I am frequently gripped by all the contradictions that my career inevitably surfaces. I care about the environment and, yet, I lust over the sound of an unchoked V8. I think there should be fewer new cars, eventually, while spending a lot of time here chiding automakers when their sales fall. I love all that new technology brings, though I often wonder if the newness of said technology distracts me from the fact that it’s at cross-purposes with my own values. Driverless cars, in particular, are something I think about all the time.
There’s an interview that David Zipper did with the outgoing head of San Francisco’s powerful transit agency, which oversees the city’s robotaxis, and there’s a lot there that’s got me on tilt this morning. Right up at the top is Zipper’s key question: Do robotaxis make life better for the larger population? The answer is worth discussing.
It’s going to be one of those Morning Dumps, so buckle up. Let’s transition to talking about Mercedes-Benz. The company got electric cars to the market quickly so we’ve got a good chunk of data to evaluate and can see pretty clearly that the company’s first effort didn’t work. They’ll get another chance, though.
You know who is doing it right? Cupra. Volkswagen is great at spinning off brands that are more successful than the home brand. You know what another great brand is? Alpine.
Robotaxis Are Great For ‘The Privileged’ But ‘Create Problems For The Efficiency Of The Transportation System As Whole’
It would be bad if I quoted the whole Bloomberg article, which features Jeffrey Tumlin, the soon-to-leave head of San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). The job is somewhat unique in that the SMFTA is responsible for all transit, streets, and cabs/livery, which means that robotaxis fall under Tumlin’s purview. This gives Tumlin the best external view of how robotaxis operate holistically within an urban environment.
Again, read the whole interview, because it’s fascinating and I can’t blockquote all of it.
Tumlin starts by pointing out that robotaxis, especially Waymo, do a better job of predicting erratic human behavior than he originally expected, crediting the technology with clearing that seemingly high hurdle. He also acknowledges what anyone who has used a Waymo knows, which is that it’s extremely nice. Or, well, it’s extremely nice for the people using it (at least when the car isn’t confused). I’ve had women in my life text me their location because an Uber driver or a cab driver seems weird, is going the wrong way, and they otherwise fear for their safety. Services like Waymo dramatically reduce this risk.
Great, right?
Overall, are robotaxis a positive or negative for San Francisco?
So far, there is no net positive for the transportation system that we’ve been able to identify. The robotaxis create greater convenience for the privileged, but they create problems for the efficiency of the transportation system as a whole.
What do you mean by that?
What I like about Waymo is that the user interface design works well. I don’t have to talk to a human, and the vehicle’s driving behavior is slow and steady. I think robotaxis offer the potential for significant upsides for personal convenience, but it remains to be seen whether they offer any overall benefit to the transportation system.
He also pointed out that, for as nice as the service is, if society puts billions of dollars more into public transit then public transit could also be nice. And if society wanted cars that didn’t speed it could just put mandatory governors in all cars (please don’t do that).
Here’s another bit that struck me:
[I] have sat in on panels at transportation technology conferences discussing the “pedestrian problem.” There have been many such conversations asking, “If we have ubiquitous autonomous mobility, why would anyone ever need to walk again?”
Waymo has at least demonstrated that we don’t need to install chips in all humans so that AVs can identify pedestrians. That’s good news; industry is not having that conversation anymore. But yes, I am very worried that so much of the joy of the remaining walkable cities in the world could be at risk from self-driving cars.
San Francisco is a place, in my experience, that’s great at creating positive outcomes for people of extremely high income at the expense of the livability of everyone else. It’s not alone in that, but at least in New York when people buy a car just to drive from their apartment on one side of Central Park to their apartment on the other side (a real thing I saw someone do) there’s no pretending that they’re trying to make the world a better place.
Driverless cars displace jobs. According to Tumlin, they displace transit. This seems more than net-neutral, this seems net-bad. I’m not saying that the technology shouldn’t exist and people shouldn’t be allowed to have access to it. I do wonder if it wouldn’t be better if this were priced at a level that makes it not the default and if we took some of that money and funneled it into better transit/bike paths/pedestrian paths.
That’s not how this works, though. What these services will do is they’ll take their immense wealth and investment and, if not undercut transit or Ubers, make the price so low that they inevitably reduce the reliance on these systems until they no longer seem necessary. And then they’ll jack up the cost. It’s basically what Uber did to cabs, so there’s probably some cosmic justice involved if that happens.
I don’t know the answer here. I don’t know what the better path is. I just know that I can’t shake the question.
Oh, and our favorite person, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt shows up in this interview:
Was there a robotaxi moment over the last several years that prompted you to think, “I cannot believe this is happening”?
In my first meeting with the original CEO of Cruise [Kyle Vogt], I was in City Hall trying to lay out the case why good data supports public trust, and explaining why I didn’t expect robotaxi companies to be perfect. San Francisco streets can handle a good deal of chaos, but I can’t have dozens of Cruise vehicles being immobilized in traffic and blocking my train lines.
He leaned across the table from me, pounded his fist on this heavy oak table, and said, “Jeff Tumlin, you are the single greatest threat to the American autonomous vehicle industry.”
LOL. It should be noted that Cruise’s robotaxis did exactly what Tumlin predicted, blocked emergency service vehicles, and that Vogt himself had to resign after one of his company’s cars dragged a pedestrian and he, according to an internal GM report, tried to conceal data about the incident from government regulators.
Mercedes-Benz Electric Cars Drop 22% In 2024
Mercedes is a great company and, of all the German automakers, the one I think is best suited to thrive in the coming ‘Darwinian Period’ of the auto industry. No one builds a better S-Class than Mercedes, and there are incredible vehicles up and down the lineup.
The EQ-line of electric cars, though? It didn’t work. Wave the flag. Let’s just call it what it is.
I kinda respect Daimler for taking a huge swing with the EQS, EQE, and the SUV versions of those cars. They were expensive, tech-forward, with giant screens and all sorts of useful features (the dramatic rear-wheel-steer makes these fun to drive). It was a very Mercedes approach and, a few years earlier, it might have worked. In my last job I did a lot of work with Mercedes and had a chance to explore these cars up close and to understand all the thought that Mercedes put into the EQ vehicles. There was no half-assing here.
What Mercedes missed was what most people missed. For all the cool features, people want range. The killer app of any electric car is the ability of that car to drive very far over long distances and to do so at a decent price. What all those features were covering up was that, even with giant battery packs (115-118 kWh), the Benzes weren’t particularly efficient.
No one complains when an E63 AMG Wagon uses a lot of fuel, because that’s the point, right? That logic doesn’t apply to electric cars. It especially doesn’t apply in China, where there are at least 112 different brands selling electric cars.
Mercedes put out its full year numbers today and they’re not great, not terrible. Overall, the company lost 4% of sales year-over-year, even with a stronger fourth quarter. If you look at the total Mercedes-Benz Group, electric cars dropped 22%. If you take out everything except for the Mercedes-Benz brand, the numbers are slightly worse at a 23% year-over-year decline. Sales in the company’s biggest market, China, were down 7%. Sales were up 9% in the United States, so that’s something. Here’s what Ola Källenius, head of Mercedes, had to say:
“In 2024, Mercedes-Benz once again demonstrated the power of our brand and the depth of our broad product offering. This culminated in strong sales of our Top-End and Core vehicles in the fourth quarter. We continue to consistently strengthen our portfolio with the biggest product offensive in our company’s history starting this year with the all-new CLA.”
