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Cars of any sort, self-driving or otherwise, do not solve traffic any more than Uber does because you need to have enough of them to get everyone to and from wo

Cars of any sort, self-driving or otherwise, do not solve traffic any more than Uber does because you need to have enough of them to get everyone to and from work at basically the same time. Trains are the only way to address traffic. Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system. It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fall-back operators in overseas call centers.

TNDnow 1y ago
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durandal1 1y ago
Trains will fairly unreliably take you from one place that is not your home, to another place, which is not where you want to go, at a time that is probably not exactly when you wanted to arrive. Freedom of movement is incredibly important, and trains are very rigid in this aspect.
- arcticbull 1y ago
  Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E. If you feel that way about transit you may not have tried a good transit option like Hong Kong MTR with 90 second headways and travel from and to substantially everywhere you want to be.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E. You see a robot driving around in a pile of trash. I see a robot with nobody micromanaging him telling him how to live his life, etc, etc. <we are not the same meme dot jpeg>
- dieortin 1y ago
  Fairly unreliably? Unlike cars, trains do not typically suffer from traffic jams.
  - durandal1 1y ago
    This is based on my personal experience, I used to ride trains for travel a lot. I grew up in Europe and lived there for 31 years so this is not based on ignorance.
    - eldaisfish 1y ago
      ok? Your personal experience is not the entire truth and never will be. Japanese trains are on time. Swiss trains are on time. That's not based on ignorance either.
  - tim333 1y ago
    Private cars seldom fail to work because the drivers are striking to reduce their hours to 32 hours a week like London last week.
    - arcticbull 1y ago
      Buddy the tube seldom fails for that reason either. Plus some self-driving sauce would reduce their hours to 0. Certain lines in London like the DLR are already driverless (Grade of Automation 3). Most of the other lines are GoA2.
      - tim333 1y ago
        Yeah, first time for that particular one but the transport not working for various reasons is not that unheard of.
  - thehappypm 1y ago
    I was in Zermatt last month and was unable to take the Gornegray Railway due to mechanical issues. Even Swiss trains have problems
- mint5 1y ago
  Well That’s certainly not been my experience when visiting Europe. In fact, it many cases it’s been the opposite - having a car would have been restrictive in any major city and a source of friction.
  - BurningFrog 1y ago
    Trains are great when going to tourist attractions, especially in the center of old cities. When you live and work in a city, they're much less practical.
    - mint5 1y ago
      Is that why the trains and trams are crowded around commute? Because people find them impractical?
    - mjr00 1y ago
      > Trains are great when going to tourist attractions, especially in the center of old cities. When you live and work in a city, they're much less practical. This is the most "tell me you live in America without telling me you live in America" thing I've seen in a long time... America basically the only place in the world where in its cities, trains and other public transport aren't a major part of people's lives. In other places (Seoul, Tokyo, many European cities, etc.), even people who own a car will sometimes commute via train due to the convenience.
    - okanat 1y ago
      This is quite the "I have never lived anywhere else other than North America" take. Rail and other public transport in pretty much everywhere in the world are designed to serve commute first, tourist stuff second or third. Public transport isn't just having some trains, or having only trains between major cities. It is designing whole commute routes from various urban and suburban areas to workplace. There needs to be regional and suburban links that arrive to metro and tram stations. Metro and tram have to operate very frequently to handle commuters. The frequency of the trains should adapt to the commuters in the morning and evening. They need to be convenient, clean and safe too. Cities around the world are also much better balanced than NA ones. The workplaces and living areas are almost always mixed rather than having a "downtown" area where every office worker travels to. My area has many buildings with a supermarket, apartments and small offices in the same building. There are two car factories in the city next to one of the biggest urban parks.
- grandinquistor 1y ago
  I think the answer to this is microbility bike/scooter sharing (ex: lime) Trains to cover the longer distance and micro mobility options to get to exactly where you need to go
- lmm 1y ago
  In effective countries trains run frequently enough that you don't need to consult a schedule and are less prone to unexpected delays than cars. Yes, they can't provide door-to-door service; like it or not, everyone travelling door-to-door in their private mobile living room during the rush hour is impossible if you want cities dense enough to be liveable.
- ragebol 1y ago
  I'd gladly take a Waymo from my home to the train station, zip around the country without traffic jams and hop in another robotaxi at the other end.
- arethuza 1y ago
  Well for my commute the trains are every 30 mins or so - pretty convenient times and a short walk from the office. The ticket is cheap, much cheaper than a days parking and during the trip I get to sit, look at the view and sip a coffee. The train is way more relaxing than the equivalent drive - which due to traffic levels at rush hour would probably take twice as long (at least) and be extremely unpredictable. So when I have the option I'd rather take the train - of course I also drive a lot of places.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > which is not where you want to go Oh the horror, you might have to walk a couple of minutes (probably less time wasted than circling around to find a parking spot, and then walking from it to your destination). > at a time that is probably not exactly when you wanted to arrive Yeah, no. Trains in properly developed networks are extremely frequent. At the off-peakest of off-peak (Sunday late evening), the RER near me is every 15 minutes. During peak hours it's every 5 mins.
