I think the new killer transport will be the autonomous taxi. A lot of young adults don’t own cars. A lot of older Americans are aging out of driving safely. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but i think it’s coming.
Why own a whole car when you only use it an hour a day?
I can believe that in dense urban areas where parking is a significant expense. I can also see it for old people (or any people) who aren’t physically able to drive.
I don’t think it’s the choice for most people where I live. Low density means you drive everywhere. Why arrange to rent a vehicle that someone else has just occupied every time you go to the store, doctor, school, little league field, library, church, … when you can simply own your own? Why muscle those heavy kid’s carseats from one taxi to another?
Note that, if we’re looking at energy use, the total miles driven would be higher if we all traveled via self-driving taxis. That’s because taxis travel empty between their fares. Traffic congestion could be worse, but we would need fewer acres of parking lots.
The fleet would have to be big enough to handle rush hour. If rush hour traffic moves more in one direction, the deadhead for the next fare would be fairly long.
Based on the 2010 US census, more than 80% of the US population lives in urban areas. That was up a bit from the 2000 census. I live in the 'burbs, and rideshare is practical here. It will be more practical when it doesn’t rely on a human driver.
I expect that in the not-too-distant future you will be able to hail a car that is equipped with car seats. That’s a pretty common preference.
I think we mean different things by “urban”*. I specified “parking is a significant expense”. I also live in the 'burbs. Any store has plenty of free parking at any time of the day. The great majority of residential neighborhoods have free on street parking that is rarely used because most people have adequate (affordable) off street parking.
If parking is free or cheap, I don’t see any economic advantage in taxis. Certainly not enough to put up with the inconvenience and lack of personal choice.
I agree with you about rush-hour, but that’s not everybody. There’s plenty of households that need 0.5 cars or 1.5 cars. If they are high-income or lavish they will round-up. If they are poor or stingy (me) they will round down. Imo, car-automation will make people round down more often.
I think you mean “cheaper taxis” will make people round down more often.
I expect that is true. I don’t see it as particularly beneficial, other than the direct result that anything that reduces my costs is a Good Thing.
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.