
Let’s Build a Future Without Cars - protomyth
http://pandodaily.com/2012/04/20/lets-build-a-future-without-cars/
======
uvdiv
Let's built a future with 300mph self-driving supercars and mach 20
spaceplanes -- addressing the actual desires and wants of most users
(mobility, convenience) rather than imposing personal ethics of asceticism
(mass transit, anti-urbanization). The author brings up a lot of valid
problems with contemporary car travel (and notably none of its revolutionary
advantages), but most of these orthogonal to the personal-vs.-mass transport
issue he argues, e.g.

* Health dangers from emissions -- an issue of (certain implementations of) internal combustion, not the form factor of the vehicle: personal auto vs. bus or train

* Health dangers/obnoxiousness of long commutes -- likewise, a complicated thing which doesn't immediately suggest "ban cars" as the obvious solution. (If anything -- everything else being the same -- self-driving supercars should result in the shortest commutes: point-to-point (last mile), no waiting, no traffic congestion (from AI)

* Infrastructure NIMBY (roads, sprawling parking lots): rail lines have the same issues, with the tradeoff that the sparser your mass transit ugliness is, the more excruciating inconvenience the last-mile segment of a commute is (try living 10m walk from a subway stop). Flying "cars" are almost certainly _infinitely_ worse, because of their extreme noise

None of these are arguments against private transport; they are arguments
against specific _implementations_ of private transport, and don't at all
imply the conclusions the author derives.

~~~
nickpinkston
Yes, I came in here to comment of this. Let's cure the ills of a device that
is massively useful. Sure - cities should look more like NYC and less like
Houston - I'll give the car haters that, but I'm with uvdiv, that I'd far
prefer fast, clean versions that drove themselves.

The great part of high-speed rail, etc. is that you can relax while they do
the driving and you arrive close to your destination. However, driverless cars
give you the best of both of those worlds, and other than wind-resistance
(which drafting largely solves) you have similar efficiency.

PS - Does anyone find "driverless car" to be the 21st century equivalent of
"horseless carriage"?

~~~
ken
Maybe I'm the one crazy luddite on HN (would not surprise me at all!), but I
don't look forward to self-driving 300mph cars. The idea of trusting a
computer system to keep me safe on open roads, in close proximity to other
computer-controlled cars, sounds terrifying, not relaxing.

Yes, I love high-speed trains, because they're on a track, and while this
obviously does not guarantee safety, it certainly makes it _feel_ much safer
to me.

Compare to air travel. Even with the meticulous maintenance and regulatory
requirements, a significant fraction of the population is scared of flying (to
some degree). Driverless cars are better in one aspect (operates at ground
level), worse in others (proximity to other vehicles), just different in some
ways (computer versus human pilot), and complete unknowns, so far, in others
(regulation).

Even if the actual crash/injury/fatality rate of driverless cars is nil, how
do you design a 300mph computer-controlled car to not be scary for passengers?
I _want_ it to work, as I recognize the advantages, but it seems like the
social problems will be even tougher than the technical problems, and I'm
definitely not going to be an early adopter.

~~~
fiddly_bits
Must be perspective. I, for instance, think we should all be terrified to
share the road with scores, hundreds, or even thousands of multi-ton
mechanical devices traveling anywhere from 25 to 70 mph which are operated by
people, easily-distracted, endlessly fallible, and often foolishly reckless
people. Computer-controlled sounds better/safer to me.

------
sgentle
To me, what would be interesting about a world without cars (or even with
cars, but vastly more attractive public transport) is that it would partly
reverse a sad isolationist trend that's come along with the power and control
given to us by modern technology.

I used to catch a bus every day through the city, and there were a lot of
strange people on those trips. Gangs of 9 year old gangster kids drunk up the
back. Little old ladies muttering racist slurs at asian students. A guy who
hadn't showered in so long his clothes had gone partially transparent from the
grease. I don't think I was ever in any danger, but it sure was uncomfortable
sometimes. I work pretty close to home now (in fact, mostly at home), so it's
not really an issue anymore. But strangely, I find myself missing that chance
to interact with people who I didn't choose to interact with.

It seems like every time we get more power (like by inventing an engine that
can move us around) we use it to get more control (now I can encase myself in
a metal shield that prevents any accidental congress with the outside world).

A bunch of technology has gone the same way. Efficient worldwide shipping and
postage means you don't need to go outside to shop. Communication moving
online means you can block people you don't like rather than have to deal with
them. OKCupid means you can pre-screen your dates to avoid accidentally
meeting someone unpalatable. You can GPS track your kids so they won't ever
end up lost or at the wrong sort of party.

And those are all good things that give you more control over your
environment. But they also isolate you. Unknown experiences are fundamentally
scary; so scary that we feel more afraid of walking in a dark alley than we do
of heart disease. Like every generation before us, we strike out against
danger with the power of our tools. But our dangers are, at this point,
largely invented. We're getting to a point where instead of being safe, we'll
just be cocooned in a real-world filter bubble, where we never have to fear
the unknown, uncontrollable, unsanitised real world that gets forced on us
when we get on a bus or walk around a city. I suspect, for all our newfound
safety, we'll just feel a bit unsatisfied.

I guess I've just argued myself out of believing that the future without cars
is ever really going to happen. Maybe there'll be a virtual bus MMO.

