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As an American, I think you’re naive and short-sighted. You must realize that, at some point, self-driving cars will be ubiquitous. Maybe not for 50 years, but

by dgfitz 1y ago

As an American, I think you’re naive and short-sighted. You must realize that, at some point, self-driving cars will be ubiquitous. Maybe not for 50 years, but they will be. What you’re actually saying is “I’m virtue-signaling with Europe because that’s what the cool kids do”

archagon 1y ago
…What? What sort of terminally online strawman would be spending his free time “virtue-signaling with Europe” to some anonymous bozos on a tech forum? What a dull and intellectually uncurious reply. I think self-driving cars may eventually become common in areas where cars are currently common. I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates, because it is simply a superior user experience for the majority of people when the government cares to invest in it. (Not to mention far cheaper and more egalitarian.) I am conveying my lived experience in most European cities I've been to.
- glitchc 1y ago
  Try moving a few bags of sod and mulch via public transit. Condescending tone is condescending.
  - archagon 1y ago
    Designing our urban transit around the needs of the mulch-bearing 0.1% seems like a bad idea.
    - dgfitz 1y ago
      Throwing out bullshit statistics like 0.1% is an ignorant take. See, it’s super easy to be a jerk.
      - Dylan16807 1y ago
        Saying we shouldn't design around that use case isn't being a jerk. And the exact number wasn't the point. The percent of consumer vehicles on the road that are carrying a significant payload to/from home is pretty small. Especially areas where transit even halfway makes sense. What's your best estimate?
        losvedir 1y ago
        Where I live, the percent of cars that carry a load that would be unwieldy to manage on public transit at least once per month has to be at least 50% and probably closer to 90%. From Costco trips to babies to wagons, strollers, wheel chairs, hardware stores, bigger box purchases like a TV, out of town trips to visit friends, pet grooming, airport trips with luggage, it's hard for me to imagine a life without a car. I know you can just say that I'm a product of my circumstances and culture and you don't need a car for any of that, or there are other ways to accomplish my goals, but I could say the same back to you. And the arrow of time seems to point to people everywhere moving in the direction of wanting personal mobility whether horses, bikes, or cars. It's not all or nothing, but it seems to make sense to me to build around cars as a first class concern, in addition to other forms of transit. Some places in Europe obviously can't, for historical reasons, but I don't see that as a benefit per se, so much as something to have to work around. Edit: I should add, I did live car free in Boston for 10 years and loved it and didn't really perceive any shortcomings at the time, and even hated having to buy a car when I moved. But now in my 40s with two young kids and a house and an elderly mother, it's an entirely different situation and I can't see how it would work. I would suggest if you're totally anti-car but only in your 20s or early 30s, your opinion might change as your circumstances do. I also lived for a year without a car in Singapore and that was tolerable in a way that wouldn't have been in most places, since it has some of the best public transit in the world, but even there cars are considered luxuries and it would have made things a little easier.
        Dylan16807 1y ago
