I do not think driverless will solve the main transportation problem we are dealing with as a society: we are giving up more space for cars, space that humans cannot use. We build more highways, widen roads, increase speed limits, and expect humans to stay out of this space. I live in a 100+ year old neighborhood. The roads were built for horse and buggy and streetcars. Now I have to beg to cross the road. My neighborhood has been effectively chopped up. I question whether I should walk to another block because I'll have to deal with crossing the street. Quiet houses now have the constant buzz of cars either from the ever-present highways or from the 40+ mph traffic right outside their doors. Driverless cars will not solve these problems. Fewer kids will die, partially from safe software, but mostly because they won't be able to leave their bubble without being strapped down into a car.
No one here should realistically think that Waymo can solve the main transportation problem. It will just (partially) replace Uber, Lyft, and taxis. And it will have a better passenger experience and it will also be safer. It’s obvious that cars, autonomous or not, can’t replace rail, bicycles, and walking.
I think it could solve a lot of transportation problems though. In theory if driverless vehicles were ubiquitous you'd have no on-street parking, no commercial transport in the day (do it all at night), much less traffic (just wait until your slot; maybe with peak time pricing), fewer delays due to crashes, etc.
When nobody drives manually you could even do things like getting rid of traffic lights.
But then you get into a world where people can’t cross the street (moreso than what’s already available). I recall seeing a video on YouTube that explores your suggestion to its inevitable conclusion. Additionally, this could exacerbate suburban sprawl
In my experience if I want to living in a bikable/walkable/transit oriented area, I have to move there. I think expecting this sort of stuff to come to you is too much, especially since most city centers have good transit options.
That said this is a tech forum, and while I don't think Waymo will be the only solution the tech is quite impressive and it's likely going to change how society works. Most people don't want to take public transit, they want to take a car and this is a much better solution for them. Forcing people to bike when they don't want to seems like bad form imo.
Forcing people to take and buy and own and maintain a car since hundreds of billions have been spent on that mode of transit, but near zero (in comparison) on any other seems like bad form imo
Sanborn Fire Insurance maps document cities in extreme detail. Not only are the positions and shapes of buildings accurately mapped, but also rough outlines of the rooms, their construction materials, and even small details like if the building hired a night watchman. See downtown San Fracisco for example: https://oldinsurancemaps.net/viewer/san-francisco-ca/?sanbor...
Also a major plot point in Peng Shepherd's novel The Cartographers. Not a marvelous novel (though it's far better than anything I could write), but entertaining enough and an easy read.
Bicycles do not have software to install a kill switch. They do not have license plates to be read by surveillance cameras. They do not require costly insurance to legally ride. They are not powered by fossil fuels. Buy a bike. Learn to maintain it. Advocate for safe biking infrastructure in your area.
Sure, buy a bike. AND buy an older (but maintainable) vehicle for hauling, transporting multiple people, and traveling long distances. It’s not either or.
I have a wonderful cargo bike (urban arrow - splurge purchase for my 35th birthday and second kid) - I use it for most in-city transportation tasks, including picking up kids from daycare/school, groceries, trips to restaurants, etc.
I also have a 2011 truck with ~200k miles on it. It's well take care of, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. It hauls stuff from home improvement stores, help family move, and takes us on vacation.
I've been debating getting bumper stickers for each of them along the lines of:
I had such an older vehicle until a couple weeks ago when the fuel tank supports rusted to the point the tank wasn't supported. There was just more maintenance needed than I had time to do - it would cost about what I paid for a modern 3 year old vehicle just to get it running and who knows what it will need next year from parts I wouldn't replace. (the new car is also electric so much cheaper to drive, though it doesn't have the capacity of the 1 ton truck it replaced so I'm stuck when I need that)
Just be aware that newer vehicles often have more things that can and will fail, and parts seem less standardized these days, so you may not be able to keep it running past the expected service lifetime.
Older vehicles (depending on the platform) often use common parts that are shared even across manufacturers. And third party manufacturers keep cranking out new stock for them.