~~~
donw
You've done a great job of summing up one of the reasons that public transit
in the US is as bad as it is.

My goal is to safely get from Point A to Point B, and I don't want to spend a
lot of time waiting around at Point A, or sitting and waiting on the way to
Point B.

We have three goals here, in order of importance. Let's call them safety,
convenience, and speed.

Taking a bus with a bunch of drunken hooligans doesn't help much with that
first, and most important, goal. I want my transportation to be safe, and the
high crime rates on public transportation in the US speak for themselves.

Interesting experiences are great. Getting mugged isn't, and while I'm not a
prime target (muggers don't usually pick on two-hundred-pound guys that spend
a lot of time in the gym), five loud, drunk people in a gang is not the sort
of situation I want to be around regularly.

Especially if I'm carrying a $1500 laptop and a $600 smartphone.

Convenience, at least here in SF, is also pretty miserable. I have not once
had a bus arrive on-time. The trains are usually on-schedule, but conveniently
frequent only during peak hours, and they only cover a small portion of the
greater Bay Area. Don't even get me started on CalTrain.

If I want to meet somebody and I need to take a bus, I need to add an extra
half-hour window around my journey. If you assume a normal tech-person salary,
that lost half-hour makes it cheaper to take a taxi for most journeys.

Speed is good for trains; busses, on the other hand, live at the whim of
traffic.

Japan gets all of these right in its major cities. I have never once felt
threatened on a train, and delays are few and far between.

The tradeoff they make is in manpower -- station employees are everywhere. We
tend to not like hiring lots of people in the US, and so public transit
stations might have one or two visible employees, and certainly not visible,
uniformed personnel at every platform.

This is why cars are as popular as they are. In SF, if I want to go from
Pacific Heights to the Inner Sunset, a journey by bus-and-train pushes about
an hour. By car, it's about fifteen minutes.

In my car, I have a stereo, air conditioning, and a clean, comfortable seat.
Public transit, on the other hand, is pretty filthy here in SF, and for some
odd reason they jack the heat up enough so that I need to do a little
striptease whenever I get on a train.

All minor inconveniences, sure, but it adds up quickly, and what do I get in
return? I'm late, have lost money in the long run, and arrive more often than
not in a worse mood than when I started.

I really want working public transit here in the US, but the way things are
going, I don't see that happening for at least another decade.

~~~
fiddly_bits
You have many of the same observations as me, but form a different conclusion.
Although, one thing: you say, "My goal is to safely get from Point A to Point
B..." Cars are a great way to kill 30 or 40 thousand people a year. Not very
safe. And the quality of service (and riders) will surely improve on public
transportation as more people use it, don't you think? Japan seems to prove
that.

~~~
kstenerud
The quality of service will never reach the level of Japan. Transit operators
have it easy there because people don't vandalize and they don't litter. This
means that your maintenance costs are very low and it's more economical to buy
high quality, comfortable seating.

As well, transit is only good for getting you around in the cities. Once you
get out to "inaka", a car is all but a requirement, much like in North
America.

