5 ms·

Imagine dedicated single lane highways between major cities across the world only accessible to self-driving vehicles

by mhog_hn 2y ago

chrislo 2y ago
Trains?
- langcss 2y ago
  Trains... but they end up at your house.
  - elric 2y ago
    Those are calles "buses". Though trams can be even better.
    - andrewflnr 2y ago
      They're not. You still have to go to and from the bus stop, and on the bus's schedule rather than yours.
      - dredmorbius 2y ago
        With sufficiently dense urbanisation, and dedicated transit rights of way (heavy rail, light rail, trolley busses, trams, ...), the "getting to and from the bus stop" and "on the busses schedule" problems both disappear. The bus stop is nearer than your car park would be, and the schedule operates with headways of 1--8 minutes such that waits are minimal. With dedicated rights of way, transit doesn't compete with private or delivery vehicles for road space. Further enhancements give priority signalling to transit vehicles. Sufficient density also means that services and functions are located nearby: school (for the kids), shopping, entertainment, healthcare, government services, and employment (assuming you still need to go to an office or similar space).
        andrewflnr 2y ago
        "Sufficiently dense urbanization" has a similar scent to "sufficiently smart compiler". It does exist for some cases, but I'm not going to count on it showing up for me.
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        The greatest impact on private automobiles hasn't been on commutes, sex lives of teens, or the lore of the road trip. It's been on land-use patterns of urban regions (writ large, think metropolitan statistical areas rather than strictly city limits within the US). With automobiles, low-density sprawl residential, commercial, industrial, educational, and recreational developments become not only possible but largely inevitable. The corollary is that to change land-use patterns, it is necessary to change transportation economics. The other factor is, of course, that there is tremendous inertia in land-use patterns, and urban regions which pre-date automobiles have preserved at least some of their earlier densities. One sees this in the old cities of Europe, of the Eastern US (largely east of the Mississippi, though most notably along the Atlantic Seaboard), and in a very few of the original West Coast US cities such as San Francisco (spatially constrained by its geography) and Seattle (old town regions). Los Angeles and San Diego which both saw explosive growth after about 1920 far less so, likewise for most of the Southern US which grew following both the automobile and air conditioning. How rapidly this works in reverse, and whether or not low-density cities, towns, and urban regions can reconsolidate is a quite interesting, and critically important, question. I suspect that it may be possible, though we'll see some strange hybrid / transitional land-use patterns initially, and there will likely be much opposition (NIMBY / landowners / pull-up-the-drawbridge types). We're beginning to see much higher costs of automobiles as EVs hit the roads, leading in part to the increased popularity of electric bicycles and motorcycles (though to a very small extent). Point remains that it's much easier (and cheaper) to electrify small vehicles than large ones. There are congestion tax proposals, enacted in London, on hiatus in New York City. Higher fuel costs can have an impact. I believe that simply sprinkling majyckal transit pixiey duste over urban sprawl fails miserably. I also agree that changing urban density patterns takes time. However there are existing regions with those patterns, and they may well start to see increasing appeal to those who don't wish to be car-bound. That's already part of the explanation of high housing costs in cities such as SF and NYC (though that's another complex matter and is hardly specific to those cities). But my point remains that density and transit go together like bees and honey, utterly addressing your initial objection.
  - OtomotO 2y ago
    I don't want my house to be at the end of a highway ;-)
  - frogpelt 2y ago
    You’ve given me an idea: tiny houses that move on rails… the trains are the houses!
- ivalm 2y ago
  Trains where train cars separate for better last mile logistics.
  - igornadj 2y ago
    Like the channel tunnel train?
RealStickman_ 2y ago
Yeah, but then imagine if we took all these separate vehicles and stuck them together to increase efficiency. And now we could regularly send such vehicle groups, making travel predictable for everyone. Wait...
- throwaway290 2y ago
  But that means the government controls my movement! Oh no! (It totally doesn't control it via the network of public roads... /s)
  - ahartmetz 2y ago
    It's a bit like some people were complaining about the "Covid dictatorship" at the time. Apparently seeing only what's right in front of their noses, not all the other government actions and policies that are on a spectrum from less to more important than Covid policies and which happen for worse to better reasons as well. At least that's how I think one "notices" a sudden dictatorship of democratically elected parties.
hug 2y ago
I find the kind of responses you’re getting wildly ironic, given the article.
two_handfuls 2y ago
People are joking about how this is trains or busses, but I think you hit on something fundamental: - engine tech is now such that we no longer need one huge engine and lots of passenger to get good efficiency: many small engines works just as well. - removing the need for everyone to stop where any one person needs to go ("bus stop") improves the experience drastically. - the one remaining problem is density: cars would have to shrink a lot before they can reach the density of busses or trains. So perhaps: a single-lane highway only accessible to self-driving vehicles driving in formation and where the vehicles must be below some specified size. This gives us great last-mile experience, high throughput, and good safety.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  How will these very shrunken cars be survivable in a crash at highway speeds? Plus modern crossovers are already very size efficient, A 2024 compact crossover like the Rav4 is pretty much already the smallest possible space that can comfortably accommodate 4 adult men in seated positions and 4 large suitcases.
  - sfink 2y ago
    Why would they crash at highway speeds? On a highway, they'd be in the dedicated lane. Not on a highway, they wouldn't be going at highway speeds. The point is an alternative to today's setup, for the majority of people who need to get somewhere. Not a way to mai
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      Because accidents will happen regardless? No one can possibly control all variables that would cause a crash.
  - Toutouxc 2y ago
    > compact crossover like the Rav4 Funny how what you call a smallest-possible compact crossover looks like a huge disgusting waste of space to my European Škoda-driver’s eyes. The moment a car can be described as a “crossover”, or worse, an SUV, it becomes a waste of space IMO.

