Society is not a monolith. The people and companies choosing to invest into self-driving cars are not the ones who would be able to make communities more pedestrian- or transit- or bike-friendly. As much tech as there is in the bay area, Google is not a local duke that can unilaterally make streets less car-dominant.
The people who can choose to make communities more friendly to other modes of transportation are the citizens who vote for representatives and laws, the citizens who show up at local meetings, and very often they fight against safer streets, sadly enough. Democracy is better than non-democracy, but that doesn't mean voters always make smart decisions.
Personally, I would LOVE it if American streets looked more like Dutch streets, or even German streets. But within US politics, wanting safer streets like those is an extreme position. Most people grew up with car dominance, and they're uncomfortable with or skeptical of the idea of actual choice in transportation modes. There's an enormous amount of cultural momentum behind forcing everyone to drive.
You can argue that it is a net negative that a lot of America, and most of the American west, was built and grew in conjunction with the car, but it is not entirely fair to say the only impediment is culture and politics.
These are the same thing.
> It would literally require starting from scratch in many places to design a city around non-car ownership.
No, it wouldn't. This is part of the common set of myths that are promulgated around car dominance in America. There are many, many things that can be done to retrofit streets to be less oriented around car dominance, many of them not terribly expensive or time consuming (though admittedly the very best options do tend to be infrastructure that's expensive and time consuming).
For example, one thing Portland has done in some of its neighborhoods is to create neighborhood greenways, with concrete structures/blockers at some intersections that force you to turn, so that cars can't use the street as a 'through street' for commuting (but it's still possible to reach everywhere with a car for residents). This is fairly cheap and easy to do, it's just a matter of political will.
Here's an example picture (though the exact type of blocking structure can vary): https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/styles/max_768w...
This is a big improvement that doesn't require redoing the whole street or anything, just a few concrete dividers and a little paint along a street maybe every four or five intersections, enough to make it impractical to use for longer-distance car commuting.
Some other things that are usually relatively cheap to add to existing streets:
* Automated speed cameras
* Roundabouts
* Chicanes
* Protected bike lanes, using basic dividers
* Dedicated bus lanes
* Better bus stops that at least have some kind of roof and bench
* Zoning rule changes that play well with density, like allowing light retail in currently residential-only zones, or allowing 'missing middle' housing
These are off the top of my head, but I know there are more.
Besides, suburbs exist, and someone living in Sherwood who works in Portland, at this time, requires a car. And public transit would need to be either faster, cheaper, or more convenient (wifi, coffee etc) than driving for (most) people to adopt it over a car.
And Hawthorne is _super confusing_ now. Turning right from Hawthorne to 10th is a nightmare, you have a bus lane, a bike lane and a sidewalk to the right of you, all of which could contain someone. It is hard to accurately see all three "lanes" that you need to cross. Another example is the Hawthorne bridge onto 99E, the angle is below 90 degrees so you end up with a massive blind spot. I start looking for bikes/peds way before the off-ramp because I am used to it.. someone from out of town or who rarely drives in Portland is going to kill or injure someone.
That's what protected bike lanes are for. Basic ones aren't that expensive, really, the issue is more the road space. Cars dominate the existing space, and many, perhaps most drivers will scream bloody murder at losing any. They don't want equality and choice, they want dominance and everyone forced to drive.
> Besides, suburbs exist, and someone living in Sherwood who works in Portland, at this time, requires a car.
"Besides" nothing, you're talking about an almost entirely separate issue now. Obviously bikes aren't great for really long distance commutes for most people, they're more for short to medium distance trips. And yes, that's where public transit comes into play -- with people able to walk or bike to the stations.
> And public transit would need to be either faster, cheaper, or more convenient (wifi, coffee etc) than driving for (most) people to adopt it over a car.
Yup, that's where you throw in bus lanes everywhere. Places like London have heavy adoption of bus lanes that lets taking the bus often be faster than driving by yourself.
> And Hawthorne is _super confusing_ now. Turning right from Hawthorne to 10th is a nightmare, you have a bus lane, a bike lane and a sidewalk to the right of you, all of which could contain someone.
I admit that I'm not that familiar with Portland, but protected intersections are a solved problem. Takes more money than the other things I've mentioned so far for sure, but it's still quite doable.