This "world without cars" is a nice pipe dream, but the reality is that no
matter how good your transit system, it's still a huge time sink to use it.
The only time it becomes faster than a car is if you live in a dense city with
poor traffic flow, and that accounts for a tiny percentage of the world
population. That's also why it's only the pampered urbanites who dream of a
carless world.

~~~
wheels
> _if you live in a dense city with poor traffic flow, and that accounts for a
> tiny percentage of the world population_

That's false. Most of the world's population now lives in cities. Deciding
what percentage of those fall below the threshold of "poor" traffic-flow wise
is difficult, but it's not "tiny". (<http://www.gizmag.com/go/7613/>)

Cars beget cars. The reason people need cars in a lot of the US is because
they moved somewhere that they need a car to get to. People talk about the
amount of time that things take without a car forgetting that said problem was
created by cars in the first place. In places where most folks don't have cars
you have a small grocery store every few blocks rather than a large one every
few miles. The demographics of public transit differ from society at large
because the well-off drive cars.

I grew up in American suburbia and have lived in Europe for the last decade.
The amount of time required to say, go shopping, or commute to work has
remained broadly similar in the half-dozen areas I've lived in, though the
distances have not.

Progressively moving away from cars is largely a cultural rather than
technological problem. Some well-done urban planning (including structuring
energy prices to favor more efficient means) and a few decades to execute it
could drastically shift the balance to where we have far _fewer_ cars.

~~~
kstenerud
The generic "city" is not a very useful term here. How many people are there?
There's a big difference between New York and Maza. What is the topography
like? Is it sprawling like Phoenix? Or dense like Tokyo? How much density,
population, and infrastructure is required to make a convenient and economical
transit system? I'd wager far too much to displace cars in any meaningful way
except in the largest cities.

Cars are used because they are versatile. Every other form of transport has
far more narrow use cases.

------
loso
The article falls flat on its face in the first two paragraphs when he says
that car technology has not advanced in the last 126 years. That just being
ignorant of how cars work if he believes that. And to call them a stupid
technology is purely idiotic.

I love cars but I wouldn't mind if a better technology came around to replace
them. The keyword being better and not just different. People are always going
to want a way to independently travel. I live in NYC and while PT is
convenient it is still a pain in the ass overall. Getting to places too late
or too early because of the train schedule. Being forced to deal with the
different weirdos of the city. Delays and breakdowns that happen more often
than they should. There is a reason why there is still so much traffic in the
city. People, for the most part, who can afford to take Taxis or have their
own car still do.

Even if you have Jet packs or any other alternative travel tech that we know
about now there are still going to be infrastructure problems. Clearing
skyways for the jetpacks, knocking down structures which impede these skyways.
And the results of a malfunctioned jetpack would probably lead to a more
instant death than the normal car accident.

This paragraph alone "We sacrifice ourselves and our environment to these
death traps, health hazards, planet killers, money sucks; these land-grabbers,
respiratory rapists, and insidious isolation engines. And for what? The
pleasure and convenience of rapid movement? That’s a problem we can solve in
other ways." makes me not take the article or the author seriously.

I welcome advances in technology that allow us to travel more cleanly and
efficiently. But we have to remember that cars serve a number of different
purposes for different people. So until we can find one technology that is
better & not hodge podge of different tech that replaces the car I wouldn't
hold my breath about people willingly giving them up.

-edit misspelled "of"

------
api
It's always important to consider the dark side. We didn't do much of that
when we built car culture in the first place, so let's do it now.

So try:

"Let's build an unaffordable future where the super-rich live in hyper-
inflated city real estate and the poor are consigned to unreachable rural
pockets of cultural stagnation or to over-crowded ghettoes."

How will we create livable walkable cities where real estate does not hyper
inflate?

~~~
oconnore
Livable, walkable, affordable cities are dense. That is the primary factor in
whether or not you can afford to live within walking/biking/subway distance.
The rich people that want to live close to work are going to get first dibs on
usable housing, and unless you build more than that, middle class residents
don't stand a chance.

So much of that "hyper inflated city real estate" is not especially dense. So
you get lots of rich people living in 4-6 floor, beautiful, historic buildings
near the center of the city. That type of housing does not lead to livable,
walkable cities.

If you want real estate prices to drop, and you want cities to be livable, you
have to build an excess of dense housing. Right now it is near impossible to
increase population density in the city, due to zoning restrictions, existing
tenants, etc.

I don't know a solution to that, but I think it's the root of the problem.

~~~
justincormack
Zoning regulations that mix living and work? Like much of Europe. The emphasis
on commuting to a work district is a lot of the problem. If workplaces were
evenly distributed you could walk to a nearby one.

Or telecommuting of course.

------
yason
To get rid of cars, you need cities designed for people, not cars: otherwise
everything is so far away that nothing gets ever done. We won't get rid of
cars until oil is ridiculously expensive and we must give up. That will also
leave much of the recent (since 1950's) development to decay, and new cities
will emerge where there are new concentrations of people.

So, we will get a future without cars at some point, it's just not going to be
a nice convenient continuum to something else.

~~~
gordianknot
Or we just migrate to self-driving electric cars, with the batteries serving
as Intergrid energy storage.

