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The whole thing with self-driving cars is that it feels like the story of NASA's space pen. All this money being poured into a technology that would not be need

The whole thing with self-driving cars is that it feels like the story of NASA's space pen. All this money being poured into a technology that would not be needed if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> the story of NASA's space pen As an example of an urban legend/facile pop science take being treated as fact [1]? > if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S._and_Soviet_space_programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S._and...
- Aeolun 2y ago
  Depends on your population density. Tokyo does pretty well with purely public transport. There’s still cars of course, but you don’t use them for travel into the city proper if you don’t hate yourself.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Tokyo does pretty well with purely public transport. There’s still cars of course, but you don’t use them for travel into the city proper if you don’t hate yourself Japan has .67 vehicles per person, almost 80% America's .85 [1] and above many European countries. They travel about a fifth as many miles per capita as America [2]. But again, four fifths and a fifth. Nowhere close to zero. There isn't a developed economy that wouldn't see a significant quality-of-life improvement from self-driving cars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_motor_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territor... [2] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      Hence why I’m talking about Tokyo. Not Japan. Living in the countryside basically requires a car by definition. People also often have a car, but don’t use it that much. Maybe you’ll get more interesting numbers if you compare miles traveled per person? Found only for 1997, but increases the discrepancy to 1:2.5 : https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm
      - deleted 2y ago
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      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > I’m talking about Tokyo. Not Japan Tokyo would have a tough time existing in a world without cars, trucks or roads. Its economy depends on that access. There is no tradeoff between self-driving cars and a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure rebuild.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        > Tokyo would have a tough time existing in a world without cars, trucks or roads. Its economy depends on that access. I will agree with that statement but mostly because you added trucks in when the original complaint was about car dependency.
- rglullis 2y ago
  Way to miss the point. Yes, it is known that the "NASA space pen" was not really funded by NASA, but but its development still took millions of dollars in R&D. > Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars? For the 127th time: car dependency is not the same as car usage.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > its development still took millions of dollars in R&D $1mm at the time, $10mm today. They sold for the equivalent of $30 each in today's money and saved manned spaceflight from having to deal with graphite shards in the air and electrical. > car dependency is not the same as car usage "If the richest country in the world" got "rid of its car dependency," we'd still want safer cars.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      > we'd still want safer cars With the technology controlled by a handful of corporations? At an development cost that will force them to create any and every opportunity to seek rent on your mobility?
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        Yes, it would be better if the good thing were more perfect.
        rglullis 2y ago
        Nice rhetorical trick. It's not a matter of "more perfect". The bad outweighs the good, plain and simple, and only those who are extremely naive or stand to gain from it refuse to acknowledge it.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        The bad things you describe as side effects already exist. So adding in good is... good. However you rate the current situation.
- graemep 2y ago
  > Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars? You do not even need to restrict it to developed economies. Every city (even not very large ones) I have been to around the world, developed or not, has streets lots of cars: London, Manchester, Paris, Nairobi, Colombo, Madras, Bangalore, Sydney, Singapore..... and smaller towns and rural areas in those countries too. Those cover a pretty wide range of quality of public transport too.
- deleted 2y ago
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mulmen 2y ago
Nobody says it has to be a car form factor. It can be a self driving van or shuttle or bus. Last mile is a nightmare with all public transit. With the low population density of the US we need a lot of small vehicles to feed transit hubs.
- rglullis 2y ago
  For "last mile", we already have bikes, scooters, skates, plain walking...
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    Really fun stuff but most people have a limited amount of time in the day so if they can afford to take a car they're going to take a car.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      > limited amount of time in the day For trips shorter than 2 miles, I can bet you that it's faster for me to hop on my bike (or to find an electric scooter) and get to my destination than it is to drive. And let's not even talk about the time to find parking.
      - mulmen 2y ago
        The grocery store is 1.3 miles from here but it’s a 300’ climb and it’s 42f and raining right now. Even with my e-bike that’s not pleasant. On a conventional bike that’s unrealistic for all but the most hardcore cyclists. There’s a bus that serves that route but the stop is uncovered and service is unreliable because it’s immediately after a rest stop where the human drivers take care of their biological needs. A robo-bus would be more predictable and enable more frequent service.
        rglullis 2y ago
        > stop is uncovered and service is reliable And it doesn't even occur to you that the problem is the poor infrastructure? Do you honestly think that the optimal solution here is just to keep waiting for some trillion dollar corporation to be able to sell some new product that will bring you more "convenience" (at the cost of dependency and yet-more environmental costs related to cars and its required parking infrastructure) when you instead could be doing something like, I don't know, getting your city council to improve the fucking bus service?
Etheryte 2y ago