        No no no, not the percentage of cars that sometimes carry a load, the percentage of cars on the road that are currently carrying such a load. If you do that once a week, then you can use transit the other 90% of the time. If people use transit 90% of the time, then we can build smaller roads and de-prioritize cars. That's the argument here, that transit can dominate in co-existence with self-driving cars, not that we'd need to get rid of cars. And especially in the context of waymo there's no effect of "I'm already paying a ton of money to own and insure a car, I might as well use it every trip". (And again, this is in moderately dense areas where transit works and you actually care about how many cars are on the road to begin with. And it doesn't have to be 90% in particular.)
    - glitchc 1y ago
      0.1%? You think so? Sorry you're wrong. Suburban population is the largest demographic in North America. And Home Depot says otherwise. They have reported record profits year over year for the past two decades. Just because you don't use sod in your condo doesn't mean suburbanites don't need it for their homes.
- xnx 1y ago
  > a superior user experience A superior user experience is going exactly from where I am to where I want to be safely, quickly, and affordably. Self-driving cars are looking really good for those criteria.
  - archagon 1y ago
    $20+ per ride is affordable? Waiting 10m+ for your ride and slowly sifting through traffic is quick? In London, Paris, or St. Petersburg, I pay a few bucks to hop on a train that runs every few minutes and rapidly end up across town, roughly in the area I need to be. It's literally the cheapest and fastest way to get from point A to point B, not to mention tested at scale and thoroughly battle-hardened over the course of a century. Not every city has this privilege, of course, but surface trams are 80% of the way there, especially if they have right-of-way. And they don't make pedestrians' lives a living hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNTg9EX7MLw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNTg9EX7MLw
    - xnx 1y ago
      > $20+ per ride is affordable? In the US, the unsubsidized price of a ticket is close to this amount. > Waiting 10m+ for your ride and slowly sifting through traffic is quick? In my city, it's difficult to pick any 2 points that are faster to get between by public transit vs. taxi. Every city is different, but trains rarely make sense in the US (outside of NYC). Right of way is the huge advantage of trains, it would be great if self-driving vehicles could have that same advantage.
    - simianwords 1y ago
      Where did you get $20 figure? Self driving cars are bound to be much cheaper because there is no human needed to drive it.
    - eldaisfish 1y ago
      you're shouting at a wall here. This site is absolutely infested with US techbros who believe that the solution to any problem is zero regulation and more computers. This is why self-driving cars appeal to this crowd. You and i seem to be from a world where public infrastructure like clean, affordable transit is the goal. This raises the floor for everyone. Many here would rather think solely of their own comfort, which is fine, but despite repeatedly being told that they are short-sighted, they refuse to change.
- johannes1234321 1y ago
  The core for a good experience is a good structure. In many regions of the U.S. people live too far apart, shops and businesses are zoned apart into wide spread business areas. Public transport won't provide a good experience. In a notable part of European cities people live in denser quarters, where a "third place" is reachable in walking distance, some degree of shipping, doctor visits, work are close by. There public transport can fill the gaps for the remaining trips in an (space) efficient way. Self driving cars however would clog the area. Adapting US settlement structure to allow public transport won't happen. However a self-driving car can turn the dial for individuals to move out of the urban European area into more rural areas. Question is how big that group is.