~~~
read_wharf
I've learned to never get too attached to anything that comes after "Or we
just ..." :)

------
kfcm
The "let's get rid or substantially reduce cars" crowd often is comprised of
those who live in cities, and have no understanding of the indispensability of
cars in rural areas. Work, shopping, some level of school, advanced medical,
are often in one of the next towns 10-15 miles over, with your town having one
of those as an anchor.

And notice I said "one of the next towns over". Stuff isn't necessarily
concentrated in an "economic zone" like it is in cities. Work could be 8 miles
east, the high school in your town, and the elementary school 10 miles north.
Mass transit just wouldn't cut it.

~~~
joshmlewis
This is a really, really good point. I live in a town in the south and like
most southern towns public transit is just emerging or non-existent. From my
apartment complex on an interstate to downtown where I work is around 17 miles
at 60mph. The way roads and interstates are setup it's almost impossible for
public transit to be possible. When I travel to SF or Boston its an odd but
fun traveling experience. Back home it just doesn't work. I enjoy my Mustang
and my commute to work.

------
evincarofautumn
Our country was built on steam trains, which were horrifically inefficient,
but they got the job done. Currently we’re built on cars, which too are
inefficient but practical. These things gained ground because there was a way
to commercialise them, to make people say “I can’t live without that”. The
question is: how can that be done with things like ultralights and bullet
trains and public air? Could we really let the roads overgrow and just fly or
rail everywhere? It’s an enticing prospect, but I fear that such a vision of
the future neglects the many people who _just can’t afford_ to make the
switch.

Oh, and the nitpick of the day:

“We are the descendents [sic] of chimps…”

We have a common ancestor with chimpanzees (and bonobos); we’re not descended
from them.

~~~
fiddly_bits
It really is an amazing testament to human ingenuity that something as mind-
bogglingly complicated as the modern automobile could have ever become a
consumer item. But their cost is profound (DanI-S sums it up here
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3872338>). Surely, concern for people who
"can't afford" expensive things would lead to adopting more public
transportation, don't you think?

------
kaiju
I love cars. I love driving them, I love working on them, I love the design
language and history. They're one of the finest expressions of man's use of
engineering to conquer his surroundings and go extremely fast. I'd also love a
future where you don't need a car to commute, though.

~~~
grannyg00se
I often wonder why there is such a common city style of dense commercial
infrastructure (downtown) surrounded by further and further distant
residential infrastructure.

Why don't we construct buildings that have both residential floors and
commercial floors, for instance? At least then you'd have more options for
living very close to where you work.

~~~
orangecat
_Why don't we construct buildings that have both residential floors and
commercial floors, for instance? At least then you'd have more options for
living very close to where you work._

Houston sort of does this via very relaxed zoning, which allows office
buildings and stores to be placed right next to houses and apartments. It
works better than you'd expect and it's usually not hard to live close to
work, especially since housing is so cheap.

I'm in NYC now, and enjoy not needing a car, but the difference in rent comes
to more than a new car every year.

------
twomills
Let's build a future where people aren't packed together like sardines twenty-
four hours a day. Urban living takes the idea of personal space and crushes it
down to a bubble three inches around your head, to the point where people
think it's acceptable for your neighbors to hear you through the walls, to
spend an hour every day sitting in a metal box with fifty strangers you don't
talk to or even acknowledge, to walk by graffiti and not take it as a personal
insult to your home city and by extension yourself. If the news that someone
you know got mugged doesn't badly shock you, you owe it yourself to move
somewhere better.

------
chrismealy
Given a safe, flat road you can't beat a bicycle for energy efficiency and
cost:

[http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/whats-the-worlds-most-
energy...](http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/whats-the-worlds-most-energy-
efficient-vehicle-a-bicycle.html)

~~~
read_wharf
If those are your measures.

But a car can very easily beat a bicycle on time efficiency, assuming you're
going more than half a mile.

A car can also beat a bicycle on opportunity exposure.

Both statements are illustrated by mine and many others' commutes. I drive 40
minutes each way, because I couldn't find a job here, but I could find a job
there. I'd love to have found a job here, but at the moment my job is there.
The job there would have been unthinkable without a car. Yes, I could ride the
bus - train - bus, but it would take hours. For me, a bicycle would never get
me there.

One of the many things that's holding back a national economic recovery is
that some people can find jobs but can't sell their house to move to the new
job. There's not enough movement and flexibility.

In my metro area, I have the opportunity to take any job that I can find, from
ten to sixty minutes car radius. That means I eat. That comes from
flexibility.

