being near other humans on a tram.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    A tram? That's basically communism! But seriously, privately owned cars are the problem here. If, instead, taxi service is normalized, then we don't have this problem, and my car doesn't need to circle the block because it isn't my car. As long as I can get home at the end of the day, a self driving taxi seems like the way for the system to be organized, to avoid precisely the stupidity you described.
minwcnt5 3y ago
You wouldn't send it home, you'd send it to park by the side of the street or in a parking lot. You know, the same thing Waymo does between trips.