- dgb23 1y ago
  I live in Switzerland and commute mainly via public transport. We're very privileged here. Because of decades to centuries of investment, holistic planning and expertise, we have one of the best networks in terms of quality, punctuality and density. It's a plant the trees for future generations kind of deal, especially in Switzerland, because large, "flashy" projects are rare compared to to the more continuous and steady improvements, due to how funding and planning are set up.
- panick21_ 1y ago
  Trains are one part of a larger transportation system. And they are very good at what they do. But you also need metros, trams, buses and so on. And with that you can build a system where most places, including 50 people mountain villages are well connected. I can go from Genf to a tiny village deep in the Eastern mountains with 4-6h. I can make that journey with no planning ahead what so ever. Cars are actually restrictive. What if you want to have a drink? What if you are in a place that is different from your car? What if you are old or disabled? What if you are a tourist? What if you are not allowed to drive because of a traffic violation? And there are also these people called 'kids'. When I was 15 I went from Switzerland to Czechia with the train, no problem. True freedom is to have a good public transit and potentially car as an option.
balfirevic 1y ago
> Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system. Well, I'm in Europe and it ain't here. Waymo can't get here fast enough.
tim333 1y ago
Self driving cars could work with trains to do the desired location to the station bit that has always been a bit awkward. Trains are all very well but they've been around nearly 200 years and have yet to bring on a traffic free utopia.
- arcticbull 1y ago
  Can you imagine how much traffic there would be if NYC didn't have the MTA? The principle of induced demand tells us that as long as there are roads they will have roughly constant traffic because people are willing to spend some roughly constant amount of time getting to and from destinations by road each day. More roads speeds up everyone's commute which brings in more drivers, which brings traffic right back to the baseline terribleness. The question is how shitty it would be if they also had everyone on them who's currently on public transit. So basically, it is a traffic-free panacea for everyone who chooses to use it. It's not a goal of trains to eliminate traffic for everyone who insists on driving. https://www.tomtom.com/newsroom/explainers-and-insights/induced-demand-explained/ https://www.tomtom.com/newsroom/explainers-and-insights/indu...
  - skybrian 1y ago
    Yep, this is a good point. There are appropriate technologies for each situation. It's not a winner-takes-all contest. For another example, can you imagine trains replacing school buses in a large, rural school district? Sometimes (not always), buses are better than trains.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    Any one part would have the about same amount of traffic it does now. It would just sprawl out bigger across adjacent counties and the highest density parts would be lower density. See also: LA
  - kccqzy 1y ago
    The induced demand argument works for trains too. If NYC didn't have MTA (no subway, no LIRR, no MNR) then the population of NYC would probably be 1% of what it currently is. Building more train tracks and having better train services also encourages more people to move to NYC so that these new train services become more utilized. Neither roads or train tracks solve the traffic problem.
RandallBrown 1y ago
Trains still don't solve last mile transport for most people (even in places with robust transit systems) Self driving cars might not solve traffic problems but they could greatly reduce them. Problems like traffic waves and gridlock go away when all cars are driving themselves.
- jswrenn 1y ago
  > Trains still don't solve last mile transport for most people This has not been my experience since moving to Manhattan last January. Subways, alone, close the gap between regional rail and most destinations astoundingly well. I haven't yet needed to use a bus (but they seem abundant, too), and I haven't even thought of taking a taxi yet. Here, robust transit has solved the last mile problem for most people.
  - inferiorhuman 1y ago
    Here, robust transit has solved the last mile problem for most people. There are huge gaps in subway coverage in New York. Manhattan, especially Lower Manhattan, is the exception here. Go to the outer reaches of Queens and see where the subway gets you. Try to go between (or sometimes within) boroughs.
    - jswrenn 1y ago
      Sure, in areas without robust transit, transit is a problem. But I'm responding to RandallBrown's assertion that there's a persistent last mile issue in areas with robust transit. There's not. Manhattan is evidence that robust transit solves the last mile problem for most people.
      - inferiorhuman 1y ago
        This is the best map I could find: https://cwhong.carto.com/viz/6dfca01c-47e5-11e6-9fd3-0ee66e2c9693/public_map https://cwhong.carto.com/viz/6dfca01c-47e5-11e6-9fd3-0ee66e2... Weasel words are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. There is a persistent last mile issue even in NYC, even in Manhattan. You're right that in Manhattan most people can use the subway as a last mile solution. However that map hasn't changed much in quite a while. The subway deserts that exist (in Manhattan and the other boroughs) aren't going away anytime soon because building new subways is eyewateringly expensive. The inflexibility means that even when the subway is a viable last mile solution it may not be the appropriate one. For instance I had to go from Ridgewood to JFK a few years back. I was maybe a five minute walk from the subway. But were I to take the subway from one end of Queens to the other I would've had to go all the way to Midtown and transfer to LIRR. Hell I've generally had to rely on buses for last mile connectivity even in London which certainly doesn't suffer from a lack of subway service.