~~~
cpt1138
Hmm, you spend 40 minutes driving. How much time do you spend in the gym? What
if you rode a bicycle for 1.5 hours and skipped both the driving and the gym?

The problem with a car in your situation is contextual. You are supposed to
spend that 40 minutes of driving concentrating on driving. Not talking on cell
phones, not texting, not talking, not even listening to music but DRIVING. The
context of where you are driving "probably" changes too, highway vs. city but
I'm guessing that sometimes switching your driving patterns lags a bit after
you get off that highway offramp.

On a bicycle or public transportation, the context is completely different.

At the very least on a bicycle you are exercising (we can get into the
difficulties later of urban riding). But there are other things, how great you
feel, the fantastic views, the feelings of elation, the feelings of extreme
accomplishments before the day even starts.

On public transportation you can read, operate your computer, talk to your
commute neighbor or get other things done.

FWIW, I draw a 20 mile radius around my house and only look for jobs in that
circle. I can figure out how to bike 40 miles a day.

~~~
burgerbrain
If more work places had showers, that might be a workable solution.

Also: "I drive 40 minutes _each way_ " 1hr20min of driving is not going to
translate into 1hr30min of biking, with the only possible exception being if
you spent the entire car ride in gridlock or parking lots.

And: "I couldn't find a job here, but I could find a job there". That you can
find a job within 20 miles does not help him.

 _"You are supposed to spend that 40 minutes of driving concentrating on
driving. Not talking on cell phones, not texting, not talking, not even
listening to music but DRIVING."_

Yeah, and I'm not supposed to eat pizza or drink so much...

~~~
benjiweber
People who don't cycle much often think showers are necessary.

In reality once you get fit you don't sweat much (I get far sweatier on the
tube than cycling), and if you're overheating you can always slow down
slightly.

* Shower before leaving then you get rid of the dirt + bacteria that makes the sweat smell.

* Wear clean lycra - this wicks sweat away before it has a chance to start smelling.

In London my cycling commute of 1hr would take over 2hrs by car, and 1hr15min
by train. Cycling is often the quickest way. You also combine exercise and
commuting time which leads to a significant overall time saving. I don't feel
the need to do a lot of other exercise after cycling 200 miles a week.

~~~
burgerbrain
I bike regularly and trust me, these sorts of things vary a good deal between
people. In my overly warm 70F office I feel like I need a shower halfway
through the day anyway. There is no way in hell I'd bike for an hour or more
before that. 45 minutes is my cutoff.

And major cities are major outliers in cycle commuting.

------
anamax
Cars address a lot of needs. It's not surprising that there are superior
solutions for each of those needs, but all of those solutions are
significantly worse than cars for other needs. If you try to cobble together a
car equivalent from those other solutions, you end up with something
signficantly more expensive/less good.

------
pjkundert
The Accountant's Falacy: Anything for which the debit doesn't appear on _your_
balance sheet is "free".

Follow busses in traffic for a while, and add up the total fuel, time wasted,
etc. in _all_ the traffic impeded by the less then 1/2 full (on average) bus.
There is no branch of mathematics that could be used to argue that busses save
the civilization money.

Consider if everyone was not disallowed by law(1) from carpooling for
compensation. Roughly doubles the aggregate person-mile per hour bandwidth of
the _existing_ traffic system...

Bus driver unions and taxi owner associations are the net gainers of the
lobbyist-written laws impeding transportation innovation; everyone else loses.

1) you can carpool all you want informally. You cannot set up publicly
accessible systems which compete with taxis.

~~~
konstruktor
Whose vehicle wastes the fuel in the situation you described? That of the,
usually one, individual who chose to incur much higher marginal costs by
taking the car instead of the bus in the first place. Just like you cant't
blame a cyclist for the fuel wasted by the people in cars waiting to overtake
him on their 2km trip...

------
exue
This article's view is a visionary one, and I applaud that: But people promote
(bullet) trains, subways, etc. as revolutionary inventions when they really
aren't. They've been around for 50+ years and have 'lost' to cars in the
marketshare battle, in Europe, US, China, etc. I want us to focus on new
technologies like the instead of continuing to push old ones like it's a
'sprawl conspiracy' keeping them down (when their use is optimized for
downtowns). As uvdiv mentions, the personal vs. mass transit issue is big
spectrum.