The NASA space pen story as you call it is a nice quip. It's also a complete lie. The Soviets using pencils wasn't a clever scrappy solution, it was an absolute nightmare for the Soviets. Pencil cores are made of graphite, when you write with it, small bits of graphite break off. On land it just falls down, but in space it floats around and attaches to things. Graphite conducts electricity and it caused countless shorts in electronics, as well as fires, all while in space. If the Soviets had space pens, they would've switched to those in a heartbeat.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Soviets using pencils wasn't a clever scrappy solution, it was an absolute nightmare for the Soviets Note, too, that NASA didn't pay to develop the pen. Fisher did. > If the Soviets had space pens, they would've switched to those in a heartbeat Guess what cosmonauts use(d) on the ISS? (Qualified because I don't know post-2022.)
  - gpderetta 2y ago
    > Guess what cosmonauts use(d) on the ISS? (Qualified because I don't know post-2022.) I genuinely don't know. Do they use pencils still or switched to the space pen?
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - Etheryte 2y ago
      The Soviets bought space pens from Fisher in 1969 [0] and have continued to use them ever since. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/nasa-did-not-spend-billions-on-space-pens-while-russia-used-pencils-idUSL1N2MQ1RR/ https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/nasa-did-not-spen...
  - mulmen 2y ago
    Why the pop quiz? You’re not my professor, or even my TA. Just say what you mean.
gizmondo 2y ago
I live in Switzerland which has a reputation for having good public transport. Still own a car because in many cases you can't beat convenience. Can't wait for Waymo to come here.
- rglullis 2y ago
  > Still own a car because in many cases you can't beat convenience What about the places where people own cars not because it is the better choice, but the only choice?
  - mulmen 2y ago
    Then self driving vehicles will be a new choice.
    - fl0id 2y ago
      or it won't like how uber etc at least here only operate in cities, and not where people actually really need cards.
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      Self driving vehicles, with current technology, are unrealistic outside major cities. Major cities are the places where you least need a personal car. Google Maps still thinks the speed limit on a nearby highway is 35 mph. We spent several months without lane markers on the highway. Any vehicle driving around here based on the current self-driving architecture, requiring central mapping/planning and good infrastructure, would be ridiculously unsafe. Not to mention how lost they would be the moment they turned off the highway.
      - mulmen 2y ago
        My Waymo ride went through a construction zone without trouble. I don’t know how much mapping it needs or how they keep it current but it’s not constrained to ideal conditions.
      - 2y ago
lastdong 2y ago
If it succeeds, self-driving technology is likely to be integrated into public transit systems, enhancing their reliability and overall efficiency.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  With self-driving tech, buses could be made a lot smaller and more frequent. They are large and infrequent because of fixed per-vehicle costs (mostly the driver). EDIT: Small size then enables personalized routing: a multi-passenger taxi taking a set of people to similar destinations.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    That makes a lot of sense, I never thought of the labor as the limiting factor on bus route (clearly I just never thought very hard about it) but boy would it be nice if there was a 9 passenger van every 5 minutes to replace a full size bus every 30.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      Vans to complement buses are definitely a thing in São Paulo, and the cost of labor is not a limiting factor.
      - AstralStorm 2y ago
        Really the lack of stops and parking places is, and would be even worse for self driving vehicles deployed in numbers. Unless it's self driving motor bikes or such small personal transportation.
      - mulmen 2y ago
        In my city the cost of labor is very much a limiting factor. Robot drivers will open up transit options that aren’t practical now.
        2y ago
Dalewyn 2y ago
>developed proper public transit infrastructure. No amount of public transport can accomodate the personal whims and demands of anyone let alone everyone. Even Japan, famous for its public transport infrastructure, still has a healthy population of drivers both in metro and rural areas.
- rglullis 2y ago
  Nice strawman. I am not saying to get rid of cars altogether. I am saying that it would be better (and cheaper) for everyone if we took all those resources being out into "autonomous vehicles" and developed public transit first. Reduce the amount of yearly trips that are done by car. Provide alternatives. The important thing about Japan or Europe is not "they don't have cars", but "people make 3-4x less trips by car compared with the alternative modes of transportation". If you want to have safer roads (in a way that doesn't give even more power to tech companies) the best way to do it is by simply reducing the amount of trips taken.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > if we took all those resources being out into "autonomous vehicles" and developed public transit first Waymo has raised about $11bn [1]. That is at best 4 miles of New York subway [2]. It's a third of a train between Bakersfield and Merced [3]. These things aren't competing. To the extent we can compare them on capital efficiency, it's not a good look for American public transit. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/business/waymo-investment-robot-taxis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/business/waymo-investment... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-24/citylab-daily-how-a-nyc-subway-became-way-too-expensive https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-24/cityla... [3] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-21/high-speed-rail https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-21/high-spe...
    - AstralStorm 2y ago
      Try using a unit per person. It starts to look much less rosy for Waymo and also do not forget roads are still public infrastructure that has to be paid for and maintained. What, you think Waymo will be able to weasel out of road tax or drive without roads?
futureshock 2y ago