Mercedes can get this right, but it’ll take a do-over and at least the company seems to recognize this.
Cupra Is Killing It
Remember when I wrote about how Volkswagen was replacing itself In America with the Scout brand? That’s probably even more true with VW’s sub-brand Cupra, which has a super hot lineup of affordable and fast EVs, hybrids, and regular cars.
Both SEAT and Cupra (Cupra is a sub-brand of SEAT, so it’s a sub-sub-brand), had big years. From the company’s press release:
SEAT S.A. achieved sales growth of 7.5% in 2024, despite the challenging environment affecting the global automotive industry. The continued success of the SEAT and CUPRA brands allowed the company to deliver a total of 558,100 cars (2023: 519,200).
CUPRA continued breaking records and reached 248,100 cars to deliver a 7.5% increase compared to 2023 (230,700). The SEAT brand also maintained its positive trend and deliveries grew by 7.5%, reaching 310,000 vehicles (2023: 288,400). In a declining electric vehicle market, SEAT S.A. defied the trend by achieving growth in sales of electrified vehicles with 49,400 plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and 48,000 electric vehicles (BEVs), increases of 14.0% and 5.9%, respectively.
Cupra is coming to the United States and, if you ask me, it can’t come quickly enough.
The Alpine A290 Is The European Car Of The Year
I don’t give a ton of truck to Car Of The Year awards, mostly because they seem designed to grab automaker money and keep mediocre hanger-on journalists still in the business. One day I will be a hanger-on journalist so I guess I should at least give an F-150 and join one of these organizations.
Gotta hand it to the European Car of the Year folks, though, because the Alpine A290 is the car I’m most excited about in Europe right now. I haven’t driven it and, yet, I know for sure that this is the right choice. It’s just one of those things. You can read all about it right here, but at just under 3,300 pounds and with 215 electric horsepower on tap it’s right in the hot hatch crosshairs for me.
Here’s what ECOTY said:
Europe has elected its new king. The Renault 5 (along with the Alpine A290) has become the Car Of The Year 2025. In a ceremony held at the start of the Brussels International Motor Show (which will return to the stage after the 2023 edition) and in a Eurovision style, the 60 members of the jury of The Car Of The Year award have issued their verdict choosing the best car in the automotive market in Europe.
The Renault 5 was crowned best car of the year 2025, beating in the final six other contenders Alfa Romeo Junior, Citroën C3-ëC3, Cupra Terramar, Dacia Duster, Hyundai Inster and Kia EV3. This year’s edition was more competitive than ever, as all the finalist models had electrified features, most of them 100% electric.
Oh, yeah, the Renault 5 also won because it’s kinda the same car. I’ll take either.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Since we’re talking about Europeans, please enjoy Peter, Bjorn, and John’s “Objects of my Affection.” It’s extremely Swedish and is the most Jens Lenkman song that has ever existed, even if it was neither written nor performed by Jens Lenkman:
And the question is, was I more alive then than I am now?
I happily have to disagree, I laugh more often now
I cry more often now, I am more me
The Big Question:
Are robotaxis, which are probably safer than regular drivers already, net positives for society?
Silicon Valley trying to reinvent the bus.
The core issue with robotaxis and by extension all cars is geometry. They simply don’t fit in cities. You cannot build enough road capacity to service everyone who would want to drive (for free) into a city and have any city left. (And boring a few tunnels is no fix either.) Uber was supposed to help this by lowering car ownership, a proxy for vehicle miles. Instead, it increased vehicle miles, largely because of people driving to pick people up (a deadhead trip with no mobility). Robotaxis will have the same problem in that dynamic. However if robotaxis are a premium transit option for date night in a varied fleet of autonomous vans, buses, trains plus great bike infrastructure, it just might fit into a city.
Simple math.
Like you said, the desired trip (x) requires travel between riders (y), so x+y > x.
So unless you’re also providing alterative infrastructure to reduce driving elsewhere, every rideshare/taxi trip is at least as bad as a normal trip.
I think the funniest part is that robotaxis introduce the very real possibility of America’s average vehicle occupancy dropping below 1. Anecdotally, many of the Waymos I see on the street don’t have anyone in them.
I think at the very least, if robotaxis are to become at least a net neutral, then a lot of work needs to go into reducing the number of 0-occupancy miles driven such as study into the location of depots, etc.
I say robotaxis are not -yet- a net positive, but I do not live anywhere they operate so I have no firsthand evidence to support my contention.
Further, I would argue that the only real potentially positive effective of robotaxis is in eliminating having to deal with a human driver of unknown skill, honesty, sanity, criminality, sobriety or temperament. Otherwise, it’s just another conveyance taking you from A to B on the same streets in the same traffic as any other taxi, bus or personal car and not doing a better job of it.
The best to be hoped for in terms of performance is that they will be the equal to the best human operated cabs and no worse or dangerous than the average human cab experience. That’s a lot of investment for very little transportation gain, if any. Maybe that changes when a majority of cars operating in cities are automated, but we’re a long way from that, now, and will probably never have a driving environment completely free of human operators.
The answer is jet packs and moving sidewalks.Those would be dollars well spent!.
You lump in busses with all the rest but it has been proven that busses reduce traffic congestion.
More mass transit improves speed of movement in cities and access for everyone
More robotaxis just means more taxis clogging the roads
I agree with your points and I only meant to mention buses within the context of their having to operate in the same traffic as everything else, so subject to the same limitations as any other car. Which, I probably didn’t make clear.
Some cities are putting in bus-only lanes which mean busses get their own traffic free lanes while taxis sit in traffic
Robo taxis are just plain dumb. Remote control taxis (and trucks) would be much better.
Human reaction times are often too slow to prevent crashes. Adding wireless network / internet latency for remote control will make it worse in adverse situations. And since we’re looking to eliminate humans to maximize profits, remote driving centers will assign more than one car to underpaid remote “drivers” at a time and tell them to just make it work.
Not “often”. Human reaction times are fast enough to prevent billions of crashes every year. Not every crash is because of human reaction times.
I take a taxi maybe twice a year. Public transit even less. So, it’s not really a factor either way in my society.
Outside of the lens of maybe residents of the 10 biggest cities in the US I’m guessing it has little to no impact on society writ large either way (in any material sense anyway).
I do see a benefit to robotaxis as they pertain to the disabled and elderly. At some point all of us will need to give up those keys. This gives this population an extra option. I realize that there’s public options available like access-a-ride but this is not an option in suburban or rural areas. We all hope to live independently with dignity in our golden years and maybe this helps keep us out of an assisted living home a couple more years.
Agreed.
I actually see more utility for robotaxis in rural areas.
Even if small towns had the money for buses, their would-be ridership is often too scattered for efficient service. Privately, running a rural taxi business is also crap shoot. None of the taxis where I live offer rides outside of ‘bank hours’, unless you arrange well in advance. They don’t pick up the phone in the evening.