Things like the mag-lev pod transport system, flyways, etc. are awesome. We
should develop all of them and try to make them the best we can. But it's a
gigantic mistake to discount the car - we have something to learn from their
success: People like freedom, people like privacy, not everyone wants to live
in a dense city.

That's why I say better/self driving cars are the practical solution to the
future, but we could easily see something else revolutionize the situation by
2060. And as for over-crowded roads, The current road network is way more than
sufficient to handle traffic with self-driving cars: You can put 5-10x the
number of cars on a highway and not jam it if computers are driving. Jetpacks,
after all, will have the collision problem too.

------
yaix
>> "Big, gaping garages"? "WalMarts, Targets, and mega-malls don’t even bother
catering for the pedestrian shopper"

The problem is not the car, its city planning.

Don't make the roads wider and wider, build good and fast bike paths.

Have the train station in the city center where all the shops and malls are.

Build supermarkets and workplaces close to where people live. Suburbs far away
from everything are bad in many ways.

There are many more things that could be improved, if city plaing wasn't run
by the car lobby.

------
kposehn
This article, while well written and trying to think ahead, forgets something
very important: cars are such a symbol because they appeal to one of the core
aspects of human nature. The freedom of movement, the ability to choose where
you go, the notion of being unrestricted and able to move about freely. Being
herded on a bus is not in our nature.

Furthermore, to some degree, cars are actually more efficient from a personal
perspective as an individual. If you live in the typical USA sprawl, you don't
really want to take a bus somewhere. For example, one of my co-founders had to
take the bus home from his office yesterday. The commute is normal about 20
minutes in traffic...the bus took almost two hours.

The issue facing the US is that our space utilization is far less compact in
most places, which makes public transport highly inefficient. I'm all for more
railroads and other means of getting people around, but the only cities with
truly effective public transport are:

\- NYC area

\- Chicago

\- Pittsburgh

...I'm trying to think of others, but I'm drawing a blank. Also, bear in mind
I'm distinguishing between places that _have_ transport vs. where it is
_effective_.

As for flying cars and all those goodies, they won't happen. The reason is
quite simple: if something fails, they fall and you die. The average joe is
not able to properly handle a flying craft with that level of risk - and if it
falls, it may land _on_ someone.

The most promising advance so far is driverless cars. I do believe they will
become commonplace soon as technology advances and they become able to handle
regular driving. I personally wouldn't use them, but they would make the rest
of the driving public much happier and I do expect that to be the next car
revolution.

Sadly, in the US at least, public transport and flying cars are not in our
future.

~~~
enobrev
Solid points. To add to your safety point regarding flying cars: as bad as
people are at driving in 2 dimensions, I can't imagine how horrible we would
be driving in 3.

~~~
mortenjorck
Flying cars must happen eventually, but only long after driverless cars have
become the norm.

------
melling
"So let’s build more bullet trains..."

Can we just build two in the US? One in California and one in the North East
where there's a clear need? We don't have any bullet trains in the US. It's
starting to get embarrassing that we can't get our act together. Maybe we can
get ours in red, like in Italy? :-)

