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Please, don't. Let's not normalize yet another corporate attempt to privatize urban mobility: https://youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0 https://youtube.com/watch?

Please, don't. Let's not normalize yet another corporate attempt to privatize urban mobility: https://youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0

mise_en_place 2y ago
Urban mobility means very little when your streets aren't safe. I'm paraphrasing a poor translation, but as a Central American leader recently said: >Some say that we have imprisoned thousands, but the reality is that we have freed millions. Waymo is very much like this. It inconveniences a few people, but it also saves a lot more from accidents, or even worse.
- rglullis 2y ago
  Pushing for autonomous vehicles will lead to a local maxima which is worse, more expensive, and less universal than solutions that already exist and have been deployed in every developed country that is not increasingly car dependent.
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    It's a sisyphean effort to build rail in the US, and an even bigger one to drag american suburb dwellers into an urbanist future. Developing autonomous vehicles good enough for 90% of trips is probably cheaper than building rail, the total amount invested into waymo so far (11.1B) will build you about 4 miles of subway in manhattan [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
    - rglullis 2y ago
      You are arguing based on sunk costs, and even if rail was not an alternative, the US could be investing in other modes of transport: light rail (trams), buses and electric bikes. Also, you are not accounting for externalities. Get the suburbanites to pay for all the extra costs they incur on the roads, power/water/waste distribution, healthcare costs incurred by air and environmental pollution from all the cement for roads and parking lots... Quickly they will change their tune and will be willing to become "city dwellers".
      - rangestransform 2y ago
        Whoever makes suburbanites pay for externalities will lose an election unfortunately, stupid ass myopic voters will just see the sticker price and thumb their noses at urbanists Light rail has all the disadvantages of a bus and all the disadvantages of a train, if you’re gonna build rail you might as well spend a bit extra to build elevated, you’re gonna have to fight knuckle draggers in court anyways
  - mise_en_place 2y ago
    I wouldn't be so sure about that. I went on Eurostar recently, the experience was quite alarming. The food was terrible, and the tickets very overpriced. The London underground and rail system had many different kinds of weirdos, speaking in strange tongues that would make even the most liberal person in SF blush. The only exception to this was Japan's transit system. But even then, a bunch of fellow Americans were essentially chimping out, playing music at high volume and screaming obnoxiously. I have to say that I was pretty ashamed of being American that day.
Panzer04 2y ago
I have mixed feelings on that video. The general bit-piece feel on self driving is not really deserved, IMO, and seems to be against self driving for the sake of it. I think self driving will be a massive, massive boost to human productivity as it gets better, but we shouldn't use it as an excuse not to continue pursuing other means of transport. It doesn't really fix any of the scaling problems with car transport regardless.
- rglullis 2y ago
  > It doesn't really fix any of the scaling problems with car transport regardless. But the investors are not saying that, and they won't be around when everyone else gets stuck with the bill in the future. The key point of the video is less about AV itself, but the idea of betting on car-centric infrastructure. Did you see the part where Jason talks about the municipalities justifying cuts to investments in public transit because "people can just go ahead and take a uber anyway?"
  - Panzer04 2y ago
    I agree with you - but slippery slope fallacy does not justify ignoring an innovative technology. Municipalities using it as an excuse to malinvest seems like a bit of a red herring to me - how many places actually did that? And honestly in some low-population towns it might well be the most sensible solution. Any large city though needs alternatives, and the fact that cars are kinda crap at mass transportation still isn't something that has hit most US cities even without self driving cars. They plow billions into expensive, inefficient highway infrastructure anyway.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      > And honestly in some low-population towns it might well be the most sensible solution. That is reversing the logic a bit. The reason that low-population towns don't get to develop their own robust economy is very correlated to its lack of in public transit and fast connections to larger centers. Politicians in the US keep talking about high speed rail and crazy projects, but a (relatively) easier to way to revitalize flyover states would be if they had "regular" passenger rail to connect with each other. Each station would become an opportunity to develop a local economic center, and each center that starts to grow would mean an opportunity for thousands of people to leave the big expensive coastal cities.