crazygringo 1y ago
> Trains are the only way to address traffic. And how do you get to the train when it's too far to walk and you're not a cyclist?
- dibujaron 1y ago
  Ideally: there's a train close enough to walk, or a bus or tram that's nearby that runs frequently, is clean, and doesn't get stuck in traffic because there's not much car traffic. Slightly more realistic: enough people can and do cycle or walk to the train that pressure is relieved on the roads for those who cannot cycle or walk.
- biophysboy 1y ago
  A person living in DC can take the subway to Union station, take the Acela line to NYC, and then take the subway to their final destination.
- lmm 1y ago
  > And how do you get to the train when it's too far to walk and you're not a cyclist? You get the bus, or you cycle, which is a life skill any able-bodied adult should have, not limited to cyclists. Of course not everyone is capable of cycling, but not everyone is capable of driving either.
  - deleted 1y ago
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gerash 1y ago
They replace taxis and potentially postal and trucking applications in future. It’s certainly not a replacement for mass transit. US is sparsely populated compared to Europe and mass transit don’t work as well in the suburbia. That said, I do see many transit oriented development in SF Bay Area where high density buildings are being built near transit stations.
mer_mer 1y ago
This gets brought up a lot but I think it's missing some key points. 1) Being driven around is the best transportation mode for most of the US. It's very comfortable, private, fast, and point-to-point. It stops working well at very high density, but that level of density is only seen in a few places in the US. I'd like more people to live in dense areas but for the foreseeable future self-driving vehicles are going to be the best solution for most trips in the US. 2) At very high densities it's true that cars can move fewer people per hour per 10-foot lane than other modes and so you run into congestion. But that's measured with the current vehicle fleet and human drivers. With high autonomous vehicle penetration you could implement congestion pricing that encourages high throughput vehicle design. That means private vehicles that are much much smaller (think Isetta-like design) that can follow at very short distances. Along with the elimination of on-street parking we could see a many-fold increase in road throughput. 3) At even higher density levels the same congestion pricing mechanism would encourage people to use microbuses that would operate similarly to Uber Pool. Compared to today's busses they would have equal or greater throughput, be point-to-point or nearly point-to-point, dynamically routed, cheaper to operate and faster. 4) At the very highest density levels it's true that nothing can match the throughput of the subway. As others have mentioned, AVs are a great way to connect people to the subway. Many trips intersect with the highest density urban core for only a fraction of the journey. More people would take the subway if they knew they could get to and from the stations easily and quickly. AVs let you mix-and-match transport modes more easily. Cities should start engaging with vehicle manufacturers to start getting these high density vehicle designs worked on and figure out the congestion pricing mechanism to properly incentive their rollout.
- WastedCucumber 1y ago
  This rings less like some missing key points, and more like an entire, comprehensive traffic strategy. I'm not really sure what the point is meant to elaborate on. Maybe something like "Self driving cars in themselves wouldn't solve traffic, but well designed, purpose-built AV's combined with surge pricing and (when necessary, depending on the location and journey) trains/subways could do it." Did I understand you correctly?
  - 1y ago
01100011 1y ago
Why do you hate buses?
dan-robertson 1y ago
I think self-driving cars can still be beneficial even if they don’t help with traffic problems. They shouldn’t require so much parking in desirable areas (a separate problem cars cause), for example, and they could have a big impact on the lives of some disabled people.
denkmoon 1y ago
Do I really care about traffic if I’m not the one driving in it? I guess if you’re looking at highly disproportionate delays but I really wouldn’t care about traffic otherwise.
- tdeck 1y ago
  > Do I really care about traffic if I’m not the one driving in it? As someone who took the N across San Francisco every day for 5+ years: Yes, you would. Imagine a 5 mile journey taking 50 minutes. Even if you can nap or listen to a podcast, it's still a waste of time.
tdeck 1y ago
Bicycles are another way to address traffic, because they take up so little room and can be essentially free and often more convenient for shorter trips. Of course that means you have to have bicycle infrastructure where you don't have to run serious risks to your life every 3-5 minutes during your journey.
Karrot_Kream 1y ago
As mostly a cyclist (I drive roughly 10% of my transport, the rest is biking and transit), my experience with self-driving cars is that I feel much safer riding in front of them. They're less likely to pass dangerously close to me to drive past me, they're less likely to tailgate me, they're also less likely to just drive me into the door zone, sidewalk, or a parked car. I'm a very confident cyclist but I suspect newer, more skittish cyclists would agree. If you can restrict certain roads to autonomous cars (or heavily limit the number of non-autonomous cars) then you don't need to build as much bicycle infrastructure (a buffered lane is probably all you need, as opposed to bollards or true grade separation) and I can guarantee you more folks will feel comfortable riding bikes. This is aside from how frequently human-driven cars end up colliding with, damaging, or blocking non-grade-separated forms of transit. > It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fall-back operators in overseas call centers. I do bike advocacy so this kind of rhetorical gotcha can make me feel good and hit the upvote button but in reality city councils and other elected officials are mostly people skeptical of the benefits of bicycling, worried that buses/trains would place too high a tax burden on their constituents, or deep down convinced in their lizard brain that Americans are too carpilled to ever do anything else. If you can change this by running for your local council, do it! Don't get me wrong, we need more bike infrastructure and we needed it yesterday. But anything helps. I'd love to see certain corridors of SF be restricted to transit, autonomous vehicle, and cyclist usage only. Market is already only for transit and cyclists so there's precedent.