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57417703-1/italy-to-
laun...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57417703-1/italy-to-launch-
ferrari-style-high-speed-train/)

~~~
_delirium
Texas would be a good choice too, possibly better than California due to the
lack of mountain ranges, and shorter distances between the major cities. I
think the only reason SF-LA is being talked about more seriously than Houston-
Austin-Dallas is the relative political climate in the two states. But even
given that, there was a serious initiative to build a line in Texas in the
late 1980s/early 1990s, killed in part by Southwest Airlines' aggressive
lobbying.

------
brownbat
I applaud the direction, but I do have one small nit to pick:

"there really hasn’t been much advance in car technology in the intervening
126 years"

You can drive all day every day for fifty years [1] and never use the biggest
feature we've been researching for cars, but that doesn't mean it's any less
of a breakthrough.

"Between 1970 and 2010, the number of fatalities decreased by 38% and the
number of injury crashes by 13%. In the same period, the number of vehicles
and the distance travelled more than doubled."

Many of those gains are due to the parade of safety technologies over the last
several decades. Electronic stability control, airbags, crumple zones. If we
go all the way back to Benz, then we should talk about seatbelts and shatter
proof glass too.

Cars haven't exactly been stagnant, we've just had a subtler priority. Those
safety advances will lay an important foundation, and hopefully be extended as
we shoot for a "crash proof" personal flying vehicle.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/2012/01/30/146075552/ups-driver-
honored-f...](http://www.npr.org/2012/01/30/146075552/ups-driver-honored-for-
accident-free-career)

[2]
[http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/irtadpublic/pdf/1...](http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/irtadpublic/pdf/11IrtadReport.pdf)

------
rowanwernham
As much as I respect Peter Theil I think this whole 'where are the flying
cars' thing is a dead end.

Its essentially a futuristic projection of the 1950's, a time when no-one had
any idea things like the internet would exist.

Imagining a society around transportation needs is redundant. Commuting is
rooted in an era where cities grew around industrial activity that made the
environment unpleasant (as opposed to the country / suburbs) hence the desire
to travel between the two.

Vehicle emissions aside this isn't so true anymore.

Communications technology changes the way we think about distance, its much
less necessary for most workers to group in the same space.

I think the future is about local communities / neighborhoods, remote working
via the internet (from home or from mixed co-working spaces), and better
public transport between districts and nodes such as airports.

The internet is going to continue to radically transform our society in ways
we can barely imagine - and I don't really see why flying cars need to be part
of that future (although recreational jetpacks would be fun:) )

------
pimeys
There's a big reason I don't want to move to bay area to work. I love to live
in Berlin just because I can get anywhere with a train anytime I want. And the
funny thing is, in Berlin it is allowed to drink beer in the trains and
subways and still I don't feel afraid at all, people behave. Trains work, are
fast, safe and reliable most of the time.

When I visited in Berkeley I was horrified how bad the public transportation
was in there. BART trains were most of the time fully packed, had only a few
trains in an hour and traveling from the stations to home was slow and
annoying. The bus transportation was horror. Most of the time they were late
or not arriving at all.

I may have an European mindset, but living in the USA is just out of the
question. Manhattan would be better, but then again paying above 1000 dollars
per month from your apartment is kind of silly.

------
oliverchen
Flying "cars" are far from real, The Martin Jetpack which the author has
mentioned is noisy, expensive and only has 30 minutes (31.5 miles max)
operating time. However, there's much room to improve current transportation
system, new technology and government regulations are constantly pushing fuel
efficiency. Mass production air-based vehicles aren't viable unless energy
production becomes cheap enough.

The next viable transportation system may be vacuum maglev train. The world
already have Superconducting and normal conducting Maglev technology (JRC and
Transrapid respectively) and mankind have built countless tunnels and bridges
and concrete structures.

~~~
read_wharf
In the world and people that I currently see in front of me, any mode of
transportation that requires a helmet is not viable for _most_ people, whether
that be bicycles, motorcycles or jetpacks.

However, I also think people are more flexible than I give them credit for. I
see a lot of bicycles parked outside bars, and probably a fair number of those
are DUI "graduates." I think I see some of those people riding to work.

------
speleding
The article claims "Silicon Valley, with all its wealth, intellectual
resources, creative thinkers, and alleged determination to change the world
for the better, has to lead the charge on all these fronts".

So far, most of the innovations in transport, be it high speed railroads,
autobahns or moon missions, have all been done by government. That's simply
because it's very hard to build a viable commercial model around
infrastructure projects, especially if you expect to see a return within 50
years. If someone does find a way that would be great, of course, and in that
case there's a good chance this person would from Silicon Valley.

------
jhuni
> So let’s build more bullet trains

The Earth's axial supercontent, Eurasia, is ideally suited to train transport.
China has ambitious and innovative plans to build a Eurasian rail network
capable of transporting people from Beijing to London in two days:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7397846...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7397846/Kings-
Cross-to-Beijing-in-two-days-on-new-high-speed-rail-network.html)

------
wwwtyro
I don't mind the cars. I just want them to drive themselves.

~~~
7952
Its called a taxi!

------
markessien
What we need are electricity powered flying cars. Then we can have green,
walk-able cities and can use all that open space above us for transportation.
We'll need some new kind of flying technology though, cos nobody wants to hear
the loud noise of wind blades or deal with all the air pushing downwards.
Perhaps hover "paths" where grass is below and not tarmac?