Accessible transit buses do exist and offer a vital service, but sometimes the young and able-bodied need a ride as well.
Lots of smaller towns lost what little night life they had when driving under the influence became socially unacceptable in the 80s and 90s. Even simple stuff like dropping your car off for service can get complicated if you don’t have someone on hand during a week day to pick you up.
A few AVs sitting on automated charging pads that could be dispatched 24/7 would be a game changer for small town mobility.
I think these proposed positive social benefits are often used by companies to handwave away the real social harms caused by these new technologies when they know that there is about a 1-5% chance that the benefits will materialize. I say this because half the challenge of transporting disabled or elderly people is simply getting them in and out of the vehicle, and without a trained person to assist is case something goes wrong, there’s a significant chance something might go wrong with no one around to help. The other option is to design a system that can automatically load someone into the vehicle, but it is not cost effective to cover the varied types of disabilities and cover all of the situational edge cases
Look at how uber and lyft handle accessibility, and many disabled users prefer public transit.
I have very low expectations that the refrain of “but disabled people/the elderly!!!” is anything but a red herring.
I’m genuinely curious if you have credible sources to back up your claims. This whole debate is subjective including my own opinion, and I think yours is too. In parts of the world with a highly developed and properly funded public transport system I can see your point. If I lived in Japan, Singapore or perhaps the Netherlands that have excellent public transportation that might be my preferred option. If you live elsewhere maybe not so much. So yeah, public transit is great if you can address accessibility concerns, but in many places we’re simply not there.
As it is with everything it’s all in the details. Say an elderly person can get themselves on a subway, a thing as simple as finding a seat during rush hour becomes an issue. My 80 year old mother can’t stand and hang on to a pole for an hour ride. My son who is autistic does fine in a car but the first time we took him on a subway ride it was sensory overload and didn’t work out. I’m also not keen on the possibility of getting randomly stabbed, pushed into the tracks or set on fire. As you might have guessed I live in NYC and this has all happened. Aside from daily commuting and being the most cost effective solution I don’t know anyone who prefers public transit over the alternatives, this is especially the case in rural and suburban areas.
As for Uber/Lyft, that’s a great option, but from recent experience they’re expensive. Not great for a senior with a fixed income. Also, there’s something to not having to deal with a driver. There have been cases where bad drivers have taken advantage of a passenger (raped, robbed, murdered) and the other way around where the passenger beats up a driver.
I think there is a place for Robotaxis as long as the software is continuously improved to the point where they can function safely with regards to pedestrians and other vehicles sharing the road. If it means displacing public transit or rideshare, then isn’t it on them to address those concerns and their shortcomings and make it more attractive than a robotaxi? If they can’t compete then maybe they deserve to be displaced. More options are always better in my opinion.
please don’t do that
Why? Do you advocate speeding?
Because driving fast is fun and there are places you can do it pretty safely. A race track. A wide open road. Come on.
Sure, right up till its not:
https://www.ksl.com/article/31670598/porsche-driver-dies-in-high-speed-nevada-race
Even on a wide open road speeding is more dangerous. There are potholes, road debris, animals, blind corners and sometimes other drivers you don’t see till its too late..
Have you made one positive comment in the last while?
Why do you ask?
Removing one tool we can use in a situation to avoid accidents from the tool chest is a bad idea for everyone.
No worries, All such proposed mandates include temporary governor defeats.
Of course that will be automatically issue a citation. Once the emergency is over you’ll have the opportunity to explain to the court why your speeding was justified and why don’t deserve that citation and a hefty insurance hike. As part of the citation all camera and sensor feed will be entered into evidence for your use.
I don’t wanna be all “muh freedoms” here, but does your second paragraph, and the sheer volume of data collection it entails, not strike you as massive regulatory overreach?
Sure, the privacy ship may have sailed, but tracking *more* of everyone’s every move is not the answer. “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear” has historically been an effective tool of oppression.
No. You are on a public road with clearly posted guidelines. If you violate those guidelines you should be held accountable according to the law. Same if you run a red light, blow through a stop sign, fail to yield to an emergency vehicle with its lights on, blow smoke out the tailpipe, etc.
How that is managed is up to the state. If a state decides its too much trouble to prosecute every single case drivers might get a couple of freebees a month. Or the speeding has to be especially egregious, like 20 over, speeding for more than 15 minutes, speeding with weaving, or speeding in a school zone when there are kids around. Such a system need not be for the very occasional, very mild speeder, only for the chronic and most dangerous ones if the state decides it to be so. Or the local courts might just make it a PITA to fill out a stack of forms online. Just the hassle of having to do that over and over again may be enough to get people to slow down.
As to the “sheer volume of data” that data is already collected by modern cars. This would simply earmark it as relevant to the upcoming case, prevent it from being deleted or modified and maybe transmit a copy to the state’s server.
“If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear” has historically been an effective tool of oppression.
That’s no excuse to give everyone a pass for everything though.
Maybe this is the fedora-tipping atheist in me, or the fact that I’ve yet to grow out of my high school anti-authoritarian phase, but if you (not you, Cheap Bastard, the impersonal you) need stricter-than-existing regulations to keep you from driving in a reckless and unsafe manner, then you’re still an asshole, just one who’s scared of punishment.
And for that reason, I’ll just flip the slippery slope fallacy (since maintaining the status quo hardly tantamount to “giving everyone a pass”) of
>That’s no excuse to give everyone a pass for everything
right back: Some folks being tools is no excuse to over-regulate everything 🙂 We don’t have to choose between a Big Brother surveillance state and total anarchy.
Jokes aside, I’m with you – if I make the conscious choice to speed and violate the law, and I get in trouble for it, so be it; them’s the shakes. My issue is more on the side of the data being collected being stored in places (e.g., government servers) other than what I consented to by buying the vehicle in the first place, whose security I have no control over, and potentially being used for purposes other than – again – what I consented to when I bought the vehicle, by an authority that can make my life a lot worse if it so desires.
Ultimately, there’s a psychological effect too. Instead of framing this as “I’ll speed if I’m not being watched and not speed if I am,” I see it as more of a “I’ll drive at roughly the same speed no matter what, but under one regime, because I want to, and under another, because someone else wants me to.” And that, my friend, just feels icky, not gonna lie.
Lastly, on a very tangentially related point, I think speed governors would have the side effect of not letting speed limits evolve as they currently do – if the majority of drivers go a certain speed on a certain road, chances are the speed limit there will be revised (up or down) to reflect what is safe in real-world terms. This both makes traffic more efficient in the long run and incentivizes people to maintain higher situational awareness while driving.
P.S. I’m utterly enjoying this back-and-forth. I love the Autopian commentariat and its diversity of opinions.
*looks at your user name* you drive a chevy spark could you even speed in one of those? Haha I kid I kid
I should probably change what I said above to “I’ll drive at roughly the same speed no matter what, because my car can’t go any faster” 🙂
The world could use more slow-car-fast and I will die on this hill.