Imagine dedicated single lane highways between major cities across the world only accessible to self-driving vehicles

chrislo 2y ago

Trains?

langcss 2y ago
Trains... but they end up at your house.
- elric 2y ago
  Those are calles "buses". Though trams can be even better.
  - andrewflnr 2y ago
    They're not. You still have to go to and from the bus stop, and on the bus's schedule rather than yours.
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      With sufficiently dense urbanisation, and dedicated transit rights of way (heavy rail, light rail, trolley busses, trams, ...), the "getting to and from the bus stop" and "on the busses schedule" problems both disappear. The bus stop is nearer than your car park would be, and the schedule operates with headways of 1--8 minutes such that waits are minimal. With dedicated rights of way, transit doesn't compete with private or delivery vehicles for road space. Further enhancements give priority signalling to transit vehicles. Sufficient density also means that services and functions are located nearby: school (for the kids), shopping, entertainment, healthcare, government services, and employment (assuming you still need to go to an office or similar space).
      - andrewflnr 2y ago
        "Sufficiently dense urbanization" has a similar scent to "sufficiently smart compiler". It does exist for some cases, but I'm not going to count on it showing up for me.
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        The greatest impact on private automobiles hasn't been on commutes, sex lives of teens, or the lore of the road trip. It's been on land-use patterns of urban regions (writ large, think metropolitan statistical areas rather than strictly city limits within the US). With automobiles, low-density sprawl residential, commercial, industrial, educational, and recreational developments become not only possible but largely inevitable. The corollary is that to change land-use patterns, it is necessary to change transportation economics. The other factor is, of course, that there is tremendous inertia in land-use patterns, and urban regions which pre-date automobiles have preserved at least some of their earlier densities. One sees this in the old cities of Europe, of the Eastern US (largely east of the Mississippi, though most notably along the Atlantic Seaboard), and in a very few of the original West Coast US cities such as San Francisco (spatially constrained by its geography) and Seattle (old town regions). Los Angeles and San Diego which both saw explosive growth after about 1920 far less so, likewise for most of the Southern US which grew following both the automobile and air conditioning. How rapidly this works in reverse, and whether or not low-density cities, towns, and urban regions can reconsolidate is a quite interesting, and critically important, question. I suspect that it may be possible, though we'll see some strange hybrid / transitional land-use patterns initially, and there will likely be much opposition (NIMBY / landowners / pull-up-the-drawbridge types). We're beginning to see much higher costs of automobiles as EVs hit the roads, leading in part to the increased popularity of electric bicycles and motorcycles (though to a very small extent). Point remains that it's much easier (and cheaper) to electrify small vehicles than large ones. There are congestion tax proposals, enacted in London, on hiatus in New York City. Higher fuel costs can have an impact. I believe that simply sprinkling majyckal transit pixiey duste over urban sprawl fails miserably. I also agree that changing urban density patterns takes time. However there are existing regions with those patterns, and they may well start to see increasing appeal to those who don't wish to be car-bound. That's already part of the explanation of high housing costs in cities such as SF and NYC (though that's another complex matter and is hardly specific to those cities). But my point remains that density and transit go together like bees and honey, utterly addressing your initial objection.
- OtomotO 2y ago
  I don't want my house to be at the end of a highway ;-)
- frogpelt 2y ago
  You’ve given me an idea: tiny houses that move on rails… the trains are the houses!
ivalm 2y ago
Trains where train cars separate for better last mile logistics.
- igornadj 2y ago
  Like the channel tunnel train?

RealStickman_ 2y ago

Yeah, but then imagine if we took all these separate vehicles and stuck them together to increase efficiency. And now we could regularly send such vehicle groups, making travel predictable for everyone. Wait...

throwaway290 2y ago
But that means the government controls my movement! Oh no! (It totally doesn't control it via the network of public roads... /s)
- ahartmetz 2y ago
  It's a bit like some people were complaining about the "Covid dictatorship" at the time. Apparently seeing only what's right in front of their noses, not all the other government actions and policies that are on a spectrum from less to more important than Covid policies and which happen for worse to better reasons as well. At least that's how I think one "notices" a sudden dictatorship of democratically elected parties.

hug 2y ago

I find the kind of responses you’re getting wildly ironic, given the article.

two_handfuls 2y ago

People are joking about how this is trains or busses, but I think you hit on something fundamental: - engine tech is now such that we no longer need one huge engine and lots of passenger to get good efficiency: many small engines works just as well. - removing the need for everyone to stop where any one person needs to go ("bus stop") improves the experience drastically. - the one remaining problem is density: cars would have to shrink a lot before they can reach the density of busses or trains. So perhaps: a single-lane highway only accessible to self-driving vehicles driving in formation and where the vehicles must be below some specified size. This gives us great last-mile experience, high throughput, and good safety.

MichaelZuo 2y ago
How will these very shrunken cars be survivable in a crash at highway speeds? Plus modern crossovers are already very size efficient, A 2024 compact crossover like the Rav4 is pretty much already the smallest possible space that can comfortably accommodate 4 adult men in seated positions and 4 large suitcases.
- sfink 2y ago
  Why would they crash at highway speeds? On a highway, they'd be in the dedicated lane. Not on a highway, they wouldn't be going at highway speeds. The point is an alternative to today's setup, for the majority of people who need to get somewhere. Not a way to mai
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    Because accidents will happen regardless? No one can possibly control all variables that would cause a crash.
- Toutouxc 2y ago
  > compact crossover like the Rav4 Funny how what you call a smallest-possible compact crossover looks like a huge disgusting waste of space to my European Škoda-driver’s eyes. The moment a car can be described as a “crossover”, or worse, an SUV, it becomes a waste of space IMO.