4 ms·

Nope. Having a good car infrastructure doesn't mean everyone has or can have a car. No amount of car infrastructure will serve the need of having the city cor

by Frondo 11y ago

Nope. Having a good car infrastructure doesn't mean everyone has or can have a car. No amount of car infrastructure will serve the need of having the city core fill up with workers driving in their own cars during the day, either. In a fictional future world where self-driving cars are ubiquitous, they'll likely serve, in miniature form, the same role that buses and trams do now; except they'll be more point-to-point than those; one could pick you and a few others on the corner near your flat, drive you to your offices, and go do it again.

jerf 11y ago
"In a fictional future world where self-driving cars are ubiquitous, they'll likely serve, in miniature form, the same role that buses and trams do now; except they'll be more point-to-point than those; one could pick you and a few others on the corner near your flat, drive you to your offices, and go do it again." To be honest, since I suspect that world won't be fictional, I think this whole debate is really a waste of time now. It wouldn't even matter if an alien brain ray struck the entire world and suddenly everybody agreed that public transportation was totally the only way to do anything ever, and all public transport spending was 100% rerouted into public transport... self-driving cars would still obviate all the plans before we could possibly fully enact them. In a world where that level of consensus isn't going to happen, it's even moreso a waste of time.
- Frondo 11y ago
  I think that is an implausible level of optimism about the ubiquity of self-driving cars. Building for a mixed-used future, with public transit serving a lot of people's needs for the next 30-40 years, and self-driving cars potentially starting to fill in the gaps in our lifetimes, seems like a far more realistic solution than "do nothing and wait for self-driving cars".
  - jerf 11y ago
    It's realism about the fact that you aren't going to drop in public transport everywhere in the US in anything less than several decades anyhow, in the face of the realistic opposition you're going to encounter to such a plan. It's fundamentally a hard sell you're trying to make for a lot of people, to give up the freedom to go anywhere they want whenever they want in exchange for going where the public transportation is going when the public transportation is going there. In a dense city like NY that may not be much of a tradeoff, but in huge swathes of the US that's an attempt to sell an incredible shrinkage of personal power to feed the moral goals that are, statistically speaking, not even necessarily particularly shared by the people being asked to give up their cars. Quite a lot of people don't live in the big cities, after all. On the other hand, when you can either own a car for all the money the public transport people are generally complaining about, or you can use a self-driving car service that still takes you anywhere you want, anytime you want, for less than you could own a car for, you've got a much easier sell. If self-driving cars don't happen, well, frankly, give up your public transportation dreams. Self-driving car transport networks the only realistic path forward. Perhaps there are alternate universes where everything worked out peachy, but that doesn't provide you any help moving forward here.
    - Frondo 11y ago
      What? Nearly every city already has public transportation, mostly buses, though more light rail/streetcar lines are built year by year. I know that very, very small towns (e.g. of the size you can walk across in 20 minutes) often have no bus system, but of course one isn't needed when the town is small enough. No one's restricting your freedom by building public transportation, either. I have no idea where you're getting any of this stuff. I know of no US city that's looking at an auto ban in the city core, not like some European cities have done. If you do, I'd love to hear more. I can't even make sense of the the last paragraph you wrote, "if self-driving cars don't happen, give up your public transportation dreams"? Public transportation already exists, and self-driving cars are decades off from being available to the general public.
      - jerf 11y ago
        "Nearly every city already has public transportation, mostly buses," Oh, well, then, problem solved. Why are we even having this conversation, then? Obviously, because you want more than we currently have, in a rather staggering quantity. You can't both have enough and want much, much more whenever it suits you in the argument.
        Frondo 11y ago
        Original post said "If you had good car infrastructure, and many medium sized cities do, the public transportion wouldn't be needed." That is not true. Public transportation will always play a role. You were the one who brought up freedom??

by Frondo 11y ago

jerf 11y ago

"In a fictional future world where self-driving cars are ubiquitous, they'll likely serve, in miniature form, the same role that buses and trams do now; except they'll be more point-to-point than those; one could pick you and a few others on the corner near your flat, drive you to your offices, and go do it again." To be honest, since I suspect that world won't be fictional, I think this whole debate is really a waste of time now. It wouldn't even matter if an alien brain ray struck the entire world and suddenly everybody agreed that public transportation was totally the only way to do anything ever, and all public transport spending was 100% rerouted into public transport... self-driving cars would still obviate all the plans before we could possibly fully enact them. In a world where that level of consensus isn't going to happen, it's even moreso a waste of time.

Frondo 11y ago
I think that is an implausible level of optimism about the ubiquity of self-driving cars. Building for a mixed-used future, with public transit serving a lot of people's needs for the next 30-40 years, and self-driving cars potentially starting to fill in the gaps in our lifetimes, seems like a far more realistic solution than "do nothing and wait for self-driving cars".
- jerf 11y ago
  It's realism about the fact that you aren't going to drop in public transport everywhere in the US in anything less than several decades anyhow, in the face of the realistic opposition you're going to encounter to such a plan. It's fundamentally a hard sell you're trying to make for a lot of people, to give up the freedom to go anywhere they want whenever they want in exchange for going where the public transportation is going when the public transportation is going there. In a dense city like NY that may not be much of a tradeoff, but in huge swathes of the US that's an attempt to sell an incredible shrinkage of personal power to feed the moral goals that are, statistically speaking, not even necessarily particularly shared by the people being asked to give up their cars. Quite a lot of people don't live in the big cities, after all. On the other hand, when you can either own a car for all the money the public transport people are generally complaining about, or you can use a self-driving car service that still takes you anywhere you want, anytime you want, for less than you could own a car for, you've got a much easier sell. If self-driving cars don't happen, well, frankly, give up your public transportation dreams. Self-driving car transport networks the only realistic path forward. Perhaps there are alternate universes where everything worked out peachy, but that doesn't provide you any help moving forward here.
  - Frondo 11y ago
    What? Nearly every city already has public transportation, mostly buses, though more light rail/streetcar lines are built year by year. I know that very, very small towns (e.g. of the size you can walk across in 20 minutes) often have no bus system, but of course one isn't needed when the town is small enough. No one's restricting your freedom by building public transportation, either. I have no idea where you're getting any of this stuff. I know of no US city that's looking at an auto ban in the city core, not like some European cities have done. If you do, I'd love to hear more. I can't even make sense of the the last paragraph you wrote, "if self-driving cars don't happen, give up your public transportation dreams"? Public transportation already exists, and self-driving cars are decades off from being available to the general public.
    - jerf 11y ago
      "Nearly every city already has public transportation, mostly buses," Oh, well, then, problem solved. Why are we even having this conversation, then? Obviously, because you want more than we currently have, in a rather staggering quantity. You can't both have enough and want much, much more whenever it suits you in the argument.
      - Frondo 11y ago
        Original post said "If you had good car infrastructure, and many medium sized cities do, the public transportion wouldn't be needed." That is not true. Public transportation will always play a role. You were the one who brought up freedom??