Would be very possible with good public transit. But that's the point. The average NIMBY doesn't want bus stop in their neighborhood. They don't need it. The only thing it would enable in their mind is people that do need it (poors, browns, etc) access to where they live. You don't spend $650k on a house and $80k on a Tahoe to have poor people riding busses around you.
That's the general attitude in my neighborhood at least when I describe why my old ghetto neighborhood was better in a lot of ways. Zoning allowed businesses nearby. I could walk 5 minutes to Dollar General instead of an hour. But I might have a black guy ask me for bus money, which seems like it would be a horrifying experience for most of my neighbors.
Transit often doesn't get people where they want to go, when they want to go, in a reasonable amount of time, for a reasonable price. If you are missing any of the above then you don't have a useful transit network and the car starts to look compelling. (cars are expensive, but the marginal cost of a trip is very low once you have one)
Worse, when transit improvements are done, often they are expensive and deliver very little useful changes.
With the above backdrop it isn't hard to see their point. That doesn't make them right, but it means if you want transit you have a lot of evils on your side to fight.
According to the very article being discussed no, they are not.
Cars were here yesterday, people loved them for their freedom. Cars are here today, people love them and build communities around them. Cars will be here tomorrow, and people will still love them.
When you need to go further or out of the city, by all means, jump in your environment-destroying metal cage but you don't need it daily, I guarantee it. Please don't cite extreme exceptions like disabled people or families with 10 kids.
In the Top 10 US cities that have the density to support this, sure. Head out to the Top 100s and this reality falls apart very quickly. There's no economic incentive for businesses to be so well distributed through a dense urban core. There's differential zoning and mixed use that form the backbone of those cities economies.
The idea that we can just total re-engineer our cities and our social lives all across the country to solve a traffic problem that is not at all distributed the same way is insane to me.
Most deaths happen at night. Most deaths involve alcohol or drugs. Other common factors are speed, youth, and bad roadway configuration. A tree in the wrong place is lethal. Bad guardrail installations are lethal.
There is so much more to do than to put everyone on a bus and pretend that 15 minute cities are going to work.
I currently live in Ann Arbor, MI (the 244th largest city in the US) without a car. If they built a Trader Joes downtown I would have 0 issues being car free. The city has built a number of fully protected bike lanes downtown that I hope get expanded further into the greater community, and seems to be doing a good job of making the downtown denser as well. It certainly can be done.
I live in a very very very similarly sized city in OH and I feel exactly the same way (down to the trader joes even). I do have a car and I often wish I didn't need it. My city is small enough that not only is a 15 minute city a feasible option, it could be a reality today with a couple small infrastructure changes.
We engineered them to be human centric. It's just that the humans had easy and reliable access to affordable cars and fuel. So, naturally, the market did what it does. When you say it's car centric you intentionally ignore any benefits or efficiencies that were created in that decision and equally imply that it was a top down decision.
> I currently live in Ann Arbor, MI (the 244th largest city in the US) without a car.
Do you own or rent? Are you a college student or a resident?
> If they built a Trader Joes downtown
Why do you suppose they haven't? Should the government compel them? Why them and not some other chain? What if two chains want to compete for that footprint?
> number of fully protected bike lanes downtown
Do you bike in the winter?
> and seems to be doing a good job of making the downtown denser as well.
The population of Ann Arbor has been steadily increasing for the past 80 years. The last 20 years have shown no change in that steady rate. Any recent changes are very unlikely to account for the very slight continual trend.
https://www.ibisworld.com/us/bed/government-funding-for-high...
"Higher funding has been made possible by burgeoning state tax receipts as aggregate incomes, spending, populations and tax rates have trended upwards. However, this close link with tax receipts has made highway funding growth responsive to economic conditions and unemployment."
So.. higher incomes, more populations, more tax receipts. Specifically, highways are a function of _human demand_. There isn't some grand conspiracy to build roads just to make a handful of companies in Michigan happy.
I don't hate cars! I just don't want to have to jump in a car to go somewhere I could easily walk
Where I live I sometimes walk, sometimes bike, sometimes take the subway, sometimes use my car, and sometimes use my truck.
I'm nowhere near rich enough, but having your own private jet would also give you a lot of extra freedom.
However I don't consider these self driving taxis to give you much freedom (because you don't own them).
This is a political problem though, it's not something businesses can solve.
correct. there's no easy answer, there's no silver bullet. it's on all of us to demand this of our local policymakers.