I am hoping that this type of system develops for simple no-frills electric vehicles over time. Although laws like the one mentioned here keep piling up, increasing vehicle complexity and cost of maintenance.
Parts were mostly never standardized. The difference is when a production run ends they would sell all the tooling to a third party that makes parts under their own name. (and even before production ends parts that break often are worth duplicating). With computers when the production run of the LCD, CPU, ... ends nobody is making more. Even if you could get the software to install, nobody makes the computer at all at any price.
Fair, standardized probably isn’t the right term. Maybe common usage is a better term? I saw a video where someone was modifying a Dodge Viper and found that it used a Ford branded control switch or relay, not even the same company! Although that is a bit of an outlier.
Other parts were sourced from outside suppliers, which also supplied the same or similar parts to other automakers. Some of them were direct replacements, some were easily modified to work, and some could be robbed for components to refurbish your old part.
Transportation influences urban development. That is why most houses have a garage. There is no such thing as private transport (streets are public). Transportation has been heavily centralized since the New Deal. The bicycle was okay for most people living in cities in the 30s, now it is not because the government has favored the car infrastructure over the last decades. I think we need to start with not letting government develop their big infrastructure projects which are not resilient. Advocating for the use of bicycles might make sense in some places yet bicycle infrastructure is required.
Where I live there is plenty of bike infrastructure. I and many others don't use bike for transportation because of crime. Homeless steal bikes and parts of bikes if they cannot defeat the lock somehow. Recently a cyclists got killed in a "bike-jacking". People even get bikes stolen from their balconies on the 2nd floor. Reign in crime if you want people to use bikes more.
This is true. But it does not negate the comment you are replying to. Once you introduce kids into the mix (esp infants) - this whole narrative falls apart quite quick, ditto for elders/people with disabilities. Bikes, public transport are not a substitute for the vehicle.
I do agree that the vehicle should not be the default transportation even if I do consider myself a "car guy".
Also, federal highways are partially a national security issue, and are designed for quickly moving military equipment across otherwise isolated areas. Guidelines for federal interstates are specified jointly with the DoD to ensure that military transport can fit under bridges, and that bridges can support their weight. Industry is the other most important user, while individual consumers/families are the least considered users.
Everyone always assumes that individual choices and consumer behavior drives this stuff, and then they wonder why nothing changes even though we all started using reusable tote bags and LED bulbs. Stop blaming the consumer!
(The DoD is the largest institutional polluter in the world, by the way.)
That is very interesting. It is funny to see how influential the federal government has been on society, infrastructure and other areas of life. Specially considering that some people opposed to it during the confederation period because they saw it as another centralized authority (anti-federalist papers).
Trains are cheaper per mile but are less flexible and easier to sabotage. They are also important but there’s a reason that every country with a powerful military maintains both options.
I dunno, I live in what most people would call peak Suburbia and have all sorts of bike trails I didn’t even know existed until I got the electric assisted bike, I can range 5 miles away from my house in any direction without having to be on any major roads, and have a trailer for doing grocery shopping. I went 15 miles away and back one time but took quite awhile. All the grocery stores I frequent are within this range. When it’s warm out, I use my bike for probably 90% of my trips out of the house.
The exception is that he uses those bike lanes for shopping, not just exercise. Every suburb has plenty of great biking space (the streets are not busy!), but nobody thinks to try to use them that way.
* Extreme Weather: Severe heat, heavy snow, or torrential rain can make biking unsafe or impractical without specialized gear and high physical endurance.
* Accessibility & Mobility Issues: Individuals with certain physical disabilities or chronic health conditions may find traditional cycling impossible. (This also affects an aging population.)
* Time Constraints: For those with "trip-chaining" needs (e.g., daycare drop-off → work → grocery store → gym), the extra time required for cycling can be prohibitive.
* Infrastructure: Older adults are more sensitive to "heavy traffic" and "lack of safe places." Seniors don't stop cycling because they can't do it, but because they don't feel safe in traffic. (Good argument for upgrading roadways.)
