Automated Vehicles Can't Save Cities

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/27/opinion/automated-vehicles-cant-save-cities.html

by ochang • 8 years ago

16 24 8 years ago

cities don't exist in a vacuum. Many towns die because something essential like a coal mine was removed from the economy, just like removing cars (no matter how noble) could kill some cities too.

eesmith2• 8 years ago

I wasn't able to read the article. It was completely blank in my browser.

Could you say who is saying that we should remove cars from a city, even to the point that it would kill the city?

Because I've not heard anyone propose that. I've heard of car-free regions of a city, and cities like Venice which effectively had no private cars, and bans on some cars (like gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles in favor of electric).

But never to the point that it would kill a city.

bob_theslob6462• 8 years ago

You have to physically click the page on it in order for it to load. The page is interactive even though the it doesn't explicitly say so. The New York Times assumes you know.

jenkstom• 8 years ago

I get the argument, but my quality of life will be improved dramatically without the constant road rage-inducing craziness of my 23 minute commute.

Tiktaalik• 8 years ago

It's quite likely that your commute will get longer than 23 minutes as autonomous vehicles remove the barriers to driving and encourage more people to drive, thus increasing congestion.

alenox• 8 years ago

Yeah, but you’ll be able to use all that wait time consuming ads!

rmuesi• 8 years ago

This was some weak ass logic.

tim333• 8 years ago

I was thinking that. Even the title implies cites need saving whereas in reality they are growing merrily - it's the isolated small towns that need saving if anything.

noahmbarr• 8 years ago

I think we can all agree that cities should be “humans first”, not “car first”.

CodeWriter236• 8 years ago

Sorry, the figure of 1600 cars per hour is complete and utter bullshit. If just 5 cars get through a signal on a 30 second cycle, that’s 600 cars per hour. For a single intersection. How many intersections are there in a city?

A well designed intersection can easily get 20 cars through per cycle.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of bus lanes and really a fan of light rail. But I really hate this type of hype where basic assumptions don’t pass the smell test.

And if you want to get into some real economics, a system like the LA Metro Authority operates at about 20% Fare Box Recovery. That means for every $1 of fare collected, a subsidy of $4 is required to keep the system running. At least when someone drives their own car, they are actually paying their own way.

jackvalentine3• 8 years ago

At least when someone drives their own car, they are actually paying their own way.

Do they? The sheer amount of infrastructure for cars and parking make me question that statement.

CodeWriter236• 8 years ago

Taxes

TheCoelacanth4• 8 years ago

The numbers appear to be for how much traffic can pass in a single lane's worth of space. Their numbers make sense for a single traffic lane[1], one subway line[2] and one 2.5 meter (a bit narrower than a standard traffic lane) bike path[3], all of which take up pretty close to the same amount of space.

[1] http://www.mikeontraffic.com/numbers-every-traffic-engineer-...

[2] https://www.thoughtco.com/passenger-capacity-of-transit-2798...

[3] https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/5_Zhou-Xu-Wang-...

CodeWriter236• 8 years ago

A single lane does not tell the traffic story for an entire city.

bob_theslob6462• 8 years ago

What I think the author fails to touch on well is the fact that transit is not sexy or at least not sexy yet, at least in the United States.

Have you ever noticed that most car commercials capture the essence of a confident person in control of their own destiny? I know it sounds like b* but they all do it.

The reality is drivers are in control of their own destiny if they were driving on a road by themselves.

The United States has to figure out a way to make mass transit sexy sooner rather than later,otherwise it will never work.

The hilarious thing is investing in High-Speed Rail maybe one of the best things that the US can do because not only will it make people happier if they run as efficiently as they do in Japan but the cost of goods could severely go down therefore eliminating some poverty which the u.s. census has reported that transportation or rather lack of access to it has been linked to poverty.

Automated Vehicles Can't Save Cities

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