…What? What sort of terminally online strawman would be spending his free time “virtue-signaling with Europe” to some anonymous bozos on a tech forum? What a dull and intellectually uncurious reply.

I think self-driving cars may eventually become common in areas where cars are currently common. I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates, because it is simply a superior user experience for the majority of people when the government cares to invest in it. (Not to mention far cheaper and more egalitarian.)

I am conveying my lived experience in most European cities I've been to.

▲

xnx 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> a superior user experience

A superior user experience is going exactly from where I am to where I want to be safely, quickly, and affordably. Self-driving cars are looking really good for those criteria.

▲

archagon 3 days ago | parent [-]

$20+ per ride is affordable? Waiting 10m+ for your ride and slowly sifting through traffic is quick?

In London, Paris, or St. Petersburg, I pay a few bucks to hop on a train that runs every few minutes and rapidly end up across town, roughly in the area I need to be. It's literally the cheapest and fastest way to get from point A to point B, not to mention tested at scale and thoroughly battle-hardened over the course of a century.

Not every city has this privilege, of course, but surface trams are 80% of the way there, especially if they have right-of-way. And they don't make pedestrians' lives a living hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNTg9EX7MLw

	▲	xnx 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> $20+ per ride is affordable? In the US, the unsubsidized price of a ticket is close to this amount. > Waiting 10m+ for your ride and slowly sifting through traffic is quick? In my city, it's difficult to pick any 2 points that are faster to get between by public transit vs. taxi. Every city is different, but trains rarely make sense in the US (outside of NYC). Right of way is the huge advantage of trains, it would be great if self-driving vehicles could have that same advantage.
	▲	eldaisfish 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		you're shouting at a wall here. This site is absolutely infested with US techbros who believe that the solution to any problem is zero regulation and more computers. This is why self-driving cars appeal to this crowd. You and i seem to be from a world where public infrastructure like clean, affordable transit is the goal. This raises the floor for everyone. Many here would rather think solely of their own comfort, which is fine, but despite repeatedly being told that they are short-sighted, they refuse to change.
	▲	simianwords 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Where did you get $20 figure? Self driving cars are bound to be much cheaper because there is no human needed to drive it.

▲

johannes1234321 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The core for a good experience is a good structure.

In many regions of the U.S. people live too far apart, shops and businesses are zoned apart into wide spread business areas. Public transport won't provide a good experience.

In a notable part of European cities people live in denser quarters, where a "third place" is reachable in walking distance, some degree of shipping, doctor visits, work are close by. There public transport can fill the gaps for the remaining trips in an (space) efficient way. Self driving cars however would clog the area.

Adapting US settlement structure to allow public transport won't happen. However a self-driving car can turn the dial for individuals to move out of the urban European area into more rural areas. Question is how big that group is.

▲

glitchc 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Try moving a few bags of sod and mulch via public transit. Condescending tone is condescending.

▲

archagon 3 days ago | parent [-]

Designing our urban transit around the needs of the mulch-bearing 0.1% seems like a bad idea.

▲

glitchc 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

0.1%? You think so? Sorry you're wrong. Suburban population is the largest demographic in North America.

And Home Depot says otherwise. They have reported record profits year over year for the past two decades. Just because you don't use sod in your condo doesn't mean suburbanites don't need it for their homes.

▲

dgfitz 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Throwing out bullshit statistics like 0.1% is an ignorant take.

See, it’s super easy to be a jerk.

▲

Dylan16807 3 days ago | parent [-]

Saying we shouldn't design around that use case isn't being a jerk.

And the exact number wasn't the point. The percent of consumer vehicles on the road that are carrying a significant payload to/from home is pretty small. Especially areas where transit even halfway makes sense. What's your best estimate?

▲

losvedir 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Where I live, the percent of cars that carry a load that would be unwieldy to manage on public transit at least once per month has to be at least 50% and probably closer to 90%.

