$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

> $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.

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.

Where did you get $20 figure? Self driving cars are bound to be much cheaper because there is no human needed to drive it.