Please, don't. Let's not normalize yet another corporate attempt to privatize urban mobility: https://youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0

mise_en_place 2y ago

Urban mobility means very little when your streets aren't safe. I'm paraphrasing a poor translation, but as a Central American leader recently said: >Some say that we have imprisoned thousands, but the reality is that we have freed millions. Waymo is very much like this. It inconveniences a few people, but it also saves a lot more from accidents, or even worse.

rglullis 2y ago
Pushing for autonomous vehicles will lead to a local maxima which is worse, more expensive, and less universal than solutions that already exist and have been deployed in every developed country that is not increasingly car dependent.
- rangestransform 2y ago
  It's a sisyphean effort to build rail in the US, and an even bigger one to drag american suburb dwellers into an urbanist future. Developing autonomous vehicles good enough for 90% of trips is probably cheaper than building rail, the total amount invested into waymo so far (11.1B) will build you about 4 miles of subway in manhattan [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
  - rglullis 2y ago
    You are arguing based on sunk costs, and even if rail was not an alternative, the US could be investing in other modes of transport: light rail (trams), buses and electric bikes. Also, you are not accounting for externalities. Get the suburbanites to pay for all the extra costs they incur on the roads, power/water/waste distribution, healthcare costs incurred by air and environmental pollution from all the cement for roads and parking lots... Quickly they will change their tune and will be willing to become "city dwellers".
    - rangestransform 2y ago
      Whoever makes suburbanites pay for externalities will lose an election unfortunately, stupid ass myopic voters will just see the sticker price and thumb their noses at urbanists Light rail has all the disadvantages of a bus and all the disadvantages of a train, if you’re gonna build rail you might as well spend a bit extra to build elevated, you’re gonna have to fight knuckle draggers in court anyways
- mise_en_place 2y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure about that. I went on Eurostar recently, the experience was quite alarming. The food was terrible, and the tickets very overpriced. The London underground and rail system had many different kinds of weirdos, speaking in strange tongues that would make even the most liberal person in SF blush. The only exception to this was Japan's transit system. But even then, a bunch of fellow Americans were essentially chimping out, playing music at high volume and screaming obnoxiously. I have to say that I was pretty ashamed of being American that day.

Panzer04 2y ago

I have mixed feelings on that video. The general bit-piece feel on self driving is not really deserved, IMO, and seems to be against self driving for the sake of it. I think self driving will be a massive, massive boost to human productivity as it gets better, but we shouldn't use it as an excuse not to continue pursuing other means of transport. It doesn't really fix any of the scaling problems with car transport regardless.

rglullis 2y ago
> It doesn't really fix any of the scaling problems with car transport regardless. But the investors are not saying that, and they won't be around when everyone else gets stuck with the bill in the future. The key point of the video is less about AV itself, but the idea of betting on car-centric infrastructure. Did you see the part where Jason talks about the municipalities justifying cuts to investments in public transit because "people can just go ahead and take a uber anyway?"
- Panzer04 2y ago
  I agree with you - but slippery slope fallacy does not justify ignoring an innovative technology. Municipalities using it as an excuse to malinvest seems like a bit of a red herring to me - how many places actually did that? And honestly in some low-population towns it might well be the most sensible solution. Any large city though needs alternatives, and the fact that cars are kinda crap at mass transportation still isn't something that has hit most US cities even without self driving cars. They plow billions into expensive, inefficient highway infrastructure anyway.
  - rglullis 2y ago
    > And honestly in some low-population towns it might well be the most sensible solution. That is reversing the logic a bit. The reason that low-population towns don't get to develop their own robust economy is very correlated to its lack of in public transit and fast connections to larger centers. Politicians in the US keep talking about high speed rail and crazy projects, but a (relatively) easier to way to revitalize flyover states would be if they had "regular" passenger rail to connect with each other. Each station would become an opportunity to develop a local economic center, and each center that starts to grow would mean an opportunity for thousands of people to leave the big expensive coastal cities.