> have yet to bring on a traffic free utopia

This is a silly expectation to have. As long as there are roads for cars people will put cars on them.

Trains solve traffic for the people who get on them, not for drivers. The more people taking the train, the fewer people impacted by the traffic.

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tim333 3 days ago | parent [-]

You could maybe have something like Zermatt Switzerland which is car free but you can get around in human driven golf cart like taxis. It's pretty pleasant but expensive. If the carts were self driving it could be cheaper.

(Zermatt pics https://www.traveladventuregurus.com/zermatt)

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jltsiren 3 days ago | parent [-]

Zermatt is fundamentally a pedestrian town. There are a limited number of permits for electric vehicles available for companies that have an objective need for a vehicle. That limited availability makes the electric taxis expensive.

The total number of permits seems to be around 500 in a town of 5k permanent residents. And the population grows to 30k or 40k during the peak tourist season.

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jajko 3 days ago | parent [-]

Yeah that approach can't be scaled to cities. Folks go there to chill or do alpinism, not live their lives and work. Otherwise those narrow steep streets would have very quickly rush hours and traffic jams, its really not a place designed for any traffic apart from walking.

One day, cheap automated electric self driving taxis will cover cities, thats unavoidable I think, but we are not there yet.

	▲	tim333 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Cities are experimenting with traffic free areas like Barcelona's superblocks. You could imagine something like that but with cheap automated electric self driving taxis added. I agree we are not there - Waymo basically just substitute normal taxis.