* Care-giving: When parents become dependent on their children, often the children need to shuttle their parents around. A parent with dementia who escaped into the neighbourhood can be rapidly collected and ushered home in a car, not so much a bike.
* Theft & Vandalism: I've never had a car stolen. Two locked bikes, on the other hand...
There is definitely something to be said about bike theft. People see cars as a private space with serious social repercussions for violating. Bikes on the other hand are treated like normal belongings. This may have something to do with car-centric bike hatred and possibly the reflexive/reactionary tendency to completely dismiss the utility of bikes for transit. We have laws dedicated to the theft of cars, largely due to the fact the theft removes people’s mode of transport. Why not have the same for theft of other modes of transportation?
Additionally, I personally would have less issue with people driving due to a lack of physical fitness if they didn’t tend to 1. Drive recklessly and fast (35 on a 25 is not okay) and 2. Drive tank-like SUVs and Trucks
Severe heat, heavy snow, or torrential rain can make driving a car unsafe as well. Individuals with certain disabilities, chronic health conditions, or a plethora of age may also find driving impossible. For those with "trip-chaining" needs, extra time required for parking cars can be prohibitive. Old people don't like traffic and can escape and run away so fast you have to drive them back? And you're seriously including the idea that car theft is not a concern? These are some tortured arguments.
The correct argument here is "if bicycles become the dominant transportation mode, then the government will absolutely mandate kill switches for them too." "Bicycles don't have software" hasn't been true for years. E-bikes and wireless deraillers have been around a long time.
Bikes without software will be around for the foreseeable future. They're the cheapest and most plentiful version of bike. In the unlikely scenario that all bikes somehow become electric, old bikes are much easier to maintain than old cars.
My argument to my own post is that cameras that track cars and license plates could easily be reconfigured to track bikes and pedestrians. In that case there's no transportation mode that will save you from surveillance. The cameras have to go.
You do get the idea though, that just because bikes work for what you need to do, they won't necessarily work for what any other given person needs to do, right?
Also, why the hell have you got wireless derailleurs? What is the point? What possible advantage can they have over perfectly normal mechanical ones?
Exactly. I love bikes and live near a grocery store, but unfortunately getting to that store (or anywhere really) requires a few minutes of travel on a dangerously busy highway. It’s not safe to bike that road regularly.
I once lived somewhere that was half an hour from the store by car. Thankfully that isn’t the case anymore.
My in-laws live in a place like that. It's a gorgeous property but day to day errands are a challenge. I also fear the day one of them needs immediate medical care. The nearest urgent care is 20 minutes away and the nearest ER is at least 45 minutes away.
This, from what I can recall seeing about average car trip distance, is actually correct.
(Excluding you rural people, but depending on your city could be true if people had smaller lots and denser less car centric business areas, or more businesses in general)
A vehicle (presumably a car, since bikes are vehicles too) gets you and your stuff from point A to point B. Bikes do that too, though at a smaller scale.
If your commute or your errands aren't excessively long or require the use of a controlled-access highway, a bike's a perfectly fine alternative. The limiting factors are seasonal road or bike path maintenance and the discipline of other road users.
I hadn't heard of the requirement before. Mandatory registration originally seems to have been intended to address bike theft. All bicycles sold in California must have a serial number. A significant number of cities (most?) had ordinances requiring registration. But few people knew about it and even fewer registered their bikes.
I'm puzzled why there is so little emphasis on prioritizing bikes and other means of non-licensed transport among libertarians. Driving consents you to various things like forced ID checks, drug tests, and sometimes searches, and cars are relatively easy to track down compared to humans. In effect, car-centrism reduces civil liberties as it necessitates licensing for participating in society. And no, privatizing everything will not improve it. It will just make it worse since you'd be forced to allow insurance companies to track you to be allowed into private roads, etc.
The Puget Sound ferries often have a partially-done jigsaw puzzle on one of the tables. You can't finish it in 30m, so people come and do their part and move on. Eventually someone will put in the last piece, I guess, I've never seen it happen.
