I’m somewhat optimistic that autonomous will confer other efficiencies. Like we’ll buy more electrical, or chain some together. But yeah, we certainly shouldn’t subsidize them.
If anything, auto-taxis are one more sign that we should not be building trains, since times-are-a-changing.
It should be cheaper. And it will feel less like you are beholden to another person, I think, and more like it’s “your thing.”
An autonomous taxi can just sit in the parking lot at a job site until it’s called again, too, if parking is cheap. No need for it to “go home”.
Other benefits of a taxi over driving yourself are that you can be drunk, you can take a nap, you can read a book, … while you are getting from here to there. And no one will feel rude ignoring the car’s autopilot.
I don’t think they will eliminate private ownership of cars or anything, but I think they will reduce private ownership of cars, and open up a lot of places to be car-free that are currently car-required.
Except that they are still too dangerous for the roads, they’re perfect.
Modeling irrational human behavior (other drivers, pedestrians, etc.) is very difficult.
Now, if we had auto-pods (for two, say) that ran on a rail, of which there would be several above street level (more for busier places, fewer for sparser), which could be programmed to drive, alongside other auto-pods, to the rider’s destination, maybe, just maybe this future could happen.
May want to check how your proposals affect your fellow citizens. If you do in fact, live in fly over, then you’re advocating what are likely large tax increases on your state. There are only about 10 states that pay more in Fed taxes than they receive in federal expenditures. The states that top that list are NY, CN, NJ, and MA. The idea that Blue states are the ones in need of federal monies is a fiction.
Be very careful what you ask for.
I live in the “upper midwest”. This map says we’re all pretty close to 1 for 1. https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-payments-portal/
But, I wasn’t the one pushing to break up the US, that was ao_fan. aof said that NY gets back fewer dollars than it sends to DC. I said that aof should also be against federalizing programs that could be state (local transit).
I don’t know why self-driving taxis would be cheaper than privately owned cars for most drivers. They have the same wear-and-tear per mile. Taxis incur the extra cost of the overhead of running the taxi company. I don’t expect taxis to “go home” between fares, but I do expect them to travel empty between fares. Someone has to pay that cost. I said that I would expect more vehicle miles per year, but fewer acres devoted to parking cars.
We always have some people who are on the fence regarding car ownership - typically people who don’t drive many miles, so fixed costs are a larger part of the economics. I can see where they might drop private cars if taxis became cheaper (you also mention the non-financial advantages of autonomous taxis, I can relate to them). Where I live, there are very few such people. The most likely gain is older people who travel very little, but their car overhead is cheap because they just keep their paid-for cars forever.
I’m comparing autonomous taxis to privately owned vehicles with some significant self driving capability. If fully autonomous taxis are really cheaper than human driving taxis, then the cost of sensors and software must be quite low. For that world, adding semi-autonomous features to private cars would also be quite low. I have no desire to leave the house and get drunk, or to read or nap on my way to the grocery store. A semi-autonomous system that handles the boring part of rural freeways is good enough for me.
I agree that cheap autonomous taxis could change the ownership decision for some people. I see that as on the margin in the near future. Over the long term, we’d get a different built environment - zoning could change, developers could put up stores and houses with fewer parking spaces. But, that’s “long term”.
France has a number of departments (their equivalent of states… although in size they’re really closer to counties… I think there are 101 in a country that’s the geographic size of a state in the US) that are not part of mainland France. Corsica is actually two departments, Martinique, French Guiana, and others are their own departments. These each have representation in French parliament and vote for the French President, very much like Hawaii and very different from Guam or Puerto Rico.
I don’t know how many other countries are like France in giving full membership status to far flung lands. For example the Falkland Islands, while part of UK, are certainly in a “lesser” status that is more analogous to Guam than to Hawaii.
Correct
Incorrect. Travel is a thing that does in fact happen. Even between ND and NYC.
NDans who think the virus is a hoax or only kills people who were already sitting on death’s doorstep.
NDans with kids who left ND for the big city and they want to visit their kids/grandkids.
So people who paid into it all their working careers but responsibly ALSO saved for retirement… assuming that their retirement savings would supplement Social Security get screwed over while their co-workers who irresponsibly saved nothing get a bailout.
Terrible idea, IMO.
Make it a flat benefit if you want, but means testing something that is now (rightly or wrongly) viewed as a right of all Americans is not going to go well.
High speed trains seem to be useful in covering middle distances. Distances far enough that driving or local transportation is obnoxious but close enough that flying (with adding a minimum of two hours on to each trip for dealing with airport stuff) is also obnoxious.
LA-San Fran, Dallas-Houston, Chicago-Minneapolis…
This will be true only up to a point (albeit a very distant point). If most of the cars are autonomous, there would actually be no traffic congestion. Most of the traffic congestion is caused by cars decelerating to a complete stop and then accelerating for whatever reason because people suck at driving. With autonomous vehicles this process will be timed perfectly. Imagine when a red light turns green, every single car in line moves in unison acceleration, not one by one. Heck, if all cars are autonomous, there is no need for traffic lights at all (except for cross walks of course).
I can believe that as a distant future possibility. I don’t see it as either “near” or “intermediate” term.
I can believe that at least one person from ND has traveled to NYC in the last 9 months. I don’t believe that NYC’s ongoing issues with covid are primarily the result of individuals traveling into NYC from “red” states, especially from parts of those states which are very anti-mask. Those people don’t look forward to vacationing in NYC in normal times, much less during the pandemic. I think that most of NYC’s persistent covid problem comes from New Yorkers giving it to one another.
Notice that the first two are within states and the second is between two adjoining states.
I have a certain fascination with the technology of high speed trains. I’d enjoy seeing how they really work in Japan or China. But, not enough fascination to support the federal gov’t sinking billions (trillions?) into things whose benefit is mostly “local”.
Japan is kind of the poster child in this, but Japan has some extremely dense population centers where owning a car is impractical. And it’s a relatively small country where 1 north south line with a couple of spurs can basically go everywhere.
NYC is about 1/4 the population of Tokyo and 1/3 the population of Osaka. No other city in the US is even close to NYC in size. We just aren’t densely populated enough for some of the things other countries do and rail is one of those things.
Lucy’s gonna be pretty busy moving these posts to that other thread.
How about we get back to the OP?
I don’t see that as much of a loss though because that’s mostly necessary to get appropriate spacing between vehicles.
I mean it fixes the issue of the dolt who’s not paying attention and doesn’t accelerate when it’s their turn. But if you have a stop light then, automated or not, the 6th car needs to wait to start up until cars 1-5 have created some space.
Ok, but the claim was that there was no impact to NYC if North Dakota doesn’t require masks.
And while there is certainly a greater impact to ND, there is still some impact to NYC.
And to be clear, even when Cuomo bans travelers from certain places, it still happens because there are exceptions. Health care workers, medical researchers, military and anyone in the cargo industry (air, rail, truck, ship) to name a few. So his ban might greatly reduce the number of folks coming from North Dakota, but not all the way to zero. And then there are the people who were exposed to people who have been to North Dakota…