Will automated cars save city building?

[SIGSEGV]

Automated buses (which are a simpler problem) will be game-changing. You could have local and express buses down every arterial coming every few minutes, which will be more efficient than car sharing for most urban trips.

[C.]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Automated buses (which are a simpler problem) will be game-changing. You could have local and express buses down every arterial coming every few minutes, which will be more efficient than car sharing for most urban trips.

^ I like your style. Something like 90% of a transit agencies costs are salaries. Equipment and fuel us a very small part of MTA's budget for example.

I also challange anyone skeptical of this claim to look it up!

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by C.

^ I like your style. Something like 90% of a transit agencies costs are salaries.

Not all employees are drivers. Honolulu Rail Transit is driverless but its projected operating cost is still large.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Extremely likely. Just look at transportation modal split trends post WW2 for almost all developed countries as people got wealthier. Didn't NYC's subway system ridership peak in the 1940s? If automated cars got cheap enough to beat private ownership as some advocates think, they will utterly annihilate public transit in America, with only the highest capacity rail lines still operating.

I really doubt that. No amount of efficiency would make a downtown with a 25% drive-alone rate (several cities are that or better, mine mostly with buses) be able to handle even 50%, for example.

[authentiCLE]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

another thing to consider, in our most urban places a not insignificant amount of vehicle miles driven are wasted on people driving around and circling blocks trying to find non-existent parking spaces.

you take away the need to park unused cars with universal AV's and that second level of traffic congestion in urban places completely evaporates.

No doubt that's true to some degree but I suspect most drive directly to their regular parking spots, especially if we're talking commuters.

Are AV's going to evaporate into thin air after dropping off a passenger? No they'll drive out of the urban area instead of parking or just drive around waiting for the next fare. Both of those increase VMT.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Not all employees are drivers. Honolulu Rail Transit is driverless but its projected operating cost is still large.

True, here's hoping that electric buses have lower maintenance needs.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by accord1999

It take's a rare set of circumstances where ride-hailing is cheaper than private car ownership, and that's even with the money losing operations of Uber/Lyft and pitiful earnings of the drivers. And if ride-hailing is hurting anything, it's public transportation.

If you don't have to drive everywhere, using ride sharing isn't very expensive, and it's allowance of budgeting options is it's biggest plus.

Ride hailing is absolutely hurting mass transit. It could very well be the end of 24-hour lines in Chicago and maybe even New York. Once we have fully automated electric cars,I could see transit agencies negotiating steep discounts for late-night rides with companies like Uber or Lyft because their actual incremental cost will be so low - maybe even low enough to match transit fares for trips before a certain distance of for the equivalent of Uber's "Pool" offering.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

True, here's hoping that electric buses have lower maintenance needs.

If they're anything like electric cars in that regard, they'll be nearly maintenance-free.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by C.

^ I like your style. Something like 90% of a transit agencies costs are salaries. Equipment and fuel us a very small part of MTA's budget for example.

I also challange anyone skeptical of this claim to look it up!

I think it's more like 65-70% of operating costs only, but it is a significant chunk of most agencies' budget.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

...
My mom's first job out of college was with a large electric utility working on their transition plan to fusion power. They (and many others) were convinced that fusion power was right around the corner and were preparing for it. Needless to say that plan never materialized and driverless cars could just as easily suffer the same fate as a technology that was once considered a certainty to dominate the market and yet never actually materialized.

I don't think the computing and software limitations associated with fully autonomous driving are really comparable to the actual challenges presented by the physics and startup energy demands associated with fusion. And even with fusion, now that there is a fusion plant in Europe that is planned to be the first full-scale plant capable of generating more energy than it requires to operate, we may finally actually be only 20-30 years away from practical fusion power, so it's actually fairly likely that practical fusion power and widespread automated car adoption might happen at around the same time, believe it or not

Originally Posted by BrownTown

...
2. New drivers are unsafe no matter how old they are. Telling teenagers not to drive won't make them safe drivers when they get older. You have to learn sometime.

Originally Posted by mhays

An 18-year-old first-time driver will be much safer than a 16-year old first-time driver. This isn't debatable except by industry shills and those with a vested interest.
...

I would imagine that the ideal age to learn to drive would be identical to the ideal age to allow drinking - 21 - since both of those are heavily reliant on the physiology of brain development.

Originally Posted by accord1999

Extremely likely. Just look at transportation modal split trends post WW2 for almost all developed countries as people got wealthier. Didn't NYC's subway system ridership peak in the 1940s? If automated cars got cheap enough to beat private ownership as some advocates think, they will utterly annihilate public transit in America, with only the highest capacity rail lines still operating.

What happened to induced demand? Make roads in high demand areas have higher effective capacity and that capacity will be used up. Make cars cheaper and/or more convenient and people will use them more.

I agree, even though, as a huge transit fan, I hate to admit it.

Except in the densest old cities and/or peak times, cars are faster and/or more comfortable/convenient than transit. I love transit, in order of preference, because it affords me the freedom of not owning a car, it allows me to travel while doing other things, it's faster than driving for commutes to/from the kinds of dense neighborhoods I prefer living and working in, and I (mostly) enjoy the people-watching aspect.

