3 ms·

Most of the land consumed by vehicle operation is not consumed by the vehicle itself, but by the headway in front of the vehicle that’s necessary for safe opera

Most of the land consumed by vehicle operation is not consumed by the vehicle itself, but by the headway in front of the vehicle that’s necessary for safe operation at a given velocity. For instance, at 0 mph, car might be 20 feet long and occupy a 10 foot wide lane, for a total land consumption of 200 ft². However, at 60 mph using the two second rule for safe following distance it needs an extra 240 feet of distance for a total land consumption of 2600 ft.². By limiting your one seat golf carts to 30 mph, you’ll certainly need less headway then something people expect to operate at 60 or 70 mph, but it will still be much larger footprint than simply the vehicle itself. Of course, this is true of other vehicles, including buses and trains, but they get to divide that land consumption by the number of people inside, making the comparison much more favourable. IMO Better than arguing about what type of vehicles people should and shouldn’t use, we should simply stop giving away public land for vehicles as if it’s free. Require the public, as owners of the land, be reimbursed for land consumed by private vehicles, including headway. If you’re Elon Musk and you’re terrified of strangers on transit, that’s fine. You just have to reimburse the public for the extra land required to travel alone in your robot car.

triceratops 1y ago
I'm not opposed to congestion pricing. I think it is inevitable as self-driving technology becomes widespread. Robodrivers remove the pain of being stuck in traffic. So you need something else to prevent forever traffic jams. > buses and trains, but they get to divide that land consumption by the number of people inside, making the comparison much more favourable Buses and trains rarely run completely full. A one-seater golf cart is a "bus" that runs at 100% occupancy.
- appreciatorBus 1y ago
  A 60' bus going 60mph might need 5400 sqft of land vs the 2600 sqft of the car. It would only need 2 passengers to beat it. re: "completely full" - the vehicle is irrelevant. Neither the full one seater golf cart, or the full 50 passenger bus make the road way completely full, but they have very different land costs per person and as owners of the land, we should be asking why we've set the price for using 2600 sqft of land the same as the price for using 26 sqft of land - $0.
  - triceratops 1y ago
    And congestion pricing solves the problem of land use. Let people travel the way they want.
josephcsible 1y ago
> we should simply stop giving away public land for vehicles as if it’s free. Require the public, as owners of the land, be reimbursed for land consumed by private vehicles, including headway. Isn't the money from things like vehicle registration fees and gas taxes already doing that?
- beeflet 1y ago
  Not really, because it doesn't encourage more compact road usage. It just encourages fewer cars and less fuel consumption respectively.
- queenkjuul 1y ago
  Gas taxes and registration fees don't cover the whole cost. Federal subsidy is mostly essential for the US road network, and most states use other tax sources on road costs as well. A person who's never purchased a car nor gasoline has still paid into the road system one way or another.
- appreciatorBus 1y ago
  Not really. Those types of things don't even cover operation of the land as vehicle transport, since the highway trust fund has to keep getting bailed out. But I'm not really talking about the operational costs, I'm talking about land rents. There are surely places in the USA where there are no competing uses for land, and having ppl drive on it is not depriving the public at large of anything. But this stops being true in any town or city above a modest size. For non-transport land uses, we ask those uses to compete amongst themselves for the land. But for some reason, we don't apply this same logic to vehicle transport. It's considered the govt's job to expand the supply of land for vehicles in an unlimited fashion. If anyone suggested it should be govt job to provide unlimited free land for any other use - housing is the most obvious example - they'd get laughed out of the room. But put 4 wheels on it and suddenly they will bulldoze whole neighbourhoods to find the land for it. So my modest proposal is that if people want to drive on some publicly owned land, the govt should put the use of the land for a fixed period, say 50-100 years and auction the rights. Let the prospective drivers compete with other uses - say apartment buildings - for the land and see what the public is missing out on by setting the price at $0.

triceratops 1y ago

I'm not opposed to congestion pricing. I think it is inevitable as self-driving technology becomes widespread. Robodrivers remove the pain of being stuck in traffic. So you need something else to prevent forever traffic jams. > buses and trains, but they get to divide that land consumption by the number of people inside, making the comparison much more favourable Buses and trains rarely run completely full. A one-seater golf cart is a "bus" that runs at 100% occupancy.

appreciatorBus 1y ago
A 60' bus going 60mph might need 5400 sqft of land vs the 2600 sqft of the car. It would only need 2 passengers to beat it. re: "completely full" - the vehicle is irrelevant. Neither the full one seater golf cart, or the full 50 passenger bus make the road way completely full, but they have very different land costs per person and as owners of the land, we should be asking why we've set the price for using 2600 sqft of land the same as the price for using 26 sqft of land - $0.
- triceratops 1y ago
  And congestion pricing solves the problem of land use. Let people travel the way they want.

josephcsible 1y ago

> we should simply stop giving away public land for vehicles as if it’s free. Require the public, as owners of the land, be reimbursed for land consumed by private vehicles, including headway. Isn't the money from things like vehicle registration fees and gas taxes already doing that?

beeflet 1y ago
Not really, because it doesn't encourage more compact road usage. It just encourages fewer cars and less fuel consumption respectively.
queenkjuul 1y ago
Gas taxes and registration fees don't cover the whole cost. Federal subsidy is mostly essential for the US road network, and most states use other tax sources on road costs as well. A person who's never purchased a car nor gasoline has still paid into the road system one way or another.
appreciatorBus 1y ago
Not really. Those types of things don't even cover operation of the land as vehicle transport, since the highway trust fund has to keep getting bailed out. But I'm not really talking about the operational costs, I'm talking about land rents. There are surely places in the USA where there are no competing uses for land, and having ppl drive on it is not depriving the public at large of anything. But this stops being true in any town or city above a modest size. For non-transport land uses, we ask those uses to compete amongst themselves for the land. But for some reason, we don't apply this same logic to vehicle transport. It's considered the govt's job to expand the supply of land for vehicles in an unlimited fashion. If anyone suggested it should be govt job to provide unlimited free land for any other use - housing is the most obvious example - they'd get laughed out of the room. But put 4 wheels on it and suddenly they will bulldoze whole neighbourhoods to find the land for it. So my modest proposal is that if people want to drive on some publicly owned land, the govt should put the use of the land for a fixed period, say 50-100 years and auction the rights. Let the prospective drivers compete with other uses - say apartment buildings - for the land and see what the public is missing out on by setting the price at $0.