I like when I am driving my Cummins (which tops out at like 85-90mph on flat roads) and I am at a light and I get up to 55-60mph faster then people with a car that would have enough time after finishing a quarter mile race to run and get a coffee and be back before I finish haha.
Back when I bought Sparky, I cross-shopped the Fiat 500e. I knew I wanted a tiny car and did not anticipate the need to travel beyond its range… glad I went with the Spark seeing as soon thereafter I ended up with a 350-mile supercommute for 4 months.
Even as a low-power EV, the 500e was the fastest thing in town to 30 mph. Definitely miss that surge of torque off the line, though as an old diesel freak, I imagine I’d enjoy it a lot more in your Cummins!
Slow car fast is great.
Fast car MOAR FASTER is even better.
need stricter-than-existing regulations to keep you from driving in a reckless and unsafe manner, then you’re still an asshole, just one who’s scared of punishment.
Definitely not me. I tend to drive 5-10 under in the right lane whenever possible. In all my decades of driving I have never had a speeding ticket. Nor a ticket for being too slow.
Some folks being tools is no excuse to over-regulate everything
And again the degree to which this is implemented is variable. Such a system can easily be set up to punish only the most egregious offenders and that punishment can range from the minor annoyance of filling out a form online to whatever maximum penalty the law permits.
My issue is more on the side of the data being collected being stored in places (e.g., government servers) other than what I consented to by buying the vehicle in the first place, whose security I have no control over, and potentially being used for purposes other than – again – what I consented to when I bought the vehicle, by an authority that can make my life a lot worse if it so desires.
Yeah, about that:
https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/
Pretty sure you didn’t consent to any of this either.
“I’ll drive at roughly the same speed no matter what, but under one regime, because I want to, and under another, because someone else wants me to.”
The problem with that is you are driving on a public road, with other drivers all of whom might think very differently from you and who may have very different capabilities than you. You’ll be sharing the road with coked out drivers, drunks, vaping flat brims, aggressive dudebros in brodozers, Buick driving geriatrics, rusted out hoopties, inexperienced teens and folks from other countries with VERY different ideas of what a good driver is and for whom the laws are unfamilar. That is the point of traffic laws, to keep the playing field as level as possible.
Lastly, on a very tangentially related point, I think speed governors would have the side effect of not letting speed limits evolve as they currently do – if the majority of drivers go a certain speed on a certain road, chances are the speed limit there will be revised (up or down) to reflect what is safe in real-world terms. This both makes traffic more efficient in the long run and incentivizes people to maintain higher situational awareness while driving.
To listen to the speeders EVERYONE already speeds and speed limits just stay the same anyway. How’s that evolution working out now?
P.S. I’m utterly enjoying this back-and-forth. I love the Autopian commentariat and its diversity of opinions.
As do I. That’s part of what keeps me here.
Happy to chat about this in a bit more detail later, just a couple of quick notes for now:
the degree to which this is implemented is variable
So it may as well be status quo – in which case, why bother changing anything, or it could be worse 🙂
Pretty sure you didn’t consent to any of this either.
While I could pull the “this is the cost of living in a SoCiEtY” card here, nah, I sure didn’t – not sure I even could in an explicit and informed way. Doesn’t mean I want more of the same.
other drivers all of whom might think very differently […] coked out drivers, drunks, vaping flat brims, aggressive dudebros […]
And this is precisely an argument against stricter regulations – the fact that these people are going to exist anyway means that the law does not act as an effective deterrent for criminal behavior.
How’s that evolution working out now?
YMMV; the state I live in does have a legal framework in place for requesting and conducting speed studies and establishing new speed limits on public roads. The speed limits do change (I’ll see what examples I can provide without doxxing myself). I concede, however, that something like a national highway speed limit revision is unlikely to happen any time soon.
“So it may as well be status quo – in which case, why bother changing anything, or it could be worse”
The minimum would be a slightly delayed polite reminder to slow down. That’s better than the status quo, and much better than a ticket or a wreck.
“And this is precisely an argument against stricter regulations – the fact that these people are going to exist anyway means that the law does not act as an effective deterrent for criminal behavior.”
Apples to oranges. The governer is not about changing the regulations its about enforcing them equally and effectively.
There is one issue, which is speed limits are usually only vaguely related to the risk entailed. And it is likely they are set too low.
Years ago I went to a lecture from a scientist that had studied how real work drivers behave and he found that there is an upper limit inflection point for speed and circumstances where risk gets much higher really quickly – and the vast majority of us (even if we are speeding) drive just under this inflection point (without speed limits). Of course there is sometimes the jackass that is going too fast and screws it up for everyone else. This researcher also noted that bus drivers are usually well below this inflection point.
Is there a world where you trust police, courts, local jurisdictions, insurance companies, or the general bureaucracy enough to put yourself in that situation? That is some serious 1984-style dystopia.
You prefer the chaos of a world where people ignore traffic laws with no repercussions?
Surely there must be an alternative to launching SkyNet to keep us unruly humans in line?
It’s not an all or nothing. There ARE many shades of gray between the black and the white.
Hey not all taxi drivers are tools, some are nice.
I advocate speeding.
Why?
It’s fun.
So keep it on the track.
Stupid gubmint can’t tell me wut to do
Officer Friendly will be happy to set you up an appointment with Judge Hardcase to discuss the matter.
Having lived in SF for 20 years and not owned or driven a car for the last 14 years I lived there – which happened to coincide with the beginnings of Uber – I have thoughts:
San Francisco is a terrible place to own a car. Even if you have a garage space, it’s a nightmare to drive anywhere due to parking: You will get parking tickets despite your best efforts and you will pay through the nose to park in a pay lot. You will circle the block a few times to find parking in desirable neighborhoods – if you ever do (More than once I’ve given up and returned home) And your bumpers will be used as parking guides by the people parking ahead/behind you. Car ownership (or renting a car, if you’re visiting) just isn’t worth it!
San Franciscans have two things in common: We are always curious about how much you’re paying for rent, and we love to gripe about Muni and BART. It’s our pastime, because there’s no point in talking about the weather unless something is falling out of the sky. However, mass-transit ridership is huge – despite trains and busses that do not run on any sort of conceivable schedule. The same bus that takes you and your boss and their assistant to your office takes your kids to school and your maid/janitor to your home.
That said – There are generally at least two bus or train lines within three blocks of anywhere in the City – and almost all coverage on Downtown. Where I lived, I had four bus lines within two blocks of my building – and I came to know my neighbors because I’d see them at the bus stop every morning and evening.
But there are always those days where you’re running late, something is falling out of the sky, and/or four busses have rolled right past you without stopping because they’re already full. This used to elicit us waiving down a taxi – which meant we had to have cash and be able to put up with a collapsed right rear seat, stranger smells than on Muni, and a suicidal driver.
This is where Uber was a lovely thing – because it was started as a way to get those guys in their Carey Cars (Usually Lincoln Towncars) who would idle behind BofA, Wells Fargo, Schwab, Levis, etc all day waiting for their Presidents and CEOs out into the streets and servicing the public. What a joy it was tapping your phone, having a Black Town Car show up, and being whisked across town with your suitably impressed date home for a nightcap, etc….