You can be taken exactly where you need to go in much more comfortable conditions with much less risk of running into anti-social behavior.
That's why Uber has a market even in cities like NYC or DC.
>door-to-door
Doesn't have to be door to door.
I use Uber all the time when on vacation to get to places of interest and then back to the hotel. Trying to incorporate public transit would have added 30-40 minutes of walking, no idea how much additional time waiting. Saving ourselves an hour or so per day of vacation makes it worth it for us.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/09/08/uber-lyft-...
Dated but it says 66% of riders can find a ride within 5 minutes. I think 5 minutes is a good target.
With how subsidized public transit is, I don't believe these AV taxis could beat it on price... but they don't have to. They just have to make it low enough that the benefits of private travel outweigh the cons of public transit.
People tend to take less public transit when they become wealthier, not more.
I’m an environmentalist and the solution is electric vehicles powered by renewable electricity. It’s not cooping people in tiny apartments and foisting dense living on people that don’t like it.
That might be the first time I've seen privacy as a main objection. Not sure how serious that should be taken considering how much privacy has willingly been given up in the last couple decades in the name of convenience. And also how few cases where it would matter. Like does it matter if a rando can see one sit on a bus? It's not going to make a difference with companies and governments since they have so much electronic location data available, not to mention license plate scanners for private cars which also have electronic location data.
I don’t mean privacy as in personal data, I mean not having to be in close quarters with other humans.
Perhaps. It's also possible that current roads could carry vastly more traffic driven by autonomous drivers instead of people. As a regular cyclist, I would be ecstatic if even if every human driven car on the road were replaced by 2 autonomous ones. Buses are some of the worst vehicles to be around on city streets (huge, poor visibility, frequent stops, filthy diesel emissions).
Suburbs tend to be sterile and devoid of character, but I do agree that they promote living in a bubble away from other humans.
Why that is desired or a widespread model for living needs more explanation. Sure some people like to be hermits, but as a social species it seems odd and also a highly inefficient way to accommodate a larger population. Also peculiar if one likes true "wilderness", because more suburban sprawl means less of that.
And suburbs have got to be one of the key factors in the reported loneliness epidemic. With the reports of increasing prevalence of loneliness, seems odd to want the default way of life to be one that we both agree means living spread out and not close to one another.
And yeah some people do like suburbs. On the other hand, Irvine ca despite being such an upscale and model suburb, is like living in the set of the truman show: artificial feeling and boring. People often describe it as sterile or like living in an office park. The landscaping of suburbs, such as irvine, also tend to be environmental disasters on top of being utterly bland. It's lose lose.
Not to mention, car transport being the paramount design concern makes for truly miserable pedestrian life and running trails. Running next to 6 lanes roads with 55 mph speed limits is just a terrible experience - irvine is crisscrossed with them.
Not sure how one can have a better road system than irvine - but it doesn't end up saving the residents time - things are just more spread out and they have to driver further between them and then fight for parking.
We've tried a car oriented transportation plan for decades - it gets one LA traffic. Parts of the 405 have 12 lanes. If you build it, congestion comes. We've tried it for decades, it's horrible. What is it they say about trying the same thing over and over and expecting another outcome? Oops actually the i5 - 405 merge near irvine has 26!!! lanes amongst all the ramps and truck bypasses. Needs more, right?
If you pay for one year in advance you get two months for free.
Bikes? If you mean e-bikes and motorcycles then maybe. Buses and trains? No it's not and it will never be. This is a position only a green extremist would take.
A fucking horse is better than any of those methods of transportation. There are two crucial elements a car and a horse have in common:
The first element: You own it (or rent it) and you tell it when and where to go. The when and where part is crucial.
The second element: It has the capability of carrying not only you, but also an another person and cargo.
The only transportation devices that can do both of these things are a) cars, b) horses, c) bikes (kind of... two people and cargo on a bike would be pretty tough to do, let alone with any level of comfort).
The fundamental, unfixable problem with trains and buses is that you don't tell them when and where.
The future is in EVs or global warming. Personally I've had it up to * here * with all the green hypocrites so I say bring on the warming, let's fuck this place up if you don't want electric cars.
A proper public transit network already goes to where you wan to go. You don't have to tell them.
The vast majority of car rides are taken by a single person without significant cargo. Nobody is saying we should eviscerate all cars, but _most_ of the time, _most_ people that use cars in cities don't actually _need_ to use cars.