Silicon Valley is wrong about the future of transportation
vox.com
vox.com
No conspiracy about it.
> All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident
(source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32538563)
I distinctly remember some other comment a while ago showing how the Reddit hive mind drastically changed positions around certain covid topics (I think about masking?).
It's fascinating how groups can be so adamant about their positions one instant, and then switch positions later on with zero repercussions. We need more accoutability.
I don't hear this rhetoric in the general public. At best, high gas prices bumped a few people on the edge to buy a Prius instead of a Corolla. Now that those prices seem to be going down, the rhetoric will taper off and people will go back to buying SUVs.
One thing that I do expect is driving some of the rhetoric is that cars have just gotten ferociously expensive for everybody not a homeowner in the 'burbs. So, we've kind of gone back to cars being a whopping chunk of your income like the 60s and 70s while we've dismantled most of the nearby jobs and local infrastructure that meant you needed a car less. It will be interesting to see if this is enough impetus to finally change the status quo.
Shitty suburbs will slowly become abandoned as high skilled workers are leeched away by decent living conditions (i.e. not sitting in a car for 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week)
Not to mention the other conveniences rarely afforded to urban apartment dwellers...
Point being - I'm not sure I see the suburbs disappearing just because car-centric development is suboptimal.
To me, cars are getting a lot better recently. Parking cameras and all the different warning systems like lane changes or rear end warnings are really useful. It's much easier to park a large SUV in a tight parking spot than it used to be, and cars seem to be getting safer as well.
Almost none of this is due to CarPlay or Android Auto, though, which are the main ways Silicon Valley is affecting transportation. CarPlay seems fundamentally limited - it's nice to listen to Spotify or podcasts in your car, it's nice to have integrated maps, but no other apps seem to be mattering much, and even interacting with a touch screen isn't a great experience because it's so distracting. If anything more of the interaction with CarPlay should be via scroll wheels, which some cars do support.
The stuff this article refers to - public transportation, Uber, self driving cars - none of that is really making any difference right now. Maybe it'll get better someday. 90% of Americans have cars, 5% commute on public transit, most Americans never use Uber. Cars really are improving with technology though.
If you want private land (house, yard), you will always need a private car.
I live in an house.
I walk 5 minutes to the nearest bus station, there in the worst case, in public holiday I may have to wait 30 mins at most, but because the bus hours are public, I can leave my house at the last moment.
10-15 mins with the bus, or 8 if there are no car jamming the road, I'm at a train station.
This train station have a train line that bring me in the middle of Paris in 13 minutes.
I could totally lives without it.
Almost all of my needs can be covered at feet distance, or with public transit.
I would vote to restrict further the cars.
As soon as you take every cost the car make, it's not worth it anymore. And I'm not speaking only about money, but the external cost generated due to the car: It reduce biking and walking by taking up space on the road, and being dangerous for both. It pollute the air and reduce our lifespans. It make a tons of noise, which also reduce lifespan.
There are certainly times it would be more convenient to have a car, and most people around here do. I've just never got around to it (though I do have a licence, and hire one maybe once a year for a trip to somewhere awkward).
If you live near the middle of London, on the other hand, a car is positively unusual: the public transport is ubiquitous, often faster than sitting in traffic, and much cheaper than parking. That's not true of most places in Europe, though.
In practice, in Paris, at commute hours the car is often slower than using public transit.
Middle school 20mins away on feet.
High school is 25mins away in bus.
Personally, if I have to take more than 2 modalities of transit to get where I have to go then I just use a car (taxi).
Maybe the French are a bit different, but in America no one would want that. The idea that you’re beholden to the others schedule (or multiple others!) and it could be late or off or whatever or if you miss it you’re screwed is exactly what Americans fear most about communal transit. The American independent mindset would kill that.
If there are issue on a line, there are apps that will route you away from it.
And the other big thing is, these 76 minutes are not lost, you can do something in this time, for me it's reading a lot on the net.
Now, if you want to do this commute in car, well it won't be good for your mental health, then the traffic will vary a lot, and can add 30-45mins at worst on your commute.
In isolation I would much prefer to drive in, traffic and all. But it costs too much, and I know that’s not a realistically scalable solution for many reasons. But that I even wish I could is representative of just how much I hate NYC’s public transit system.
Now I’m not a transit hater. I loved Seoul’s and Tokyo’s for example. But to get NYC’s transit, let alone any other American city’s transit to that level is completely impossible due to cultural and social reasons. And no - cars have little to do with those reasons.
s/always need/often want/