Many cities in Europe still have their Roman era street plans. The street layout of a city is incredible sticky. Once you have a city built around cars and all the private property and infrastructure that goes with it, you are basically stuck with it for 1000 years. And American city layouts are horrible for public transit and walking. We can look at international cities with longing and jealousy, but LA, Houston, Miami, and so on will never have useable public transit. You’d have to bulldoze the whole city and start again. So great for Paris and London and yes I would rather live there, but we are stuck finding solutions that work inside the mess we made.
- deleted 2y ago
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- Aloha 2y ago
  I agree with you in part - we do have 100 years of development patterns baked into concrete and steel, but they were not originally built just for cars. LA was built around interurbans, the idea that I should drive my car all the way from San Bernardino (or frankly even from Pasadena) to Los Angeles would be foreign to the original planners and builders in Southern California. Consider that every major freeway in LA is basically in whole or in part paralleling a former PE line, and suddenly my assertion doesnt seem so odd. https://www.pacificelectric.org/collections/pacific-electric-railway-historical-society-collection/1926-pacific-electric-railway-system-map/ https://www.pacificelectric.org/collections/pacific-electric... LA is not the only place where the sprawled layout was created by interurbans, Arguably to a greater or lesser extent - Detroit, Dallas, Cleveland, Cincinatti, and there are others whose early development was deeply influenced by the interurban exist.
- iknowstuff 2y ago
  LA is densifying around transit. It’ll end up with islands of dense areas connected by trains.
- creer 2y ago
  Wait, what? Paris streets are a mess, even after Haussmann. That does not prevent outstanding transit. Even before the latest obsessive aggressive agenda-driven nonsense. The two things that Paris has are (1) inhabitant and workplace density and (2) the will to pursue public transit decade after decade. After that, there are lots of streets with a single lane of traffic - and buses go through them just fine. And there are lots of too narrow streets but they are isolated here and there - in between streets that are okay for buses. Equally there are lots of very wide avenues for several lanes of traffic and that's fine for pedestrians and transit even though it makes subway stations sometimes very wide. And there are lots of randomly angled streets. There are steep hills. There are rivers and canals and giant mining voids which make building subway tunnels interesting. There are lots of train track rights of way which sometimes block pedestrian traffic but are covered and crossed reasonably often (sometimes still not optimally so). There is snow, ice, floods, hot weather. You name it it's there. Both of these are essential. "Decade after decade" is essential. Both density and building that infrastructure are impossible to build at the stroke of a pen. So an advantage of Paris compared to San Francisco is that it had decent inhabitant and workplace density from the infancy of public transit when it was private animal pulled carriages. So what's missing in US cities: decade after decade of density followed by decade after decade of public intent. SF could do it - but for sure you wouldn't see the result tomorrow - but NIMBY so no, SF can't do it. Not before getting rid of NIMBY. LA is much more willing to build anything anywhere so it would have much more of a chance. But it's huge and people often live far from their place of work. Smaller areas with LA would have a better chance. Perhaps Glendale plus the entertainment industry north-south corridor? That might be manageable. Yet still more "even then", ride Paris transit at rush hours in summer and you won't feel that it's all that good: it's sweaty, packed, and there are lots of timetable incidents. You will regret having chosen rush hour. You car would have been nicely air conditionned and comfortable (but depending on your trajectory would have been stuck in traffic for a while.)
cmxch 2y ago
> if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure. Then have the dignitaries and environmental policymakers give their uparmored gas guzzling cars up first, leading by example.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  What are you talking about? Many politicians catch public transport around the world. I remember a few years back a mini nothingburger controversy about a politician 'caught' drinking a canned cocktail on the train in London https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/20/diane-abbott-apologises-for-drinking-mojito-on-public-transport https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/20/diane-abbot...
yieldcrv 2y ago
And just like the NASA space pen story, the private sector is developing them on their own at their own risk, with maybe some indirect grants or subsidies, but not a direct contract specifically for the government to be a beneficiary. Way more money is being wasted on the grifts surrounding developing public transit infrastructure. LA County for example is 88 different municipalities and it will never get resolved.
tim333 2y ago
>technology that would not be needed if... developed proper public transit infrastructure NYC and London have had 'proper' public transit for over a century. It's handy but not that great. I was on a 52 year old Bakerloo line tube train the other day and they are much like modern tube trains, if grubbier. It's not going to suddenly turn wonderful and solve everything. (typed on a London bus) Also while I'm not sure any technology is really needed, as in we could get by without it, there are about 1 million road deaths a year globally. A 90% reduction would save 900,000 lives which is a nice to have. And more meaningful than a space pen.
- mulmen 2y ago
  Why the dig at the Space Pen? Robot drivers rely heavily on GPS which was made possible in part by the Space Pen.
creer 2y ago
> if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply - There is nothing simple about it. - There is nothing inevitable to this appearance of "not enough money". For example very little of self-driving cars development has been on public funds. For example, there is plenty of money in California govt. And plenty of money in US federal govt. - One doesn't prevent the other. You can't seriously argue that better transit would remove all needs for automated driving.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> the story of NASA's space pen As an example of an urban legend/facile pop science take being treated as fact [1]? > if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S._and_Soviet_space_programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S._and...