But then we got Lyft, with their pink mustaches and “High-Fives”, Uber X/Pop/Pool – and the streets became crowded with underemployed people who couldn’t afford a taxi medallion and were even more suicidal in traffic. Then the Taxi companies realized that they needed an app too, and a way to pay without using cash…
This was also around the time when certain local employers, such as Levis, Visa and Twitter, began running their own mini-busses for their employee’s use…
The streets became cluttered with randos stopping in the middle of a 3 lane street to pick someone up – this was not good.
Even worse – you’d be hitting the button after a big event – everyone else would too – and your instant $17 car ride would suddenly become $58 with a 25 minute wait. This was not the Utopia we were promised!!
If only there were a way to get home that was cheap, semi-reliable, and could handle crowds….
….oh, wait – there’s the Bus!
But it doesn’t run this late at night
I guess we’re walking home…
Robotaxis may solve some of this – for late night/off hours service where no driver wants to be out and about – but those are limited case scenarios.
You want to make big city transit work?
Eliminate fares & pay for the systems with the city taxes we pay, which will then make the ridership greater and simpller and more timely because we won’t be delayed by someone who doesn’t have correct change or arguing about whether their little paper transfer is expired or not.
And make those bus & train lines run till midnight on weekdays & holidays and 2am on weekends.
And run extra trains and busses when there’s a big event such as NYE, Bay to Breakers, Pride or a Giants game.
As far as the outer urban areas – I think we need to have busses and trains go into central areas where folks can catch the bus/train and get into employment centers – Downtown, office parks, etc. Again, fare-free to encourage ridership.
That said – Suburban sprawl and rural areas are just not made for mass transit – nor for taxis, ubers and driverless cars – because you’re going to be out there in Genericaland waiting forever if that’s your plan….
The last paragraph is also why the inexplicably demonized “15-minute cities” need to be absolutely embraced, especially around suburbs. The entire urban planning concept is to just zone stuff so everything you need is within a 15 minute walk.
I am lucky enough to live in a walkable neighborhood now, and the ability to keep the car at home when I need to do simple tasks like get groceries or go to work is brilliant. I still love my car, love driving it, and need it for a lot of stuff. But being able to leave it at home sometimes is brilliant for me, and brilliant for anyone else who has to share the road since there’s one less car.
But, somehow, people have managed to turn it into this controversial thing and make up a ton of lies about the idea, and they’re really shooting themselves in the balls as a result. Making it so there are fewer times where you have to drive makes the times when you do drive that much more enjoyable.
The funny thing about the 15-minute city nonsense is that people love to vacation in 15-minute cities where they can walk everywhere and see and enjoy stuff. Yet living in one is somehow evil government control.
A cruise ship is just a 15-minute-city for people from Cedar Rapids.
I am one of those people if visiting a city it is nice to be able to walk to different things like museums, parks and restaurants but I would not want to live in a place like that. I like being further away from things and having personal space for my home. Don’t have to worry about people seeing everything I am doing while at home, people making noise complaints or others being super noisy, not having to worry about giant traffic jams, can own as many vehicles as I would like and can work on them where ever on my property (lives in suburbs before and someone complained to the city when I had to swap a failed rear differential out) I am sure I could go on haha.
So tldr I am one that would not like it if everything was converted 15 minute city as sure it is nice for me to visit but not where I would like to stay.
I’m gonna counter that with this: Small farming communities. Grew up by one, if you lived in town there was a small grocery store, a small gas station/hardware store, a few other amenities and so on, and nothing was really more than a 15 minute walk away. And if you didn’t live in town it was still pretty easy to get everything in one or two stops. It’s definitely possible to have space and convenience.
Honestly, I think it’s only the suburbs that don’t get it. They’re the places where you really can’t get anything you need in a convenient way.
If I am just looking at this through a black and white lense. I think the point of a 15 minute city is that you can walk, bike or public transit anywhere in 15mins? With smaller rural towns you would have to drive into town to make it there efficiently vs walk/biking/public transit. I cannot see smaller towns having the money to invest into public transit. Where I currently live it is a weird mix of rural and suburbs (in NWI about 50-55 miles from Chicago) but I am only 10-15mins driving from any stores or restaurants I would go to. Things I couldn’t see working with the more “rural” life style if there was no more personal vehicles like going to the hardware store to get supplies for a project (like building a duck pen), feed for horses/cattle, home renovations and so on. Like yes sure this stuff could be delivered but now you need infrastructure in place for that.
Tldr. This issue is a big grey area. I just don’t see public transit or autonomous vehicles being the be all end all and it should be some sort of mix especially in the US much different for small European countries haha.
Basically, you can get to everything you need in a 15 minute walk or bike ride. It’s not about eliminating cars entirely – though naturally some places have terrible parking because of the way development worked out – but just having everything available in a pretty close distance so you don’t necessarily have to drive to live your life day-to-day.
Where I grew up, if you’re on a farm you’re driving into town, of course. But if you lived in town, the way that the town was planned it kind of all radiated out from the center. The main street had the co-op grocery store, the bank, the pharmacy, used to have a hardware store – though that moved to the edge of town – and so on. It had basically everything you need. And really that’s all a 15 minute city is, just a place designed so you don’t actually have to drive that much – though you can if you want to.
Most of the towns around where I grew up were effectively 15 minute cities already, though I know of one that used to be – but isn’t anymore – because all the grocery stores moved to the edge of town.
I think a lot of people do misunderstand what a 15 minute city is – and I feel like it’s really being used to suggest that you’re not allowed to drive there, or it’s a conspiracy to eliminate private car ownership. But really it’s just about making sure convenience is part of city (or town, or village) planning. Most people aren’t saying that we need to eliminate private car ownership – there are fringe weirdos, of course, but aren’t there always? Instead they’re saying that making it possible to live without a car, or handle a bunch of day-to-day needs without a car, should be part of city planning.
Many people equate “We need 15 minute cities” to “We need to make everyone live in a dense urban environment”. Sometimes this is exactly the intent and the kneejerk reaction is from people who appreciate calm, nature, and find randomly selected people annoying.
If I were going to live in a city, I would want it to be a 15 minute city design. I have chosen not to live in a city and I would like to keep it that way.
I think that’s totally the right approach. But also, I said this elsewhere, a lot of farming communities are effectively 15 minute cities for the people who live in town. You’re still driving in from a farm, of course, but you can also park and get everything you need in one stop.
Loved your post. It’s spot on. Cheers from the Lower Haight.
> San Francisco is a terrible place
Fixed that for you.
Note: I’m a happy Californian and love this state and many cities. But SF can suck it. I’ve lived next to it and worked in it for almost 20 years, I’m fairly well traveled, and there are few major/majorish cities I find worse than SF by almost any metric 🙂
In principle I agree that expanded, free public transit is the way to go, but Bart and especially muni are beyond saving. All you’ll get is more filth and abuse of the collective good by everybody. Note I’m not putting this entirely on the homeless or unstable population, who deserve better help than they’re getting, though I don’t know what that looks like; the average Joe is just as likely to treat a free resource like crap.
“the average Joe is just as likely to treat a free resource like crap”
Can’t be much worse than the fare paying public does already.