From Costco trips to babies to wagons, strollers, wheel chairs, hardware stores, bigger box purchases like a TV, out of town trips to visit friends, pet grooming, airport trips with luggage, it's hard for me to imagine a life without a car.

I know you can just say that I'm a product of my circumstances and culture and you don't need a car for any of that, or there are other ways to accomplish my goals, but I could say the same back to you. And the arrow of time seems to point to people everywhere moving in the direction of wanting personal mobility whether horses, bikes, or cars.

It's not all or nothing, but it seems to make sense to me to build around cars as a first class concern, in addition to other forms of transit. Some places in Europe obviously can't, for historical reasons, but I don't see that as a benefit per se, so much as something to have to work around.

Edit: I should add, I did live car free in Boston for 10 years and loved it and didn't really perceive any shortcomings at the time, and even hated having to buy a car when I moved. But now in my 40s with two young kids and a house and an elderly mother, it's an entirely different situation and I can't see how it would work. I would suggest if you're totally anti-car but only in your 20s or early 30s, your opinion might change as your circumstances do. I also lived for a year without a car in Singapore and that was tolerable in a way that wouldn't have been in most places, since it has some of the best public transit in the world, but even there cars are considered luxuries and it would have made things a little easier.

▲

Dylan16807 2 days ago | parent [-]

No no no, not the percentage of cars that sometimes carry a load, the percentage of cars on the road that are currently carrying such a load.

If you do that once a week, then you can use transit the other 90% of the time. If people use transit 90% of the time, then we can build smaller roads and de-prioritize cars. That's the argument here, that transit can dominate in co-existence with self-driving cars, not that we'd need to get rid of cars. And especially in the context of waymo there's no effect of "I'm already paying a ton of money to own and insure a car, I might as well use it every trip".

(And again, this is in moderately dense areas where transit works and you actually care about how many cars are on the road to begin with. And it doesn't have to be 90% in particular.)

▲

glitchc a day ago | parent | next [-]

It doesn't work that way. Once a car is obtained, it has fixed costs. My monthly finance payments can't be pro-rated to the days I actually use the car. Ditto for insurance. In many cases, the best deal for insurance is to pay for the year up-front. Bears repeating, a year, up-front. Insurance companies incentivize this. Between those two, that's 80% of the TCO. Fuel and maintenance are actually incidentals based on usage and account for < 20% of annual ownership costs.

Ergo, it's no surprise that people want to use them as often as possible. They want to recoup value from those fixed costs. It's simple economics.

	▲	Dylan16807 a day ago \| parent [-]
		Did you not read my entire comment? I directly addressed that. > in the context of waymo there's no effect of "I'm already paying a ton of money to own and insure a car, I might as well use it every trip"

▲

dgfitz 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> And again, this is in moderately dense areas where transit works and you actually care about how many cars are on the road to begin with. And it doesn't have to be 90% in particular.

This caveat destroys the rest of your points, as logical as they may seem.

▲

Dylan16807 2 days ago | parent [-]

The first caveat or the second one?

Remember the original argument was "I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates" I'm taking that and strengthening it to a significant expansion of transit, but obviously not everywhere can do transit.

If the lanes on the road can fill up, you have enough traffic to sustain some busses.

In emptier areas that's a pretty different discussion, but importantly you still wouldn't need to design around cars. Slap in a very basic road and it'll handle all the cars fine.

▲

glitchc a day ago | parent [-]

If you need an alternative mode to get to public transit, it has already lost the battle. I can walk to my car in 20 seconds. I can carry many items in its trunk, making it worthwhile to make multiple stops on my journey. Public transit is not meeting my use-cases.

	▲	Dylan16807 a day ago \| parent [-]
		>If you need an alternative mode to get to public transit No one was suggesting that. > I can carry many items in its trunk, making it worthwhile to make multiple stops on my journey. Public transit is not meeting my use-cases. Well the guy I was talking to was only worried about one or few trips per month, and we only need most people to use transit for the scenario to work.

▲

2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]