Aeolun 2y ago
Depends on your population density. Tokyo does pretty well with purely public transport. There’s still cars of course, but you don’t use them for travel into the city proper if you don’t hate yourself.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Tokyo does pretty well with purely public transport. There’s still cars of course, but you don’t use them for travel into the city proper if you don’t hate yourself Japan has .67 vehicles per person, almost 80% America's .85 [1] and above many European countries. They travel about a fifth as many miles per capita as America [2]. But again, four fifths and a fifth. Nowhere close to zero. There isn't a developed economy that wouldn't see a significant quality-of-life improvement from self-driving cars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_motor_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territor... [2] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    Hence why I’m talking about Tokyo. Not Japan. Living in the countryside basically requires a car by definition. People also often have a car, but don’t use it that much. Maybe you’ll get more interesting numbers if you compare miles traveled per person? Found only for 1997, but increases the discrepancy to 1:2.5 : https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > I’m talking about Tokyo. Not Japan Tokyo would have a tough time existing in a world without cars, trucks or roads. Its economy depends on that access. There is no tradeoff between self-driving cars and a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure rebuild.
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        > Tokyo would have a tough time existing in a world without cars, trucks or roads. Its economy depends on that access. I will agree with that statement but mostly because you added trucks in when the original complaint was about car dependency.
rglullis 2y ago
Way to miss the point. Yes, it is known that the "NASA space pen" was not really funded by NASA, but but its development still took millions of dollars in R&D. > Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars? For the 127th time: car dependency is not the same as car usage.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > its development still took millions of dollars in R&D $1mm at the time, $10mm today. They sold for the equivalent of $30 each in today's money and saved manned spaceflight from having to deal with graphite shards in the air and electrical. > car dependency is not the same as car usage "If the richest country in the world" got "rid of its car dependency," we'd still want safer cars.
  - rglullis 2y ago
    > we'd still want safer cars With the technology controlled by a handful of corporations? At an development cost that will force them to create any and every opportunity to seek rent on your mobility?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      Yes, it would be better if the good thing were more perfect.
      - rglullis 2y ago
        Nice rhetorical trick. It's not a matter of "more perfect". The bad outweighs the good, plain and simple, and only those who are extremely naive or stand to gain from it refuse to acknowledge it.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        The bad things you describe as side effects already exist. So adding in good is... good. However you rate the current situation.
graemep 2y ago
> Is there a single developed economy that doesn't make significant use of trucks and cars? You do not even need to restrict it to developed economies. Every city (even not very large ones) I have been to around the world, developed or not, has streets lots of cars: London, Manchester, Paris, Nairobi, Colombo, Madras, Bangalore, Sydney, Singapore..... and smaller towns and rural areas in those countries too. Those cover a pretty wide range of quality of public transport too.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