jajko 1y ago
Trains are not panacea some people here keep thinking they are. You would need to have train stops every few hundred meters changing it into some city subway or tram, interconnected with dense and fast local public transport. I live in Switzerland, the place for trains, efficiency and its small and dense, an ideal situation right. Tons of people use trains every day, tons of people also bike for closer distances in good warmish weather but still highways are chock full and getting fuller every year. Public transport for out-of-city commuters is simply slower, often much slower. This morning I was considering taking a motorbike to a train station that is 5km away, then 40 mins trains and 10 minute walk to work. I took the car instead for a change, I was faster despite having to cross the very center of bottlenecked and car-hostile big city (Geneva) in top rush hour. 65 mins door-to-door via public transport vs 45 in car. That's one way, meaning 40 minutes of my private life daily saved that I can spend ie with my kids and not staring in the phone or out of window. Normally I take the motorbike if weather permits, if not I take the public bus to the train, adding additional 15 minutes each way. That sucks pretty badly. I doubt other countries have this figured out better, and not everybody can or wants to live in city centers, especially when raising small kids. We did it for 10 years, had a work commute of 5mins via escooter, but I rather have current commute and live and raise kids in small commune next to wild forest and vineyards than that. All above is usually much worse in many parts of US.
tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
If trips that require a car are prohibitively expensive (in money, time or convenience) without owning a car, more people will own a car. Once you own a car, it's often much easier to use it for trips that you would otherwise do without a car. Reducing the (perceived) need to buy a car, e.g. by making it easy, cheap and reliable to get from A to B using a self driving car service, will reduce the number of people who own a car and thus the number of car trips.
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  Sadly the evidence for Uber like services is that they take journeys away from public transport rather than encouraging its use.
- lozenge 1y ago
  The main effect of making the car more comfortable, in this case by removing the controls, is to encourage (subsidise) people to spend longer in the car. So people will be willing to drive further for cheaper rent, or the self driving car might add a couple extra miles to park somewhere cheaper, so overall congestion would get worse.
- 542354234235 1y ago
  >Reducing the (perceived) need to buy a car, e.g. by making it easy, cheap and reliable to get from A to B using a self driving car service But this assumes the need for a car, but cars are one form of transport. A more wholistic look at transportation with be “Reducing the (perceived) need to buy a car, e.g. by making it easy, cheap and reliable to get from A to B.” If you have more services within walking distance, it reduces your need for a car. If there is lots of bike infrastructure, it reduces your need for a car. If there are reliable frequent trains, it reduces your need for a car. If there are reliable frequent bus services and bus lanes to get around traffic, it reduces your need for a car. On the other hand, if there are more cars then you need, at minimum if we imagine self-driving cars, more road capacity. But realistically more roads and more parking. More space for roads is less space for the actual places people want to go, pushing those things farther apart. Being farther apart reduces the number of places you can get to by walking or biking, which means you are more likely to need a car, which means more cars, which means more roads, which means less space for the actual places people want to go, repeat. Cars are basically the worst option in terms of infrastructure cost, land usage per person, personal cost to use/operate, deaths and injuries, etc.
amelius 1y ago
Yes, driverless does not solve any real problem. When I come from work, I still have to sit in a car. Yes, I can work instead of drive, but that's only in theory because in practice the G-forces won't allow me to. A robot cook, however, __would__ solve a practical problem for me. Anyway, this whole approach is not even solving first-world problems (many families struggle to pay for a car), but it's solving the upper-1% of first-world problems, maybe. Except those people can afford to pay drivers who are now out of a job. So yes, what is this even solving??
Rebuff5007 1y ago
This statement is mostly wrong. Cars as a shared service (shuttles, Uber, Waymo) absolutely solve traffic compared to personal vehicles. Shared cars have much higher utilization and require a lot less space. I agree that trains are a fantastic way to move large groups of people, but a world with more shared cars (which may be brought about faster with Waymo) is a good thing for most cities.
nicoburns 1y ago
My experiene in UK cities is that Taxis really come into their own at night when: - The trains often aren't running (and there may not be the volume of passengers to justify running them) - The road are empty so traffic isn't really an issue
kjkjadksj 1y ago
The elephant in the room is rideshare commuting is for extremely rich people. Who else can afford the probably $75+ a day it costs on a two way commute?
jelsisi 1y ago
I disagree that self-driving won't reduce traffic, at least from the perspective a Virginia resident. Commuting into D.C. is in theory very quick, except for when there are crashes. Crashes double the commute time, and there's _always_ a crash. This is pretty much the only source of traffic in my area. I think the primary benefit of self-driving would be lowering the crash rate, and as a side effect traffic.