Of those, only the rush hour commute convenience beats out automated taxi service both pragmatically and financially. Another common feature of mass transit is having fixed monthly costs - I don't use that anymore now that I can walk to work, but it's a popular feature with most commuters. But even there, ride-share places are experimenting with fixed-cost plans and when they further reduce their costs with vehicles that don't have the expense of a driver, use inexpensive electricity for power, and have the approximately 60% savings in maintenance compared to gasoline or diesel cars, I expect there to be a wide range of plans available with pricing comparable to transit passes - with more flexibility. Imagine a transit pass for $125/month that included unlimited transit use and some significant number of free car service trips outside of extended rush hours with valuable discounts for use beyond the included number. In a place like Queens or Chicago or even Brooklyn, you'd be able to commute by subway when that's most effective, and then also get home quickly and safely after a late night going out for drinks. An unintended consequence of widely available automated taxi service will obviously be a further decline in drunk or inattentive driving, but almost certainly also a reduction in stranger rapes, since women in cities won't have to choose between safer door-to-door service and cheaper transit trips. On the other hand it might slightly increase so-called "date-rapes" because of no driver in the car during trips home for couples. Cameras will disuade some guys, but hard to disuade a drunk guy with just a camera.

[BillM]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Why exactly would self driving cars mean people wouldn't own cars any more? Especially in suburban areas? People would just own their own self driving cars. The existence of things like uber (or taxis for the last 50+ years) hasn't stopped people from owning cars in suburban locations. People will buy their own car rather than have to wait for their automated car to come get them from grocery trips, taking kids to karate....1 million other things people drive for on any given day. The suburban locations the OP is talking about would be the least effected by automated ride sharing.

I just read something in your post that would make self driving cars very appealing. Soccer moms/dads?

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by BillM

I just read something in your post that would make self driving cars very appealing. Soccer moms/dads?

I don't know many suburban moms who would let a self-driving car whisk their child away like that.

[BillM]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

I don't know many suburban moms who would let a self-driving car whisk their child away like that.

remembering-when-driverless-elevators-drew-skepticism

[10023]

You’d rather let some teenaged babysitter drive your kids around? Sure, ok.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by 10023

You’d rather let some teenaged babysitter drive your kids around? Sure, ok.

WTF are you talking about? Suburban moms drive their own kids around, they don't pawn them off on teenagers.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

WTF are you talking about? Suburban moms drive their own kids around, they don't pawn them off on teenagers.

Suburban moms generally work. Babysitters/grandparents/nannies are doing a lot of the driving.

And Uber/Lyft are doing an increasing share of the driving (for older kids).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Why exactly would self driving cars mean people wouldn't own cars any more? Especially in suburban areas? People would just own their own self driving cars. The existence of things like uber (or taxis for the last 50+ years) hasn't stopped people from owning cars in suburban locations. People will buy their own car rather than have to wait for their automated car to come get them from grocery trips, taking kids to karate....1 million other things people drive for on any given day. The suburban locations the OP is talking about would be the least effected by automated ride sharing.

There is definitely a shift away from car ownership. The U.S. hit its peak of car ownership/household in 2006, and has yet to recover. The rate has started to rise modestly over the past 4 years, but it's still well below below peak. If there are more actual cars on the road now, it is a function of population growth.

Anecdotally, I've seen a huge difference in how cars are used in my family. My older sister and I both got our drivers license at 16. We both also got our own cars almost immediately. My younger sister didn't get her license until she was 20 (she's 21 now... big age gap). She is in her senior year of college and has not ever owned her own car. I don't think any of her close friends have their own car, either. She grew up in the same house that I did, but she has mobility options that didn't exist (or barely existed) when I was her age.

Even my parents are also not replacing their cars as fast as they would have in a pre-Uber era. They almost never used cabs before, but both have the Uber app on their phone.

[MolsonExport]

Newer cities generally suck (a lot) more than older ones, but I think that land value/scarcity is at least as important a factor.

Atlanta and Houston are newish cities that sprawl endlessly.
Vancouver is arguably even newer, but because it is hugely constrained by mountains, the sea, and land reservations for agriculture/parkland, is very dense and becoming ever more so.

Detroit and Toronto are about the same age. Detroit has de-densified to the extreme, whereas Toronto has gone the opposite direction, on account of shifting economic fortunes (encouraging growth overall) and also city planning (where there are few constraints on greenfield development in greater Detroit, relative to Toronto which, with the greenbelt, has constrained land for low-density housing in a metro consistently growing by 100,000-120,000 per year, year after year).

[MolsonExport]

Public mass transit is an absolute necessity for high density. Which is why suburbs characterized by single-family homes suck and will always suck.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Public mass transit is an absolute necessity for high density. Which is why suburbs characterized by single-family homes suck and will always suck.

High density is very inefficient and people are much better off in lower density areas that allow for easy driving.