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Unfortunately, self-driving cars are unlikely to alleviate traffic problems and congestion. In reality, they will become a form of mass transit themselves, you go on an app and call a really cheap, self-driving uber to pick you up. Yes, there will be a level of optimization (cars driving extremely close together, taking the fastest routes, elimination of need for parking lots), however, it doesn't solve the issue of massively aging infrastructure and booming smaller cities where population and commuter growth is simply outpacing any hope of building more freeway capacity on any kind of scale, and where public transit is basically non-existent (Austin/Nashville etc.).
I like to be optimistic, but looking generally, automated planes have not made air travel easier, work from home laptops have not made all jobs work from home, the Internet has caused as many problems as it has solved. Why in the world are automated cars, a very nascent technology anyway, going to be such a savior? In the meantime, today, in cities like Chicago, SF Boston and DC (even Atlanta), people are living in massively dense, but still car-centric cities but have pretty easy lives when they live and work on a mass transit stop. I wouldn't discount an option we have today for an idea that has a long way to go.
Its become fashionable for the cities that failed or were too lazy to build mass transit to say "oh driverless cars are coming anyway to replace all that."
A train car the length of three automobiles can ride 50 people and go underground, so no.
A few thoughts here, coming from someone who loves trains in general, and has benefited from using them in several Asian Countries.
There is a threshold at which high speed rail is quicker than both a car and a train. I don't know the exact numbers, but it's probably distances between 1.5 and 6 hours drive time. Shorter than that, and a car is quicker, longer and a plane is quicker. So you have to start with areas where there are a cluster of locations within this sweetspot. I think these parts of the US have already been identified.
Secondly, let's assume it takes 15 years to build out such a network. Where will we be with cars at this time? I agree with another that car ownership will probably decline, and many will just summon a self driving car on an app. This will have many benefits.......shared resources, driving efficiencies. An individual might be willing to put up with a longer/slower drive it they have the freedom to work while driving, or perhaps the car drives faster on existing infrastructure due to sensors and such.
Once again, I personally love trains.....but is it the next best option in say 15 years? I would hate to see a telephone line scenario (america was a first adopter of land line phones and their ugly infrastructure, and we were later leapfrogged in cell phone adoption by countries that chose to never invest in landlines and just leapfrogged us).
I want it noted that I am one of the most intense railroad buffs at this forum -- and I voted an absolute NO; here's why:
Rail-based public transit systems seem to have become one of the poster children for the Left-leaning not-really-"liberal'' -- who are very adept at deciding what's good for all the rest of us, and spending other people's money to pay for it.
They have little grasp of how the present (promising, but stagnant) city transit systems evolved -- or of the limitations -- both economic and technical -- which would make the fantasies presented in the pop-culture media either impossible, or prohibitively expensive -- and they sometimes ignore existent, or former systems, which could be revived or expanded at far less cost.
With the exceptions of Los Angeles and Washington, DC, the established American public-transit networks in cities like Boston. New York. Philadelphia and Chicago developed within established communities and neighborhoods. What began as successful private enterprises eventually failed -- 0nce the local hacks and grafters. and their point-and-grunt, slobbering clientele found a way to loot them via the ballot box.
And there us zero chance od rebuilding that antiquated system into the fantasies sold to the kiddies and the tea-time talk-show audiences; too many century-old tunnels, drawbridges and sharp curves which could only be replaced at the cost of tens of billions.
The "self-driving car" faddists suffer from most of the same combination of technical over-simplification and myopia (shortr-sightedness).
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 10-29-2019 at 03:04 PM..
Ive spent most of my life in Europe using commuter trains for much of that time. I voted No. Id rather sit in traffic than have someones armpit in my face in a contained steelbox whose temperature I cannot regulate. Mass transit turns people into ants.
Commuter trains are not supposed to be like subways. Idk where you were, but even here in NJ, commuter trains allow you to get a seat almost without fail in the afternoons. I've never taken one during morning rush. Nobody's armpits are in your face on commuter rail. That's something that happens more on subways.
Either way, public transit is and always will be the most efficient way to move massive amounts of people throughout a region.
Most Americans would never use it, and even those voting Yes on this kind of poll do so assuming someone else will pay the bill.
I think you're underestimating. Not everyone has to use it for it to be effective and efficient.
Also, what's your point on who pays for it? It's why I pay taxes. IMO, my taxes should be used to build infrastructure that benefits Americans. OTOH, there are other people in this (not so) fine country of ours who think their taxes should be used to build bombs to destroy the infrastructure of and kill the residents of foreign countries. Idk about you, but my tax money, if I were able to choose how it was spent, would contribute much more to the good of society than someone's money who went to bomb brown people in the Middle East for believing in the wrong sky daddy.
Mass transit is a 19th century concept. In news from Britain, I regularly read horror stories of delays and cancellations: leaves on the track, cleanup from a suicide, storms, protestors gluing themselves to transport, platform pushers, etc.
Sounds like a day in the life of an urban interstate highway.
I vote for anything that gets cars off the road. Too congested, too much lack of respect and absent of basic driver's education.
We could go back to riding horses for all I care. Anything whatsoever to end the madness of automobile transportation in this country.
Commuter trains are not supposed to be like subways. Idk where you were, but even here in NJ, commuter trains allow you to get a seat almost without fail in the afternoons. I've never taken one during morning rush. Nobody's armpits are in your face on commuter rail. That's something that happens more on subways.
Either way, public transit is and always will be the most efficient way to move massive amounts of people throughout a region.
Ive used commuter rail in Germany and the UK. During rush hour you wont get seats if you arent getting on toward the start or end of the line. Its packed. They often dont even have AC, so in summer you may literally have people collapse (saw it twice with my own eyes). In winter they crank up the heat even tho everyone is wearing coats and sweaters etc. so you are sweating your a** off and then are let out onto a freezing platform.
Folks always just look at this stuff in an idealized way. In reality what it means is dependence on some massive likely government bankrolled organization whose staff are mostly happy to do the bare minimum.
Commuter trains are not supposed to be like subways. Idk where you were, but even here in NJ, commuter trains allow you to get a seat almost without fail in the afternoons. I've never taken one during morning rush. Nobody's armpits are in your face on commuter rail. That's something that happens more on subways.
Either way, public transit is and always will be the most efficient way to move massive amounts of people throughout a region.
Some (most?) NJT lines get packed during rush hour when you get on closer to the city. PATH is extremely crowded. Both are standing room only during rush hour as they get into the city. That's why we need more. Our transit system is so old and was not designed for the volume of people we have taking it. We have trains going through 100 year old tunnels and over 110 year old bridges (Portal Bridge) in one of the most economically important regions of the world. It's not sustainable and needs an overhaul. We need more and better mass transit in key areas like this but not in like, Lima, Ohio, or something.
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