3 ms·

Is it unfortunate, or just a different priority in a different place? Those are also cities with a great public option for transit (unlike, say, Dallas or the

Is it unfortunate, or just a different priority in a different place? Those are also cities with a great public option for transit (unlike, say, Dallas or the Bay Area where different municipalities squabble). One might laud New York driving people away from car culture when the subways/buses can serve more people, greener.

xnx 1mo ago
Perhaps, but I can't think of why Waymo should be prohibited but not Uber or taxis.
- egypturnash 1mo ago
  Taxis and barely-legal app taxis both require a human to drive. Someone who's earning a living doing this, and paying taxes to NYC. Waymo is driven by a robot, owned by a company out in California, who has a lot of lawyers doing their best to avoid as much financial and legal liability as possible. Not that Uber and its ilk isn't doing the same thing but they've still got a tax-paying citizen in the loop. The current mayor of NYC is a DemSoc so he might have some ideas about keeping NYC's money in the pockets of middle-class NYC citizens.
  - pnw 1mo ago
    I don't think all of the economic benefit stays in NYC even when you take a yellow cab. A significant share of NYC taxi medallions are owned by entities based outside the city. Marblegate Capital in Connecticut owns about 2,146 medallions—nearly 16% of all NYC taxi medallions. They make more profit off the medallion financing business than actually operating the taxis which is basically break-even AFAIK.
    - egypturnash 1mo ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if that's somewhere on Zorhan's to-do list :)
      - DiscourseFan 1mo ago
        Yeah but the plan of "ban them because the taxi drivers union said so" is ludicrous. Why not have a partial integration with re-training programs for existing taxi drivers, and work with the city council to establish laws that effectively strip Waymo of its profits for operating in the city, making them only barely break even, and siphoning the rest of the funds into the aforementioned retraining programs and transport infrastructure more broadly. Even a 3% profit margin in one of the largest markets in the world is better than none at all, Waymo is effectively forced to comply with any measures NYC imposes. This doesn't have to be the case nationally either: many areas are relatively underserved by even Uber and Lyft, and there is plenty of room for Waymo in those markets, and I imagine those "empty" parts of the US, in total, eclipse the size of NYC. There, it will be nothing but a boon. But in established cities like NYC, it is almost certainly best practice to keep as much profit in the local economy as possible, since Waymo is not, in the end, drastically multiplying economic productivity in those cities.
        fragmede 1mo ago
        Then again, the areas underserved by Uber/Lyft are underserved because they're bad neighborhoods so drivers won't go there. How many Waymos need to be torched or their passengers carjacked before Waymo decides to stop going there? Fun fact, if you throw a traffic cone at the Waymo, it panics and stops moving, meaning your can now break the rear windows and assault the passengers for their valuables. If you wear a mask and leave your phone at home, there's no recourse for the passengers.
        DiscourseFan 1mo ago
        I was thinking of rural areas, not dangerous neighbourhoods, which are already served by uber/lyft
  - xnx 1mo ago
    Allow Waymo and leave the choice up to residents. If they want to pay a driver they can.
  - matchbok3 1mo ago
    Nobody is keeping money in anybody's pockets. What you are advocating for is a tax on NYC people to force them to use human drivers instead of new technology. Just like the toll booth operators of the 90s. It is so disappointing to see the tech class advocate for laws that keep jobs that are unhealthy and lead to nowhere (cabbies) instead of moving the country forward (and those people getting other, hopefully better, jobs). But again, that type of short-sighted, zero-sum/socialist thinking is becoming more common, sadly.
cyberax 1mo ago
Buses and subways are not necessarily "greener".
- realo 1mo ago
  30 people in 30 waymos vs 30 people in an electric bus? No contest.
  - xnx 1mo ago
    No contest when the bus is full, but the overall efficiency (/"greeness") of the system is much less clear considering: buses are rarely full, most buses are diesel, heavy buses tear up the pavement on their routes (especially near stops), and buses don't take riders directly to/from their destinations.
    - laurencerowe 1mo ago
      Most of the city buses in my UK home town are now battery electric double deckers. These carry up to 85-90 people (with 25 standing), weigh 11 tonnes, and is 10.5m long. A typical jaguar Waymo usually carries up to 4 people (usually just one), weighs 2.1 tonnes and is 5.2m long. So the double decker bus should be more environmentally efficient with maybe 5 passengers making independent journeys, though operational costs for paying a driver probably make the Waymo more financially efficient in that situation. I suspect robotaxis will become very important in suburban areas with distributed jobs where buses don’t work well. In busy cities there simply isn’t the roadspace to replace buses with robotaxis (or any other form of car) for commuting.
      - cyberax 1mo ago
        > A typical jaguar Waymo usually carries up to 4 people (usually just one), weighs 2.1 tonnes and is 5.2m long. A more reasonable taxi for single riders is going to weigh around 1.5 tons (e.g. the prototype Tesla Robocab). You also incorrectly assume that the efficiency depends linearly on weight. It doesn't, it depends more on aerodynamics, speed, and the number of stops. London buses (11 tons) average around 2.2 kWh/mi, Tesla Model 3 is at 0.21 kWh/mi while weighing 1.8 tons.

