Self-driving, solar cars solve all problems of mass transit and are far cheaper, since they use existing roads.
Traveling with kids? Something people do with public transit and walking every day.
Promoting walking encourages healthy lifestyles; promoting driving (or just sitting in a car and not doing anything) encourages the opposite.
Elderly or disabled people take public transit all the time.
Short on time or carrying a bunch of groceries? Live out in the far suburbs? Then public transit isn’t for you. But it takes passengers who aren’t short on time off the roads, making your trip faster.
Edit: Cities with bad weather have adapted the cities to support public transit and walking (think covered, elevated walkways in Asia).
It’s not a zero sum game. Self driving cars will be great. Public transit is great (and can be great in more places 0if cities made more investment). Both can and should exist.
I'm a little bit worried about self driving cars being used for auto-detaining people and delivering them to police/terrorists. When you get into a sdc, you lose your ability to get off anywhere you want, it might lock up the doors and deliver you to the mafia or police for all you know.
Remember "auto-detention" I invented it here and now. :-)
I agree public transit is unequivocally great and important. I don't agree that most of our investment dollars should go to mass public transit over SDC public fleets.
NYC is an exception and can't be replicated in most places, and the lack of transit options are still a burden on the groups I mentioned.
They don't solve the arguably most important issue: road capacity. A bus that takes the same space on the road as 2-3 cars seats 30 people (and holds another 30 standing). Self-driving cars enable somewhat more efficient traffic patterns, but they will have a hard time overcoming the order-of-magnitude lead that buses have.
And that's not even mentioning subways, those don't impact roads at all and move staggering amounts of people
it doesn't matter how full the bus is when the road is empty, but the number of cars that a bus is taking off the road at peak road usage time is pretty close to the full capacity of the bus, in any bus system i've ever ridden.
Could you leave those tools at work/training if they had secure storage? Alternatively, could the training facility offer a set of training tools while you keep your personal set at home for training?
Public transportation is used by people from all walks of life. Not just office workers - cooks, nurses, artists, school teachers, police officers, even employees of trade companies... and every citizen benefits from reduced traffic, lower infrastructure costs, and better health.
Using car taxes to fund public transportation would not materially impact the carpenter. They'd just charge a little more. An absurdly high $1000/year tax spread across 50 clients is merely $20 per job - a more realistic $200/y tax would add $4 per job. Considering that public transportation increase average disposable income, the market can easily absorb that cost.
And so too can the office workers. To charge one group for the benefit of another, based solely on the manner of their employ, is the definition of unfair. This is what progressive taxation is for, not use taxes.
For businesses that require car usage, the tax is merely an operating cost. There is no impact on profit as operating costs are passed on to the consumer.
Of course, allocating that revenue is still subject to local voters' wishes.
Regardless, transit should pay for itself in the same proportion that roads pay for themselves. Transit has per-use or per-distance fees around using it, but are also subsidized by the government. Road travel has per-use or per-distance fees (tolls, gasoline taxes), and are also subsidized by the government. I'm sure we can continue to find a balance for all of those numbers so no one is disproportionately burdened to support their needed mode of transportation.
I agree that public transit should be improved. Transit should be free to the poorest people. It should also be accessible.
My point is just that existing mass transit is unpleasant or not viable for many people. Public transit in the form of solar SDCs has the advantages without the disadvantages.