TNDnow 1y ago

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durandal1 1y ago

Trains will fairly unreliably take you from one place that is not your home, to another place, which is not where you want to go, at a time that is probably not exactly when you wanted to arrive. Freedom of movement is incredibly important, and trains are very rigid in this aspect.

arcticbull 1y ago
Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E. If you feel that way about transit you may not have tried a good transit option like Hong Kong MTR with 90 second headways and travel from and to substantially everywhere you want to be.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E. You see a robot driving around in a pile of trash. I see a robot with nobody micromanaging him telling him how to live his life, etc, etc. <we are not the same meme dot jpeg>
dieortin 1y ago
Fairly unreliably? Unlike cars, trains do not typically suffer from traffic jams.
- durandal1 1y ago
  This is based on my personal experience, I used to ride trains for travel a lot. I grew up in Europe and lived there for 31 years so this is not based on ignorance.
  - eldaisfish 1y ago
    ok? Your personal experience is not the entire truth and never will be. Japanese trains are on time. Swiss trains are on time. That's not based on ignorance either.
- tim333 1y ago
  Private cars seldom fail to work because the drivers are striking to reduce their hours to 32 hours a week like London last week.
  - arcticbull 1y ago
    Buddy the tube seldom fails for that reason either. Plus some self-driving sauce would reduce their hours to 0. Certain lines in London like the DLR are already driverless (Grade of Automation 3). Most of the other lines are GoA2.
    - tim333 1y ago
      Yeah, first time for that particular one but the transport not working for various reasons is not that unheard of.
- thehappypm 1y ago
  I was in Zermatt last month and was unable to take the Gornegray Railway due to mechanical issues. Even Swiss trains have problems
mint5 1y ago
Well That’s certainly not been my experience when visiting Europe. In fact, it many cases it’s been the opposite - having a car would have been restrictive in any major city and a source of friction.
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  Trains are great when going to tourist attractions, especially in the center of old cities. When you live and work in a city, they're much less practical.
  - mint5 1y ago
    Is that why the trains and trams are crowded around commute? Because people find them impractical?
  - mjr00 1y ago
    > Trains are great when going to tourist attractions, especially in the center of old cities. When you live and work in a city, they're much less practical. This is the most "tell me you live in America without telling me you live in America" thing I've seen in a long time... America basically the only place in the world where in its cities, trains and other public transport aren't a major part of people's lives. In other places (Seoul, Tokyo, many European cities, etc.), even people who own a car will sometimes commute via train due to the convenience.
  - okanat 1y ago
    This is quite the "I have never lived anywhere else other than North America" take. Rail and other public transport in pretty much everywhere in the world are designed to serve commute first, tourist stuff second or third. Public transport isn't just having some trains, or having only trains between major cities. It is designing whole commute routes from various urban and suburban areas to workplace. There needs to be regional and suburban links that arrive to metro and tram stations. Metro and tram have to operate very frequently to handle commuters. The frequency of the trains should adapt to the commuters in the morning and evening. They need to be convenient, clean and safe too. Cities around the world are also much better balanced than NA ones. The workplaces and living areas are almost always mixed rather than having a "downtown" area where every office worker travels to. My area has many buildings with a supermarket, apartments and small offices in the same building. There are two car factories in the city next to one of the biggest urban parks.
grandinquistor 1y ago
I think the answer to this is microbility bike/scooter sharing (ex: lime) Trains to cover the longer distance and micro mobility options to get to exactly where you need to go
lmm 1y ago
In effective countries trains run frequently enough that you don't need to consult a schedule and are less prone to unexpected delays than cars. Yes, they can't provide door-to-door service; like it or not, everyone travelling door-to-door in their private mobile living room during the rush hour is impossible if you want cities dense enough to be liveable.
ragebol 1y ago
I'd gladly take a Waymo from my home to the train station, zip around the country without traffic jams and hop in another robotaxi at the other end.
arethuza 1y ago
Well for my commute the trains are every 30 mins or so - pretty convenient times and a short walk from the office. The ticket is cheap, much cheaper than a days parking and during the trip I get to sit, look at the view and sip a coffee. The train is way more relaxing than the equivalent drive - which due to traffic levels at rush hour would probably take twice as long (at least) and be extremely unpredictable. So when I have the option I'd rather take the train - of course I also drive a lot of places.
sofixa 1y ago
> which is not where you want to go Oh the horror, you might have to walk a couple of minutes (probably less time wasted than circling around to find a parking spot, and then walking from it to your destination). > at a time that is probably not exactly when you wanted to arrive Yeah, no. Trains in properly developed networks are extremely frequent. At the off-peakest of off-peak (Sunday late evening), the RER near me is every 15 minutes. During peak hours it's every 5 mins.
dgb23 1y ago
I live in Switzerland and commute mainly via public transport. We're very privileged here. Because of decades to centuries of investment, holistic planning and expertise, we have one of the best networks in terms of quality, punctuality and density. It's a plant the trees for future generations kind of deal, especially in Switzerland, because large, "flashy" projects are rare compared to to the more continuous and steady improvements, due to how funding and planning are set up.
panick21_ 1y ago
Trains are one part of a larger transportation system. And they are very good at what they do. But you also need metros, trams, buses and so on. And with that you can build a system where most places, including 50 people mountain villages are well connected. I can go from Genf to a tiny village deep in the Eastern mountains with 4-6h. I can make that journey with no planning ahead what so ever. Cars are actually restrictive. What if you want to have a drink? What if you are in a place that is different from your car? What if you are old or disabled? What if you are a tourist? What if you are not allowed to drive because of a traffic violation? And there are also these people called 'kids'. When I was 15 I went from Switzerland to Czechia with the train, no problem. True freedom is to have a good public transit and potentially car as an option.