I love those. I have finished one (well it was missing a couple of pieces), between West-Seattle and Vashon, and what was better was that I contributed to the puzzle earlier on the way from Vashon.
My last visit to Seattle was in 1998 so I can't confirm this firsthand, but I would bet that when someone finishes the jigsaw, ferry staff bring out a new one.
Usually somebody just scrambles it again, but they are regularly rotated. I don’t have a precise measure, but I would guess every couple of weeks or so.
Let’s be realistic. I love long distance train journeys, but mainly for recreation. Being on a train for 3-5 days is pretty exhausting no matter how comfortable. I’ve done the 30 day Amtrak pass before and it was fantastic but I wouldn’t be looking forward to that if it was a work trip where I want to fly in and then get back to my family as fast as possible. There’s no way that can compare to a 5-6 hour flight+2 hours at the airport.
Amtrak is decent on very specific routes and still an absolute joke to anyone who has used trains in Europe, Japan, Taiwan, etc, and no personal experience but I'd imagine China too. My friend takes the Amtrak route up and down the Pacific coast precisely because she's stuck on a train for days and can't be disturbed while doing boring paperwork as an anti-procrastination strategy. Although the observation cars do have great views.
People who have used trains in Japan or Taiwan - islands have never used a train that is anything like Amtrak does and so have no comparison. Even in Europe long distance cross border rail is in most cases pretty bad as well.
However if you only compare the shorter distance rail in those places to what the US has some of the other trains are actually pretty good. Even then though Chicago's trains are a better comparison than anything Amtrak offers
I mean what do you consider long-distance? Inter-railing is a time honoured tradition for European Youth, and many of my generation alone would be very familiar with economy sleepers from e.g. Krakow to Prague or Budapest.
The ICE trains in particular are magnificent, and a worthy alternative to air travel.
Yes people do it all the time in Europe. It mostly works. However if you follow the space at all you will see a lot of stories about things going wrong - far more than there should be. Amtrak is mostly fine in the US, but there are still far more problems than there should be.
I mean, maybe you had a different experience. In my experience in the northeast , the internet service is about as reliable and consistent as the trains themselves (ie not consistent, garbage fire)
I was rather disappointed by the internet connection on the Cascades line (going Seattle --> Portland and back). As far as I could tell, they use T-Mobile for backhaul. Who are headquartered in Seattle. Yet the connection barely seemed to work for about half of the journey
boo, it's in the middle of no where along part of the route. Tmobile coverage is mainly in urban areas and along free ways no matter what slingblade tells you on the tv commercial. I don't know if you'd get any coverage on parts of that route other than wired.
Just like how sometimes when you're flying over the rockies or into canada you just don't get internets. There's still middles of no where out there. Often not very far from the freeway.
This wouldn’t bother me as much but it’s really like 5-7 days depending on freight use of the lines and they can’t tell you ahead of time what it’s going to be somehow?
In 1897, the Indiana General Assembly attempted to legislate a new value for pi, proposing it be defined as 3.2, which was based on a flawed mathematical proof. This bill, known as the Indiana pi bill, never became law due to its incorrect assertions and the prior proof that squaring the circle is impossible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill
Since then a million other "million _____" websites popped up. I saw a site selling one million text lines for $1 apiece. Last I saw they sold one line, now the site is gone [edit: INCORRECT].
There were hundreds of prosecutions. Then SCOTUS declared the president immune. Then the bad guy got reelected and pardoned everyone. Then started launched truly malicious prosecutions of political enemies. Cases which thankfully are dying due to lack of merit.
One side is doing all the bad things and the other is simply struggling to stop them. Being cynical helps nothing.
A consequence of that large political movement and its leaders is that numerous people have been murdered. MAGA can't wash its hands of the consequences of its beliefs and actions.
The maintainer is generalizing outside of Sanborn maps [0].
[0]: https://www.ohmg.dev/
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