tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6609536178570975752.post6535464058014489456..comments2024-01-12T00:32:20.149-08:00Comments on The Overhead Wire: Most Read: Are Self Driving Cars Just Us Ignoring the Real Issues?Pantograph Trolleypolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17833159138533550544noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6609536178570975752.post-81725238297879673092015-09-16T12:46:14.105-07:002015-09-16T12:46:14.105-07:00Jeff - you match my exact thinking from about a ye...Jeff - you match my exact thinking from about a year ago. I have since come around to a new mindset - I think you are guilty of some of the same projection bias.<br /><br />Right now, in San Francisco, we dedicate a lot of land to parking. Parking lots, parking garages, garages in homes. In the utopia of the shared self-driving car these garages go away. That's a lot of housing that can infill into cities. A lot of why we see car usage is because distances are too far. Instead of solving the last mile problem, a better solution is to eliminate that problem by moving people into the last mile.<br /><br />Then consider this line - "Guess what the problem is usually with transit and even biking and walking. CARS ARE IN THE WAY!" Well, this is somewhat true, but in many cases the primary problem is that a car just might run you over. This is especially acute for biking. But if we do a very good job with production of the self driving car, the problem of getting hit by a car goes away. <br /><br />With safer roads, walking and cycling become more attractive and get a higher mode share. And they become even more attractive because driving your own car is seen as "free" once you own the car. When you hail a "shared" self driving car, you have to pay. Now the formerly hidden costs are in full view and people make rational decisions and bike/walk more since the formerly obvious cost of danger goes away. <br /><br />With explicit costs for taking the shared self driving car, the incentive to carpool goes way up, and the technology will advance to where it becomes trivial. You hail a car to send your kid to school, the app tells you that another child has just boarded a car, do you want to share the ride? Car trips cut in half (though what we really hope is that kids walk or bike, but you get my point).<br /><br />This frees up space in many ways. We can also reclaim street parking. In many cases we can reclaim bike lanes which are built for reasons like traffic calming - in the self-driving car paradigm we don't need traffic calming because all we need to do is program the car to be calm and voila! That freed up road space can become many things. If traffic volumes are very low, entire streets can be pulled off of the grid - imagine just plopping housing and retail in the 3 traffic lanes of Valencia, leaving the former parking and bike lanes for bikes and emergency vehicles only. Which then continues this virtuous cycle.<br /><br />Dare to dream.murphstahoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17378354136823393492noreply@blogger.com