mulmen 2y ago

Nobody says it has to be a car form factor. It can be a self driving van or shuttle or bus. Last mile is a nightmare with all public transit. With the low population density of the US we need a lot of small vehicles to feed transit hubs.

rglullis 2y ago
For "last mile", we already have bikes, scooters, skates, plain walking...
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  Really fun stuff but most people have a limited amount of time in the day so if they can afford to take a car they're going to take a car.
  - rglullis 2y ago
    > limited amount of time in the day For trips shorter than 2 miles, I can bet you that it's faster for me to hop on my bike (or to find an electric scooter) and get to my destination than it is to drive. And let's not even talk about the time to find parking.
    - mulmen 2y ago
      The grocery store is 1.3 miles from here but it’s a 300’ climb and it’s 42f and raining right now. Even with my e-bike that’s not pleasant. On a conventional bike that’s unrealistic for all but the most hardcore cyclists. There’s a bus that serves that route but the stop is uncovered and service is unreliable because it’s immediately after a rest stop where the human drivers take care of their biological needs. A robo-bus would be more predictable and enable more frequent service.
      - rglullis 2y ago
        > stop is uncovered and service is reliable And it doesn't even occur to you that the problem is the poor infrastructure? Do you honestly think that the optimal solution here is just to keep waiting for some trillion dollar corporation to be able to sell some new product that will bring you more "convenience" (at the cost of dependency and yet-more environmental costs related to cars and its required parking infrastructure) when you instead could be doing something like, I don't know, getting your city council to improve the fucking bus service?

Etheryte 2y ago

The NASA space pen story as you call it is a nice quip. It's also a complete lie. The Soviets using pencils wasn't a clever scrappy solution, it was an absolute nightmare for the Soviets. Pencil cores are made of graphite, when you write with it, small bits of graphite break off. On land it just falls down, but in space it floats around and attaches to things. Graphite conducts electricity and it caused countless shorts in electronics, as well as fires, all while in space. If the Soviets had space pens, they would've switched to those in a heartbeat.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Soviets using pencils wasn't a clever scrappy solution, it was an absolute nightmare for the Soviets Note, too, that NASA didn't pay to develop the pen. Fisher did. > If the Soviets had space pens, they would've switched to those in a heartbeat Guess what cosmonauts use(d) on the ISS? (Qualified because I don't know post-2022.)
- gpderetta 2y ago
  > Guess what cosmonauts use(d) on the ISS? (Qualified because I don't know post-2022.) I genuinely don't know. Do they use pencils still or switched to the space pen?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Etheryte 2y ago
    The Soviets bought space pens from Fisher in 1969 [0] and have continued to use them ever since. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/nasa-did-not-spend-billions-on-space-pens-while-russia-used-pencils-idUSL1N2MQ1RR/ https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/nasa-did-not-spen...
- mulmen 2y ago
  Why the pop quiz? You’re not my professor, or even my TA. Just say what you mean.

gizmondo 2y ago

I live in Switzerland which has a reputation for having good public transport. Still own a car because in many cases you can't beat convenience. Can't wait for Waymo to come here.