balfirevic 1y ago

> Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system. Well, I'm in Europe and it ain't here. Waymo can't get here fast enough.

tim333 1y ago

Self driving cars could work with trains to do the desired location to the station bit that has always been a bit awkward. Trains are all very well but they've been around nearly 200 years and have yet to bring on a traffic free utopia.

arcticbull 1y ago
Can you imagine how much traffic there would be if NYC didn't have the MTA? The principle of induced demand tells us that as long as there are roads they will have roughly constant traffic because people are willing to spend some roughly constant amount of time getting to and from destinations by road each day. More roads speeds up everyone's commute which brings in more drivers, which brings traffic right back to the baseline terribleness. The question is how shitty it would be if they also had everyone on them who's currently on public transit. So basically, it is a traffic-free panacea for everyone who chooses to use it. It's not a goal of trains to eliminate traffic for everyone who insists on driving. https://www.tomtom.com/newsroom/explainers-and-insights/induced-demand-explained/ https://www.tomtom.com/newsroom/explainers-and-insights/indu...
- skybrian 1y ago
  Yep, this is a good point. There are appropriate technologies for each situation. It's not a winner-takes-all contest. For another example, can you imagine trains replacing school buses in a large, rural school district? Sometimes (not always), buses are better than trains.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Any one part would have the about same amount of traffic it does now. It would just sprawl out bigger across adjacent counties and the highest density parts would be lower density. See also: LA
- kccqzy 1y ago
  The induced demand argument works for trains too. If NYC didn't have MTA (no subway, no LIRR, no MNR) then the population of NYC would probably be 1% of what it currently is. Building more train tracks and having better train services also encourages more people to move to NYC so that these new train services become more utilized. Neither roads or train tracks solve the traffic problem.

RandallBrown 1y ago

Trains still don't solve last mile transport for most people (even in places with robust transit systems) Self driving cars might not solve traffic problems but they could greatly reduce them. Problems like traffic waves and gridlock go away when all cars are driving themselves.

jswrenn 1y ago
> Trains still don't solve last mile transport for most people This has not been my experience since moving to Manhattan last January. Subways, alone, close the gap between regional rail and most destinations astoundingly well. I haven't yet needed to use a bus (but they seem abundant, too), and I haven't even thought of taking a taxi yet. Here, robust transit has solved the last mile problem for most people.
- inferiorhuman 1y ago
  Here, robust transit has solved the last mile problem for most people. There are huge gaps in subway coverage in New York. Manhattan, especially Lower Manhattan, is the exception here. Go to the outer reaches of Queens and see where the subway gets you. Try to go between (or sometimes within) boroughs.
  - jswrenn 1y ago
    Sure, in areas without robust transit, transit is a problem. But I'm responding to RandallBrown's assertion that there's a persistent last mile issue in areas with robust transit. There's not. Manhattan is evidence that robust transit solves the last mile problem for most people.
    - inferiorhuman 1y ago
      This is the best map I could find: https://cwhong.carto.com/viz/6dfca01c-47e5-11e6-9fd3-0ee66e2c9693/public_map https://cwhong.carto.com/viz/6dfca01c-47e5-11e6-9fd3-0ee66e2... Weasel words are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. There is a persistent last mile issue even in NYC, even in Manhattan. You're right that in Manhattan most people can use the subway as a last mile solution. However that map hasn't changed much in quite a while. The subway deserts that exist (in Manhattan and the other boroughs) aren't going away anytime soon because building new subways is eyewateringly expensive. The inflexibility means that even when the subway is a viable last mile solution it may not be the appropriate one. For instance I had to go from Ridgewood to JFK a few years back. I was maybe a five minute walk from the subway. But were I to take the subway from one end of Queens to the other I would've had to go all the way to Midtown and transfer to LIRR. Hell I've generally had to rely on buses for last mile connectivity even in London which certainly doesn't suffer from a lack of subway service.

crazygringo 1y ago

> Trains are the only way to address traffic. And how do you get to the train when it's too far to walk and you're not a cyclist?