by dgfitz 1y ago

archagon 1y ago

…What? What sort of terminally online strawman would be spending his free time “virtue-signaling with Europe” to some anonymous bozos on a tech forum? What a dull and intellectually uncurious reply. I think self-driving cars may eventually become common in areas where cars are currently common. I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates, because it is simply a superior user experience for the majority of people when the government cares to invest in it. (Not to mention far cheaper and more egalitarian.) I am conveying my lived experience in most European cities I've been to.

glitchc 1y ago
Try moving a few bags of sod and mulch via public transit. Condescending tone is condescending.
- archagon 1y ago
  Designing our urban transit around the needs of the mulch-bearing 0.1% seems like a bad idea.
  - dgfitz 1y ago
    Throwing out bullshit statistics like 0.1% is an ignorant take. See, it’s super easy to be a jerk.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      Saying we shouldn't design around that use case isn't being a jerk. And the exact number wasn't the point. The percent of consumer vehicles on the road that are carrying a significant payload to/from home is pretty small. Especially areas where transit even halfway makes sense. What's your best estimate?
      - losvedir 1y ago
        Where I live, the percent of cars that carry a load that would be unwieldy to manage on public transit at least once per month has to be at least 50% and probably closer to 90%. From Costco trips to babies to wagons, strollers, wheel chairs, hardware stores, bigger box purchases like a TV, out of town trips to visit friends, pet grooming, airport trips with luggage, it's hard for me to imagine a life without a car. I know you can just say that I'm a product of my circumstances and culture and you don't need a car for any of that, or there are other ways to accomplish my goals, but I could say the same back to you. And the arrow of time seems to point to people everywhere moving in the direction of wanting personal mobility whether horses, bikes, or cars. It's not all or nothing, but it seems to make sense to me to build around cars as a first class concern, in addition to other forms of transit. Some places in Europe obviously can't, for historical reasons, but I don't see that as a benefit per se, so much as something to have to work around. Edit: I should add, I did live car free in Boston for 10 years and loved it and didn't really perceive any shortcomings at the time, and even hated having to buy a car when I moved. But now in my 40s with two young kids and a house and an elderly mother, it's an entirely different situation and I can't see how it would work. I would suggest if you're totally anti-car but only in your 20s or early 30s, your opinion might change as your circumstances do. I also lived for a year without a car in Singapore and that was tolerable in a way that wouldn't have been in most places, since it has some of the best public transit in the world, but even there cars are considered luxuries and it would have made things a little easier.
        Dylan16807 1y ago
        No no no, not the percentage of cars that sometimes carry a load, the percentage of cars on the road that are currently carrying such a load. If you do that once a week, then you can use transit the other 90% of the time. If people use transit 90% of the time, then we can build smaller roads and de-prioritize cars. That's the argument here, that transit can dominate in co-existence with self-driving cars, not that we'd need to get rid of cars. And especially in the context of waymo there's no effect of "I'm already paying a ton of money to own and insure a car, I might as well use it every trip". (And again, this is in moderately dense areas where transit works and you actually care about how many cars are on the road to begin with. And it doesn't have to be 90% in particular.)
  - glitchc 1y ago
    0.1%? You think so? Sorry you're wrong. Suburban population is the largest demographic in North America. And Home Depot says otherwise. They have reported record profits year over year for the past two decades. Just because you don't use sod in your condo doesn't mean suburbanites don't need it for their homes.
xnx 1y ago
> a superior user experience A superior user experience is going exactly from where I am to where I want to be safely, quickly, and affordably. Self-driving cars are looking really good for those criteria.
- archagon 1y ago
  $20+ per ride is affordable? Waiting 10m+ for your ride and slowly sifting through traffic is quick? In London, Paris, or St. Petersburg, I pay a few bucks to hop on a train that runs every few minutes and rapidly end up across town, roughly in the area I need to be. It's literally the cheapest and fastest way to get from point A to point B, not to mention tested at scale and thoroughly battle-hardened over the course of a century. Not every city has this privilege, of course, but surface trams are 80% of the way there, especially if they have right-of-way. And they don't make pedestrians' lives a living hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNTg9EX7MLw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNTg9EX7MLw
  - xnx 1y ago
    > $20+ per ride is affordable? In the US, the unsubsidized price of a ticket is close to this amount. > Waiting 10m+ for your ride and slowly sifting through traffic is quick? In my city, it's difficult to pick any 2 points that are faster to get between by public transit vs. taxi. Every city is different, but trains rarely make sense in the US (outside of NYC). Right of way is the huge advantage of trains, it would be great if self-driving vehicles could have that same advantage.
  - simianwords 1y ago
    Where did you get $20 figure? Self driving cars are bound to be much cheaper because there is no human needed to drive it.
  - eldaisfish 1y ago
    you're shouting at a wall here. This site is absolutely infested with US techbros who believe that the solution to any problem is zero regulation and more computers. This is why self-driving cars appeal to this crowd. You and i seem to be from a world where public infrastructure like clean, affordable transit is the goal. This raises the floor for everyone. Many here would rather think solely of their own comfort, which is fine, but despite repeatedly being told that they are short-sighted, they refuse to change.
johannes1234321 1y ago
The core for a good experience is a good structure. In many regions of the U.S. people live too far apart, shops and businesses are zoned apart into wide spread business areas. Public transport won't provide a good experience. In a notable part of European cities people live in denser quarters, where a "third place" is reachable in walking distance, some degree of shipping, doctor visits, work are close by. There public transport can fill the gaps for the remaining trips in an (space) efficient way. Self driving cars however would clog the area. Adapting US settlement structure to allow public transport won't happen. However a self-driving car can turn the dial for individuals to move out of the urban European area into more rural areas. Question is how big that group is.