xnx 1mo ago

Perhaps, but I can't think of why Waymo should be prohibited but not Uber or taxis.

egypturnash 1mo ago
Taxis and barely-legal app taxis both require a human to drive. Someone who's earning a living doing this, and paying taxes to NYC. Waymo is driven by a robot, owned by a company out in California, who has a lot of lawyers doing their best to avoid as much financial and legal liability as possible. Not that Uber and its ilk isn't doing the same thing but they've still got a tax-paying citizen in the loop. The current mayor of NYC is a DemSoc so he might have some ideas about keeping NYC's money in the pockets of middle-class NYC citizens.
- pnw 1mo ago
  I don't think all of the economic benefit stays in NYC even when you take a yellow cab. A significant share of NYC taxi medallions are owned by entities based outside the city. Marblegate Capital in Connecticut owns about 2,146 medallions—nearly 16% of all NYC taxi medallions. They make more profit off the medallion financing business than actually operating the taxis which is basically break-even AFAIK.
  - egypturnash 1mo ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if that's somewhere on Zorhan's to-do list :)
    - DiscourseFan 1mo ago
      Yeah but the plan of "ban them because the taxi drivers union said so" is ludicrous. Why not have a partial integration with re-training programs for existing taxi drivers, and work with the city council to establish laws that effectively strip Waymo of its profits for operating in the city, making them only barely break even, and siphoning the rest of the funds into the aforementioned retraining programs and transport infrastructure more broadly. Even a 3% profit margin in one of the largest markets in the world is better than none at all, Waymo is effectively forced to comply with any measures NYC imposes. This doesn't have to be the case nationally either: many areas are relatively underserved by even Uber and Lyft, and there is plenty of room for Waymo in those markets, and I imagine those "empty" parts of the US, in total, eclipse the size of NYC. There, it will be nothing but a boon. But in established cities like NYC, it is almost certainly best practice to keep as much profit in the local economy as possible, since Waymo is not, in the end, drastically multiplying economic productivity in those cities.
      - fragmede 1mo ago
        Then again, the areas underserved by Uber/Lyft are underserved because they're bad neighborhoods so drivers won't go there. How many Waymos need to be torched or their passengers carjacked before Waymo decides to stop going there? Fun fact, if you throw a traffic cone at the Waymo, it panics and stops moving, meaning your can now break the rear windows and assault the passengers for their valuables. If you wear a mask and leave your phone at home, there's no recourse for the passengers.
        DiscourseFan 1mo ago
        I was thinking of rural areas, not dangerous neighbourhoods, which are already served by uber/lyft
- xnx 1mo ago
  Allow Waymo and leave the choice up to residents. If they want to pay a driver they can.
- matchbok3 1mo ago
  Nobody is keeping money in anybody's pockets. What you are advocating for is a tax on NYC people to force them to use human drivers instead of new technology. Just like the toll booth operators of the 90s. It is so disappointing to see the tech class advocate for laws that keep jobs that are unhealthy and lead to nowhere (cabbies) instead of moving the country forward (and those people getting other, hopefully better, jobs). But again, that type of short-sighted, zero-sum/socialist thinking is becoming more common, sadly.

cyberax 1mo ago

Buses and subways are not necessarily "greener".

realo 1mo ago
30 people in 30 waymos vs 30 people in an electric bus? No contest.
- xnx 1mo ago
  No contest when the bus is full, but the overall efficiency (/"greeness") of the system is much less clear considering: buses are rarely full, most buses are diesel, heavy buses tear up the pavement on their routes (especially near stops), and buses don't take riders directly to/from their destinations.
  - laurencerowe 1mo ago
    Most of the city buses in my UK home town are now battery electric double deckers. These carry up to 85-90 people (with 25 standing), weigh 11 tonnes, and is 10.5m long. A typical jaguar Waymo usually carries up to 4 people (usually just one), weighs 2.1 tonnes and is 5.2m long. So the double decker bus should be more environmentally efficient with maybe 5 passengers making independent journeys, though operational costs for paying a driver probably make the Waymo more financially efficient in that situation. I suspect robotaxis will become very important in suburban areas with distributed jobs where buses don’t work well. In busy cities there simply isn’t the roadspace to replace buses with robotaxis (or any other form of car) for commuting.
    - cyberax 1mo ago
      > A typical jaguar Waymo usually carries up to 4 people (usually just one), weighs 2.1 tonnes and is 5.2m long. A more reasonable taxi for single riders is going to weigh around 1.5 tons (e.g. the prototype Tesla Robocab). You also incorrectly assume that the efficiency depends linearly on weight. It doesn't, it depends more on aerodynamics, speed, and the number of stops. London buses (11 tons) average around 2.2 kWh/mi, Tesla Model 3 is at 0.21 kWh/mi while weighing 1.8 tons.