dibujaron 1y ago
Ideally: there's a train close enough to walk, or a bus or tram that's nearby that runs frequently, is clean, and doesn't get stuck in traffic because there's not much car traffic. Slightly more realistic: enough people can and do cycle or walk to the train that pressure is relieved on the roads for those who cannot cycle or walk.
biophysboy 1y ago
A person living in DC can take the subway to Union station, take the Acela line to NYC, and then take the subway to their final destination.
lmm 1y ago
> And how do you get to the train when it's too far to walk and you're not a cyclist? You get the bus, or you cycle, which is a life skill any able-bodied adult should have, not limited to cyclists. Of course not everyone is capable of cycling, but not everyone is capable of driving either.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

gerash 1y ago

They replace taxis and potentially postal and trucking applications in future. It’s certainly not a replacement for mass transit. US is sparsely populated compared to Europe and mass transit don’t work as well in the suburbia. That said, I do see many transit oriented development in SF Bay Area where high density buildings are being built near transit stations.

mer_mer 1y ago

This gets brought up a lot but I think it's missing some key points. 1) Being driven around is the best transportation mode for most of the US. It's very comfortable, private, fast, and point-to-point. It stops working well at very high density, but that level of density is only seen in a few places in the US. I'd like more people to live in dense areas but for the foreseeable future self-driving vehicles are going to be the best solution for most trips in the US. 2) At very high densities it's true that cars can move fewer people per hour per 10-foot lane than other modes and so you run into congestion. But that's measured with the current vehicle fleet and human drivers. With high autonomous vehicle penetration you could implement congestion pricing that encourages high throughput vehicle design. That means private vehicles that are much much smaller (think Isetta-like design) that can follow at very short distances. Along with the elimination of on-street parking we could see a many-fold increase in road throughput. 3) At even higher density levels the same congestion pricing mechanism would encourage people to use microbuses that would operate similarly to Uber Pool. Compared to today's busses they would have equal or greater throughput, be point-to-point or nearly point-to-point, dynamically routed, cheaper to operate and faster. 4) At the very highest density levels it's true that nothing can match the throughput of the subway. As others have mentioned, AVs are a great way to connect people to the subway. Many trips intersect with the highest density urban core for only a fraction of the journey. More people would take the subway if they knew they could get to and from the stations easily and quickly. AVs let you mix-and-match transport modes more easily. Cities should start engaging with vehicle manufacturers to start getting these high density vehicle designs worked on and figure out the congestion pricing mechanism to properly incentive their rollout.

WastedCucumber 1y ago
This rings less like some missing key points, and more like an entire, comprehensive traffic strategy. I'm not really sure what the point is meant to elaborate on. Maybe something like "Self driving cars in themselves wouldn't solve traffic, but well designed, purpose-built AV's combined with surge pricing and (when necessary, depending on the location and journey) trains/subways could do it." Did I understand you correctly?
- 1y ago

01100011 1y ago

Why do you hate buses?

dan-robertson 1y ago

I think self-driving cars can still be beneficial even if they don’t help with traffic problems. They shouldn’t require so much parking in desirable areas (a separate problem cars cause), for example, and they could have a big impact on the lives of some disabled people.

denkmoon 1y ago

Do I really care about traffic if I’m not the one driving in it? I guess if you’re looking at highly disproportionate delays but I really wouldn’t care about traffic otherwise.

tdeck 1y ago
> Do I really care about traffic if I’m not the one driving in it? As someone who took the N across San Francisco every day for 5+ years: Yes, you would. Imagine a 5 mile journey taking 50 minutes. Even if you can nap or listen to a podcast, it's still a waste of time.

tdeck 1y ago

Bicycles are another way to address traffic, because they take up so little room and can be essentially free and often more convenient for shorter trips. Of course that means you have to have bicycle infrastructure where you don't have to run serious risks to your life every 3-5 minutes during your journey.

Karrot_Kream 1y ago

As mostly a cyclist (I drive roughly 10% of my transport, the rest is biking and transit), my experience with self-driving cars is that I feel much safer riding in front of them. They're less likely to pass dangerously close to me to drive past me, they're less likely to tailgate me, they're also less likely to just drive me into the door zone, sidewalk, or a parked car. I'm a very confident cyclist but I suspect newer, more skittish cyclists would agree. If you can restrict certain roads to autonomous cars (or heavily limit the number of non-autonomous cars) then you don't need to build as much bicycle infrastructure (a buffered lane is probably all you need, as opposed to bollards or true grade separation) and I can guarantee you more folks will feel comfortable riding bikes. This is aside from how frequently human-driven cars end up colliding with, damaging, or blocking non-grade-separated forms of transit. > It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fall-back operators in overseas call centers. I do bike advocacy so this kind of rhetorical gotcha can make me feel good and hit the upvote button but in reality city councils and other elected officials are mostly people skeptical of the benefits of bicycling, worried that buses/trains would place too high a tax burden on their constituents, or deep down convinced in their lizard brain that Americans are too carpilled to ever do anything else. If you can change this by running for your local council, do it! Don't get me wrong, we need more bike infrastructure and we needed it yesterday. But anything helps. I'd love to see certain corridors of SF be restricted to transit, autonomous vehicle, and cyclist usage only. Market is already only for transit and cyclists so there's precedent.