rglullis 2y ago
> Still own a car because in many cases you can't beat convenience What about the places where people own cars not because it is the better choice, but the only choice?
- mulmen 2y ago
  Then self driving vehicles will be a new choice.
  - fl0id 2y ago
    or it won't like how uber etc at least here only operate in cities, and not where people actually really need cards.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    Self driving vehicles, with current technology, are unrealistic outside major cities. Major cities are the places where you least need a personal car. Google Maps still thinks the speed limit on a nearby highway is 35 mph. We spent several months without lane markers on the highway. Any vehicle driving around here based on the current self-driving architecture, requiring central mapping/planning and good infrastructure, would be ridiculously unsafe. Not to mention how lost they would be the moment they turned off the highway.
    - mulmen 2y ago
      My Waymo ride went through a construction zone without trouble. I don’t know how much mapping it needs or how they keep it current but it’s not constrained to ideal conditions.
    - 2y ago

lastdong 2y ago

If it succeeds, self-driving technology is likely to be integrated into public transit systems, enhancing their reliability and overall efficiency.

HPsquared 2y ago
With self-driving tech, buses could be made a lot smaller and more frequent. They are large and infrequent because of fixed per-vehicle costs (mostly the driver). EDIT: Small size then enables personalized routing: a multi-passenger taxi taking a set of people to similar destinations.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  That makes a lot of sense, I never thought of the labor as the limiting factor on bus route (clearly I just never thought very hard about it) but boy would it be nice if there was a 9 passenger van every 5 minutes to replace a full size bus every 30.
  - rglullis 2y ago
    Vans to complement buses are definitely a thing in São Paulo, and the cost of labor is not a limiting factor.
    - AstralStorm 2y ago
      Really the lack of stops and parking places is, and would be even worse for self driving vehicles deployed in numbers. Unless it's self driving motor bikes or such small personal transportation.
    - mulmen 2y ago
      In my city the cost of labor is very much a limiting factor. Robot drivers will open up transit options that aren’t practical now.
      - 2y ago

Dalewyn 2y ago

>developed proper public transit infrastructure. No amount of public transport can accomodate the personal whims and demands of anyone let alone everyone. Even Japan, famous for its public transport infrastructure, still has a healthy population of drivers both in metro and rural areas.

rglullis 2y ago
Nice strawman. I am not saying to get rid of cars altogether. I am saying that it would be better (and cheaper) for everyone if we took all those resources being out into "autonomous vehicles" and developed public transit first. Reduce the amount of yearly trips that are done by car. Provide alternatives. The important thing about Japan or Europe is not "they don't have cars", but "people make 3-4x less trips by car compared with the alternative modes of transportation". If you want to have safer roads (in a way that doesn't give even more power to tech companies) the best way to do it is by simply reducing the amount of trips taken.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > if we took all those resources being out into "autonomous vehicles" and developed public transit first Waymo has raised about $11bn [1]. That is at best 4 miles of New York subway [2]. It's a third of a train between Bakersfield and Merced [3]. These things aren't competing. To the extent we can compare them on capital efficiency, it's not a good look for American public transit. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/business/waymo-investment-robot-taxis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/business/waymo-investment... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-24/citylab-daily-how-a-nyc-subway-became-way-too-expensive https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-24/cityla... [3] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-21/high-speed-rail https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-21/high-spe...
  - AstralStorm 2y ago
    Try using a unit per person. It starts to look much less rosy for Waymo and also do not forget roads are still public infrastructure that has to be paid for and maintained. What, you think Waymo will be able to weasel out of road tax or drive without roads?

futureshock 2y ago

Many cities in Europe still have their Roman era street plans. The street layout of a city is incredible sticky. Once you have a city built around cars and all the private property and infrastructure that goes with it, you are basically stuck with it for 1000 years. And American city layouts are horrible for public transit and walking. We can look at international cities with longing and jealousy, but LA, Houston, Miami, and so on will never have useable public transit. You’d have to bulldoze the whole city and start again. So great for Paris and London and yes I would rather live there, but we are stuck finding solutions that work inside the mess we made.