The few fare holidays that I experienced, the Muni ran far smoother than any normal day due to eliminating the slowdowns in boarding, etc from use of fare boxes and transfers.
As someone who is moving to the Bay Area for a job, what is the viability of motorcycle-commuting? I am asking this as someone who has 3-4 years and about 12,000 miles of riding experience. The plan would be to ride most days and use transit/wfh when the weather is too bad to ride in.
If you work downtown, I seem to recall one area on Pine Street @ Front and another on California street near Embarcadero Center for motorcycle parking.
Elsewhere in The City – it pretty much does not exist.
Between the tracks for the streetcars and cable cars, the grates under Market Street, the lack of care for pedestrians and bicyclists (who have MUCH more support in SF) the way people park by touch, the fog, and the way motorized vehicles all over The City are a target for theft and vandalism – (I admit – I accidentally backed over a motorcycle that was parked behind my Ranger, because it was impossible to see from the front and inside the truck) – I wouldn’t do it.
Every single person I know who’s motorcycle commuted in the bay has gotten into a serious accident within 2-3 years. I don’t know if it’s worse than other urban areas – I don’t personally ride, so I don’t really know what the stats are – but it’s happened enough I’ve noticed it as a trend.
(Ed: that’s commuting into the city from the rest of the bay – I don’t know about riding in the city.)
Let me preface my takes on robotaxis with the following:
You will have to pry the wheel from my cold, dead hands. I am firmly in favor of personal vehicle ownership.I am vehemently in favor of public transport – along with new affordable housing, I consider it one of the pillars of good urban development. More selfishly, it also makes for more fun driving and less sitting in traffic, by giving commuters, many of whom hate driving, an alternative.I recognize that, much like the vast majority of tech startups, all robotaxi companies are doing is undercut the competition until the competition disappears, then provide essentially the same or worse service.I am generally against getting rid of jobs via automation – both because AI is half-baked and will be for the foreseeable future (I work in tech) and because, under capitalism, it is not realistic to expect people in those jobs to “get with the times” and “get better jobs”. Realistically, this is just going to make the poor poorer. This is not gig economy apologia – fuck that shit with a cactus too.
All of the above should make me opposed to robotaxis in both theory and practice. However:
The idea that robotaxis are going to lead to always-available autonomous transportation that is going to eliminate personal vehicle ownership is, simply put, garbage. It’s the same tired pitch startups have been slinging to investors for decades. It’s not going to happen.People, and that includes those other than the ultra-wealthy, will have various reasons to not take public transport, even if it is greatly improved in terms of coverage, efficiency, reliability/punctuality, and safety. Prior car-centric (sub)urban planning means some communities cannot reasonably get access to public transit. The elderly and disabled may need door-to-door transportation. The immunocompromised may prefer private transportation. Sometimes my schedule just isn’t flexible enough to work with a train timetable. (etc.) Cars for hire – i.e., taxis, ride shares, or robotaxis – are here to stay in some capacity.Robotaxi development does not need to be government-subsidized. Use taxpayer money to fund public transit, let private businesses develop autonomous vehicles on their own dime.We can revisit this when we get to the enshittification point in the robotaxi life cycle. For now, I like being able to adjust the temperature, music, mood lighting, and whatnot – things you cannot do in an Uber. I also love not having to tip (rideshare expectations having gone from no tip, to symbolic tip, to 15%, to 20+% for standard service) because Uber won’t pay their drivers a living bloody wage. I understand this is flirting with “AI is a better worker than you because it doesn’t need to eat and sleep”, but it is strictly better for the fiscally-conscious consumer.
No one is arguing (at least not in good faith) that robotaxis are meant to bring about a social benefit. They are being rolled out with the express purpose of making their creators money, as is any product or service these days. However, evaluated on their merits, my current belief is that they outperform the direct alternative that they are competing with (taxis/rideshares).
Rant over.
Fucking HELL, why does my formatting show up when I post and then disappear when I refresh the page? Let me try to edit this back into a bulleted list, and in the meantime, sorry for the wall of text.
…aaaaaand the edit timer got me 🙂 Rats.
Fucking HELL, why does my formatting show up when I post and then disappear when I refresh the page?
You’re the one who works in tech; you tell us.
😉
You got me there 😀 Alas, I’m afraid computational chemistry skills do not translate well to web development (unless we’re talking spider proteins…)
Good stuff that spider silk.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jan/23/golden-silk-cape-spiders-in-pictures
The Autopian’s commenting system doesn’t count as “tech.”
Low tech is still “tech”. Even obsolete, forgotten, ancient, where-the-Hell-did-you-find-THAT-relic! tech is still ” tech”.
I also love not having to tip (rideshare expectations having gone from no tip, to symbolic tip, to 15%, to 20+% for standard service) because Uber won’t pay their drivers a living bloody wage.
Yet another reason tipping culture must DIE!!
And then you’ll wonder why the cheap Uber ride costs so much, ya Cheap Bastard.
I doubt it. I avoid ride shares as much as I possibly can. As well as any other businesses that use tipping culture to pad their bottom line.
Brilliant rant, though. I’m also a big proponent of public transit and used to commute to SF by public bus or ferry. But as you stated, a lot of the progressive pro-transit and/or anti-car folks usually offer the same 4 “solutions:” public transit, bike (in SF or NYC? Lol), walk, or stay home. There are so many situations where that’s not possible (schedules, disability, safety issues, etc as you detailed). Cars can’t go away in western cities with western activities and requirements and standards of living.
That said, robotaxis are not a markedly better solution than manned taxis/Ubers. The driverlessness has two “benefits:” eliminate labor costs (good for the operator) and increase coverage because the car can run 24/7!!!!1! (that’s never going to happen).
No, they were never meant to be social benefit. Robotaxis and by extension autonomous single passenger vehicles are about removing labor and turning the private ownership of said vehicle into a service.
It’s obliviously not about increasing efficiency. If one wanted to address efficiency of single cars, the driver would be the last place you would start. We’re put in numerous controls on road that frankly work pretty well. And even though the road feels like every idiot just got their driver’s license yesterday. Driver error is fairly limited on it’s effect on time. Example: Think how often a person speeds by you, only for you to catch up a mile or two later.
Really if we cared about efficiency, or safety, or cleanliness, or the environment. These are all solved problems. Transport really isn’t some deep space mystery. We have functional examples all over this planet. We’re just choosing not to do like any of those, as they like cost money and sometimes poor people benefit from it. Multi-modal models have been proven time and time again to work.
“We’re playing those mind games together”
It was unexpectedly cool they played “Imagine” at President Carter’s eulogy.
This is what drives me nuts about so much of the tech industry. Shouting that they are solving problems with tech that are actually caused by corruption and bureacracy. Y’all aren’t solving the traffic problem with robot taxis. You’re just pretending the other (extremely well known and well studied!!) solutions don’t exist, because there’s no way for you to get rich off of them.
