> If we were to make, say, traffic signals more efficient by synchronizing them, or somehow increase capacity on freeways, people would just drive more.
Or say, invent self-driving cars...
Or say, invent self-driving cars...
Now, self driving cars could get us closer to that 2200 cars an hour figure, but there is so much pent up demand for a magical faster option (latent demand) that when those marginal efficiency gains occur, there will be a flood of new vehicular traffic on the roads that will fully negate said efficiency gains, and likely exacerbate said issues since the tolerance for time spent in traffic will significantly increase for autonomous vehicle owners due to being able to do another task while your car drives for you.
Has Elon Musk publicly addressed this issue at all?
Self-driving cars are inevitable, so they may as well be electric. But if Tesla pulls the industry into the self-driving age before the majority of cars are electric they could actually be doing more harm than good. Perhaps self-driving cars should be required to be electric.
(1) multi-modal mass transit/car mixing becomes more attractive.
(2) transit can optimize for high-frequency mini/microbus formats rather than least-number-of-employed-drivers. this is less optimal from road-occupation POV but can be a win if it makes more people actually use transit?
(3) required parking space drastically decreases. Reaping the benefits will take a LONG time, but we'll be able to go back to denser cities?