jajko 1y ago

Trains are not panacea some people here keep thinking they are. You would need to have train stops every few hundred meters changing it into some city subway or tram, interconnected with dense and fast local public transport. I live in Switzerland, the place for trains, efficiency and its small and dense, an ideal situation right. Tons of people use trains every day, tons of people also bike for closer distances in good warmish weather but still highways are chock full and getting fuller every year. Public transport for out-of-city commuters is simply slower, often much slower. This morning I was considering taking a motorbike to a train station that is 5km away, then 40 mins trains and 10 minute walk to work. I took the car instead for a change, I was faster despite having to cross the very center of bottlenecked and car-hostile big city (Geneva) in top rush hour. 65 mins door-to-door via public transport vs 45 in car. That's one way, meaning 40 minutes of my private life daily saved that I can spend ie with my kids and not staring in the phone or out of window. Normally I take the motorbike if weather permits, if not I take the public bus to the train, adding additional 15 minutes each way. That sucks pretty badly. I doubt other countries have this figured out better, and not everybody can or wants to live in city centers, especially when raising small kids. We did it for 10 years, had a work commute of 5mins via escooter, but I rather have current commute and live and raise kids in small commune next to wild forest and vineyards than that. All above is usually much worse in many parts of US.

tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago

If trips that require a car are prohibitively expensive (in money, time or convenience) without owning a car, more people will own a car. Once you own a car, it's often much easier to use it for trips that you would otherwise do without a car. Reducing the (perceived) need to buy a car, e.g. by making it easy, cheap and reliable to get from A to B using a self driving car service, will reduce the number of people who own a car and thus the number of car trips.

tonyedgecombe 1y ago
Sadly the evidence for Uber like services is that they take journeys away from public transport rather than encouraging its use.
lozenge 1y ago
The main effect of making the car more comfortable, in this case by removing the controls, is to encourage (subsidise) people to spend longer in the car. So people will be willing to drive further for cheaper rent, or the self driving car might add a couple extra miles to park somewhere cheaper, so overall congestion would get worse.
542354234235 1y ago
>Reducing the (perceived) need to buy a car, e.g. by making it easy, cheap and reliable to get from A to B using a self driving car service But this assumes the need for a car, but cars are one form of transport. A more wholistic look at transportation with be “Reducing the (perceived) need to buy a car, e.g. by making it easy, cheap and reliable to get from A to B.” If you have more services within walking distance, it reduces your need for a car. If there is lots of bike infrastructure, it reduces your need for a car. If there are reliable frequent trains, it reduces your need for a car. If there are reliable frequent bus services and bus lanes to get around traffic, it reduces your need for a car. On the other hand, if there are more cars then you need, at minimum if we imagine self-driving cars, more road capacity. But realistically more roads and more parking. More space for roads is less space for the actual places people want to go, pushing those things farther apart. Being farther apart reduces the number of places you can get to by walking or biking, which means you are more likely to need a car, which means more cars, which means more roads, which means less space for the actual places people want to go, repeat. Cars are basically the worst option in terms of infrastructure cost, land usage per person, personal cost to use/operate, deaths and injuries, etc.

amelius 1y ago

Yes, driverless does not solve any real problem. When I come from work, I still have to sit in a car. Yes, I can work instead of drive, but that's only in theory because in practice the G-forces won't allow me to. A robot cook, however, __would__ solve a practical problem for me. Anyway, this whole approach is not even solving first-world problems (many families struggle to pay for a car), but it's solving the upper-1% of first-world problems, maybe. Except those people can afford to pay drivers who are now out of a job. So yes, what is this even solving??

Rebuff5007 1y ago

This statement is mostly wrong. Cars as a shared service (shuttles, Uber, Waymo) absolutely solve traffic compared to personal vehicles. Shared cars have much higher utilization and require a lot less space. I agree that trains are a fantastic way to move large groups of people, but a world with more shared cars (which may be brought about faster with Waymo) is a good thing for most cities.

nicoburns 1y ago

My experiene in UK cities is that Taxis really come into their own at night when: - The trains often aren't running (and there may not be the volume of passengers to justify running them) - The road are empty so traffic isn't really an issue

kjkjadksj 1y ago

The elephant in the room is rideshare commuting is for extremely rich people. Who else can afford the probably $75+ a day it costs on a two way commute?

jelsisi 1y ago

I disagree that self-driving won't reduce traffic, at least from the perspective a Virginia resident. Commuting into D.C. is in theory very quick, except for when there are crashes. Crashes double the commute time, and there's _always_ a crash. This is pretty much the only source of traffic in my area. I think the primary benefit of self-driving would be lowering the crash rate, and as a side effect traffic.