To be fair, all these Tech Titans of Industry have never experienced a normal life. They often come from decent money, then acquire more of it. To them, they get were they need to be, when they need to be there, because their clock revolves around them. With private drivers. If they didn’t have to talk to that dude, great. Why wouldn’t people want to ride in peace to their ass-kissing meet.
it’s all very “The congregation asking the Priest for advice about farming”. The guy may have been blessed by God, and modern times with billions. But why are we asking the guys who’ve never placed a hand in the dirt how to till our fields?
For all the meaningful advances funded by high-risk capital (e.g. crispr, google search, cloud computing, etc), SO MUCH MONEY is wasted on worthless garbage endeavors like Clinkle and Airbnb and robotaxis and social media and all their parasitic industries (e.g. the myriad logistics and catering services that have sprouted up just to service the employees of said garbage corporations). We’re talking about billions every year. Everybody knows those endeavors are useless at best: the entrepreneurs, the investors, the press, the employees. And in fairness they do generate some economic activity that benefits locals, not just well paid employees, e.g. restaurants, though that’s negated by the attending rise in CoL and competition for housing. The whole Bay Area’s transit infrastructure could be fully funded by the amounts spent on garbage “innovation” here.
I don’t think robotaxis are a positive even if they are safer, especially in cities. I do suspect they could do better in suburban areas. The main reason is congestion. Early on robotaxis claimed they would alleviate congestion but that premise always seemed shaky at best to me, there is still the same number of people trying to get to the same places as with taxis or personal vehicles. To add to this robotaxis would also spend some amount of time driving completely empty to go to pickup locations. My best assumption is that they would increase congestion even assuming they work perfectly. This would be less of a concern where traffic is not as heavy and is currently under served by taxis or ridesharing which would mean outside of city centers. Ultimately I think the ideal scenario is to drive personal vehicles and to an extent taxis outside of city centers. Big clear lanes for mass transit like busses or trams and reclaimed walking space for foot traffic. Every time I drive in a city center is just stressful, and all so I can park at best several blocks away from where I’m actually going so I still need to walk or take some other mode of transport.
The only possible way I ever saw FSD or robotaxis reducing congestion — and this goes way back to C&D articles in the 90s — is to reduce the space between them through inter-vehicle communications. I still think this is the case, but I almost never see it discussed. Imagine an HOV lane with 50 cars in a row, all 1 length apart, communicating seamlessly with one another in a foolproof system. It’s a tall order, but to me the traffic issue was always two main things: Too few people per vehicle; and too much space between vehicles (especially those rush hour compression waves with every stop and start)
Makes sense. And reduced reaction time going from stopped to moving at a traffic light – which is getting noticeably worse thanks to driver distraction/cell phones. Also, if there is a way to get excess empty robocabs quickly off city streets when demand drops that would help too.
Well that would depend if the cost of parking them is less than the cost of just having them endlessly circle to block, and if it’s not then welcome to hell I guess.
I’ve often thought that AVs won’t be able to truly hit the mainstream until V2V and V2I communication is standardized and implemented at a high rate. Those technologies will allow for cars to be closer together, as well as be able to all start at the same time when a light turns green, along with lots of other benefits.
Musk still talks about this on occasion in between bumps of ketamine.
It’s difficult to do because 1) it’s a generational problem: it doesn’t work until all eligible cars are equipped with the tech, which can’t be retrofitted to the existing stock, and so it won’t bear fruit until the entire car fleet has turned over, which means 2) venture investors, who are the most likely to fund those big unproven projects, won’t be interested because the returns will take too long, which also means 3) there’s a chicken and egg issue where people won’t be willing to spend extra on equipment that doesn’t really do anything for them, so you won’t get the critical mass you need for maximum effectiveness for even longer than the expected replacement cycle in point (1).
One way to bootstrap the process is for regulators to mandate the new equipment on new cars, but 1) do we really want this when the tech is so new and unproven? 2) auto regulators are change and risk averse in the best of times, and 3) the safety regulators are completely asleep the wheel and not regulating their industry.
I don’t see this ever happening at meaningful scale, certainly not this century.
There’s also the induced demand effect, where adding a lane to a freeway often leads to the same or worse congestion because you suddenly have a bunch of new people deciding to drive. Adding robotaxis to the mix may theoretically improve efficiency, but if they increase demand at the same time, you’re back at square one.
That said, I don’t know if robotaxis would have that effect. There’s plenty of potential supply already, with Uber and Lyft’s flexible provisioning. I don’t know that there’s a lot of demand that isn’t already met by the available supply. When I have to wait longer or pay more for a ride, it’s usually because there is already too much traffic, and adding more cars wouldn’t help.
The whole robotaxi project is such a weird boondoggle.
Robotaxis are literally made because rich dickbags can avoid the public transit that is actually needed, or in the case of Mr. Krabs, a literal ploy to keep public transit from being funded in favor of his remote controlled toys that get him money.
TL;DR on Waymo is that San Francisco has introduced a “You don’t have to watch a guy taking a dump on a city bus” tax.
Man, the taxes there are insane.
SF isn’t the highest taxed city in the US – not even in the top 15:
https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/us-cities-pay-most-taxes
Tho we pay more in taxes than most people elsewhere in the country because we earn more and have fewer deductions.
In my 20 years there, I never saw anyone defecate on a bus/train and never heard of such a thing happening from others.
I’ve never seen anyone do it, but I have:
* seen and smelled the result of someone who had
* seen an entire BART car completely empty at rush hour because one mephitic individual was sleeping in it and the stench was revolting
* seen a random individual start calling a muni driver the n word and become increasingly agitated and dangerous while the bus was in motion
* had to hoof it up and down the stairs at Montgomery because the escalators were out of service due to human waste gumming up the works (several times)
I mentioned this in response to Torch’s post yesterday about the Waymo that went around in a circle, but SFGate and the Chron said that the blind are very positive on Waymo, among other things because they allow guide dogs to ride.
Can’t find the Gate article, and the Chron’s is behind a paywall
Why some Bay Area blind people say Waymos are changing their lives
I totally buy that and it’s a great use case for Waymo.
The whole thing represents a case in a notorious tough area of economics called partial equilibrium analysis. Change one thing within a system, and try to understand how it effects everything else. It’s fascinating.
The rideshare revolution offered a similar case study. Economists are still sorting it all out, but initial data for instance show that it increased congestion in cities as demand for being driven around in a car both took riders away from mass transit AND provided an incentive for more cars to enter the city.
The true robotaxi is robust public transit, and always will be.
“Robotaxis” as they currently exist are not autonomous. They are supported by an army of humans who monitor and control them remotely. Yes, they have some pretty impressive technology, but it isn’t even close to “autonomous”.
That said, I’m not anti-robotaxi. I believe they can serve a purpose, especially for vulnerable people who fear (rightly or wrongly) that they are getting into an Uber or taxi with a driver who can’t be trusted. I don’t see these as a concurrent option with what we currently have, but as a replacement. Otherwise they just add to congestion.
Don’t kid yourself. There are plans for super wealthy cities to be built from scratch. The unsolvable problem is that they can’t figure out how to have such a place and not have anyone else. Who will brew their coffee, make their tacos, and mow the lawn?
Robotaxis are created to help alleviate part of the obstacle. Of course, IMHO this is just a pipe dream unless they can get unmanned sewer departments.