deleted 2y ago
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Aloha 2y ago
I agree with you in part - we do have 100 years of development patterns baked into concrete and steel, but they were not originally built just for cars. LA was built around interurbans, the idea that I should drive my car all the way from San Bernardino (or frankly even from Pasadena) to Los Angeles would be foreign to the original planners and builders in Southern California. Consider that every major freeway in LA is basically in whole or in part paralleling a former PE line, and suddenly my assertion doesnt seem so odd. https://www.pacificelectric.org/collections/pacific-electric-railway-historical-society-collection/1926-pacific-electric-railway-system-map/ https://www.pacificelectric.org/collections/pacific-electric... LA is not the only place where the sprawled layout was created by interurbans, Arguably to a greater or lesser extent - Detroit, Dallas, Cleveland, Cincinatti, and there are others whose early development was deeply influenced by the interurban exist.
iknowstuff 2y ago
LA is densifying around transit. It’ll end up with islands of dense areas connected by trains.
creer 2y ago
Wait, what? Paris streets are a mess, even after Haussmann. That does not prevent outstanding transit. Even before the latest obsessive aggressive agenda-driven nonsense. The two things that Paris has are (1) inhabitant and workplace density and (2) the will to pursue public transit decade after decade. After that, there are lots of streets with a single lane of traffic - and buses go through them just fine. And there are lots of too narrow streets but they are isolated here and there - in between streets that are okay for buses. Equally there are lots of very wide avenues for several lanes of traffic and that's fine for pedestrians and transit even though it makes subway stations sometimes very wide. And there are lots of randomly angled streets. There are steep hills. There are rivers and canals and giant mining voids which make building subway tunnels interesting. There are lots of train track rights of way which sometimes block pedestrian traffic but are covered and crossed reasonably often (sometimes still not optimally so). There is snow, ice, floods, hot weather. You name it it's there. Both of these are essential. "Decade after decade" is essential. Both density and building that infrastructure are impossible to build at the stroke of a pen. So an advantage of Paris compared to San Francisco is that it had decent inhabitant and workplace density from the infancy of public transit when it was private animal pulled carriages. So what's missing in US cities: decade after decade of density followed by decade after decade of public intent. SF could do it - but for sure you wouldn't see the result tomorrow - but NIMBY so no, SF can't do it. Not before getting rid of NIMBY. LA is much more willing to build anything anywhere so it would have much more of a chance. But it's huge and people often live far from their place of work. Smaller areas with LA would have a better chance. Perhaps Glendale plus the entertainment industry north-south corridor? That might be manageable. Yet still more "even then", ride Paris transit at rush hours in summer and you won't feel that it's all that good: it's sweaty, packed, and there are lots of timetable incidents. You will regret having chosen rush hour. You car would have been nicely air conditionned and comfortable (but depending on your trajectory would have been stuck in traffic for a while.)

cmxch 2y ago

> if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure. Then have the dignitaries and environmental policymakers give their uparmored gas guzzling cars up first, leading by example.

madeofpalk 2y ago
What are you talking about? Many politicians catch public transport around the world. I remember a few years back a mini nothingburger controversy about a politician 'caught' drinking a canned cocktail on the train in London https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/20/diane-abbott-apologises-for-drinking-mojito-on-public-transport https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/20/diane-abbot...

yieldcrv 2y ago

And just like the NASA space pen story, the private sector is developing them on their own at their own risk, with maybe some indirect grants or subsidies, but not a direct contract specifically for the government to be a beneficiary. Way more money is being wasted on the grifts surrounding developing public transit infrastructure. LA County for example is 88 different municipalities and it will never get resolved.

tim333 2y ago

>technology that would not be needed if... developed proper public transit infrastructure NYC and London have had 'proper' public transit for over a century. It's handy but not that great. I was on a 52 year old Bakerloo line tube train the other day and they are much like modern tube trains, if grubbier. It's not going to suddenly turn wonderful and solve everything. (typed on a London bus) Also while I'm not sure any technology is really needed, as in we could get by without it, there are about 1 million road deaths a year globally. A 90% reduction would save 900,000 lives which is a nice to have. And more meaningful than a space pen.

mulmen 2y ago
Why the dig at the Space Pen? Robot drivers rely heavily on GPS which was made possible in part by the Space Pen.

creer 2y ago

> if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply - There is nothing simple about it. - There is nothing inevitable to this appearance of "not enough money". For example very little of self-driving cars development has been on public funds. For example, there is plenty of money in California govt. And plenty of money in US federal govt. - One doesn't prevent the other. You can't seriously argue that better transit would remove all needs for automated driving.