Deport all the robotaxis to Mexico and change their name to Muchomás?
Not unlike the Audi piece the other day, BMW seemed to do best of the 3, and in particular with EVs. Their US EV sales were up 12% in 2024. (sorry if that was already in another TMD and I skimmed past it!)
Could be early mover advantage since BMW seemed to dabble with electrification sooner or more prominently anyway. The products seem to be better, I haven’t followed them that closely though. Most of the i models could pass for an ICE version which may say more about regular BMW styling, but then enough’s been said about the EQ line styling too. Also probably helps that BMW started on the lower end of the price scale, i4/i5 seem to start lower than most of the MB models save the EQB which seems like a hard sell for its size and price.
I would think the only way autonomous cars are positive is if it decreases the amount of car ownership but as you stated I would rather all this money just be put into developing public transport.
Robotaxi, I could see a net positive if they linked up to another. However, they aren’t there yet, so currently it’s net zero.
I’m not sure on robotaxis as much as just autonomous personal vehicles, and work on public transit as they can.
Like maybe families or employers could go in on autonomous personal vehicles, and then they can guarantee people can get to and from work as needed, or bring the kids home from school while the parents are still at work.
For taxis the whole sketchy thing seems to have taken off with Uber, registered cabs seemed a lot safer than random stranger showing up and you just get in, I’ve never taken an uber or lyft and hope to never do as it sidestepped most regulation there was for cab companies.
So go back to regular cab drivers, sell autonomous cars like regular cars and get some more staffing on the subways.
On robotaxi, imagine your and everyone elses’ car just roaming the streets waiting for you. People will want their own car and not a shared car. It would make traffic way worse.
This may be the single best argument in favor of robotaxis that I’ve ever seen.
Or for owning your own car? Haha
I don’t have to talk to humans on trains and light rail, either.
I’m ready to be unpopular today, so here goes:
If we are going to live in a world where *it is even conceivable* that someone can be burned alive on a subway car while cops look the other way, then people with choices are going to vote against mass transit funding, are not going to ride mass transit themselves, and are going to support further development of alternatives where that sort of risk doesn’t exist. Such as robotaxis.
Arguably, whatever facts or statistics about safety you can find are less than meaningless compared to the feeling of control. You can argue against human nature all you want, but that won’t change people’s votes or actions.
If you don’t want a future of robotaxis, change the present state of subways.
I live in a town where subways aren’t an option and the surface trains and buses we have are slightly better than terrible. I give them that small bump simply because there a few cases where someone lives at Point A and needs to regularly travel to Point B and just happens to have a transit station at both of those points. For the rest of us it’s simply unusable. I’m not yet impressed with the current state of “autonomous” vehicles but if those ever actually deliver as promised they’ll probably be the only alternative to personal car ownership in this city.
The “last mile” issue is a real problem. If public transit takes you no closer than a 30-min walk to your destination, or even a 15-min walk if you’re disabled/frail/carrying heavy or bulky groceries, does it even exist? As much as I hated driving into a larger city for work, my public transit options took 1 hour extra each way, assuming it ran on time and wasn’t full, and they were hideous when it rained (more people in close quarters + wet hair and shoes = pretty gross).
My commute is 30-45mins each way depending on traffic. If I want to take public transit the only option is 2 to 3 different buses which would take me almost 2 hours each way. This includes a 10 minute drive to the nearest park-and-ride since the bus routes don’t come within 3 miles of my neighborhood. The best part is the bus fares I’d pay which is way more than I spend in gas each day. It might as well not exist in my case.
I didn’t even know about that been staying away from media of that sorts lately sick of all the depressing stuff like that. But yeah stuff like that and just hearing about the crazies out there is a reason why I would not want to rely on others for my own transport, care and safety. I normally avoid flying anywhere and will just drive even if it takes way longer and if I am going into Chicago I’ll just drive myself and if it is for a long event (concert, play etc) normally park at my dad’s and see if he can drop and pick me up if it isn’t to much of an inconvenience for him.
I don’t think this is as unpopular an opinion as you might think, but as we’ve discussed before, a public place is a public place. By the same measure, you shouldn’t go to a public park, a public school, or any other place where a bad thing could happen that’s outside of your control. I lived in NYC and took the subway all the time, including with a kid (and will probably take the subway tomorrow), and rarely had any incidents. I’ve been in much scarier situations on the road and in places where the antagonist had a heavy car/truck to crash into me.
That being said, we should try to vastly improve public transit and public safety and NYC’s current Mayor seems ill-equipped to do either.
I know that The Atlantic isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea. But this new article The Anti-Social Century – The Atlantic– really does an admirable job in speaking to the death of the third space phenomenon.
Also, maybe Eric Adams can take inspiration from the Ankara Metro next time he’s there.
Better yet, he can just stay there :p
I mean, fair to an extent, but public schools with locked doors aren’t really open to the public, and being outside in a park is a little different from being trapped in a small subway car, bus, or airplane.
I think it’s legitimate to say that some small number of people by their behavior have forfeited the right to be amongst the public, that until quite recently the trend in cities was to ignore that opinion and loudly shout down the people saying it, and that if we as a society committed to combatting disorder and petty crime, public transit (among many other things) would become more popular.
With respect, I don’t think your comparison to other public places holds water. For one thing, the rich absolutely do use alternatives to public parks and public schools, sometimes even for safety reasons! Also, there are some things that are valuable because they’re public even if they’re less safe. That is, when you have choices you get to weigh the pros and the cons and make a decision.
I know it’s anecdotal but the last public freakout I experienced was in a CVS pharmacy, guy standing in the entrance screaming, scared for my family because we couldn’t leave. I take public transit a few times a month and have seen a few freakouts over the years there too. I don’t think public transit is any worse than other public places but YMMV.
It’s fucked up when you have to tell yourself that riding public transit isn’t as dangerous as it seems. That suggests that AT BEST it isn’t very dangerous, it’s just crushingly awful. Watching people do drugs, smelling the drugs, smelling the shit, hearing the hate speech, seeing the swastika tattoos… and jeez, I’m a guy. I don’t have to put up with what I assume women do. Those aren’t risks on public transit, they’re near-certainties. Taking public transit in most cases in the US (and honestly, most other places, though not as intensely) is such an intensely losing proposition compared to private transport it’s hard to see a way forward for it.
I agree with you and it is one of the primary reasons that visiting large cities in this country is something I avoid. I prefer the pace of rural life and enjoy having fresh air and a view that isn’t a concrete jungle.
This. Public transit in the US has a serious problem with hostile users fucking the experience for everyone else. If you want normal people to take the bus or the train, you need to dramatically lower their chances of being exposed to human waste, fentanyl/meth smoke, and racial slurs by someone “experiencing a mental health crisis”.
I would love to be able to take the bus or train to my job. But a) neither runs reliably nor has stops convenient to my work place in an industrial area, and b) the last time I took the train I got to watch someone take a shit on the floor. When it’s nice out, I can bike to work in less time than public transit, even accounting for needing to shower. When it’s bad weather, I just drive and enjoy the smell of not-piss.