~~~
7952
Flying buses would be much better than flying cars. Make a type of aeroplane
that can do short flights (<20 miles between towns). Use capacitors that can
be recharged between flights, and have an idling conventional engine in case
of emergency. Even at relatively low speeds this could dramatically improve
commute times.

~~~
johncarpinelli
Electric air taxis would be great for commuters. You would have to streamline
check-in and security though. People will ditch their cars for a faster trip
time.

Consider this scenario for a 20 mile commute: 1) Bike or walk one mile to
local air strip ( a converted road) 2) 18 mile electric flight to destination
town. 3) Bike or walk one mile to office from landing strip.

Takeoff and landing must be silent and fast. See <http://electrictakeoff.com>
for an example.

------
bickfordb
One insurmountable problem I see with advancing mass transport is that people
simply aren't willing to spend as much on public transport than they are cars
because they believe they have an equity investment in the car. Most people I
know get upset spending any more $75-100/mo on a monthly transit pass, but are
willing to pay $400/mo on car expenses since they "own" the car. As a result,
I don't think really good systems will ever emerge except for where there is
massive subsidization, and even those cases suck. For instance a few years ago
when I looked San Francisco MTA had a budget of $750MM but only sold $110MM in
tickets. The only bright spot I see are company run shuttles.

The other problem I see is that most people appear to be irrationally scared
of cycling in cities/urban areas, even though most city cycling occurs at
really slow speeds. I have been a cyclist in San Francisco for five years with
only a few minor incidents. Whenever I talk to people who aren't cyclists
about commuting in the city, they often respond as if I have an impending
death clock over my head.

For people who think cycling is a major health boon: it really isn't unless
you're commuting >5mi/each way or doing a lot of climbs. It's not that hard
most of the time. I get way more out of a 30-40minute/run or squats in the
gym.

~~~
waqf
I wish I could pay $400/mo for access to a transit system with five times the
operating budget of the $80/mo one I currently experience.

------
exue
Problem 1: This article is a giant anti-car rant with a few points of rational
debate baked in that might help public policy. It's no more objectively
helpful than reading a spiel from BimmerForums or ClubWRX on why they love
their 300hp sports cars and would never give them up to be herded in a big,
crowded, smelly bus.

Problem 2: Cars are currently the best solution to the problems we have.
That's why they are #1 in the US. Not because they are horrible inventions,
not because there is some conspiracy to keep them in their cars (Americans
CHOOSE to live in suburbs with large lawns and lots of open space, since not
everyone lives in a big city with subway systems and whatnot). Building lots
of parking lots is still cheaper than figuring a way to shuttle people around
in rural areas. America is big, land is cheap.

America doesn't look like Manhattan, NYC everywhere. For these people, cars
are the best solution. And the next stage is not going to be a jetpack. It's
going to be a self-driving car. The fact that average people put up with all
the problems and headaches of cars that only car enthusiasts love
(maintenance, repairs, buying, etc.) shows us that there are a LOT of
advantages from cars that we need to match with new forms of technology. My
take is: Improve cars, rather than trying to destroy them. Because 100 years
of innovation of automobiles aren't for nothing.

My take: The near future is efficient hybrids (2025), electric or fuel-cell
cars (2035), then self-driving cars (2060). People will continue to talk about
completely changing the infrastructure of the US, having everyone take buses
and subways to work, but cars will continue to be over 75% of commute options
for the forseeable future. Why?

The problem with all public transport technologies right now is it doesn't
solve the density problem. The majority of new population in the US is growing
not in really dense cities, but in medium dense suburbs. Everyone talks about
moving people into "livable, healthy, walkable cities", yet Americans largely
choose to migrate out of those ciites into new suburbs. I wonder why. Maybe
they don't like the crowds, the crime, etc. It's human nature.

Problem 3: Finally, here are some things that cars have solved that are
unresolved problems in other forms of transport:

Freedom of movement. Go wherever you want, whenever you want, with no one
telling you what to do.

Speed. Choose a random American's home and a random American's office. Driving
by car, even in traffic, probably beats all other modes in terms of speed.
That's why even in the Bay Area at most 20% of commuters go by public
transport where over 70% drive.

Efficiency. Cars are actually quite efficient and getting more so, especially
with hybrid technology. The average car beats the average city bus in terms of
energy efficiency. And we are quite likely to get 50+MPG Cars and electric
cars in the near future.

<http://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html>

Price. Compared to jet packs or flying cars...

~~~
ken
> Cars are currently the best solution to the problems we have. That's why
> they are #1 in the US.

Granted -- so long as you take the legislative and tax situation into account.
That's part of the "problem" to which cars are currently the best solution for
most people, but it's not unchangeable.

Or from a different perspective, you could say: the "problem" is that people
want to live in places (like suburbs) to which there is no great
transportation solution yet, so part of the "solution" has to include a tax
system that hides the true cost of the most acceptable solution.

Would cars still be so appealing if the true costs were not hidden? People
seem to complain a lot about $4+/gal gasoline, but the tax on it doesn't come
close to covering the maintenance needs of the roads they drive on. Couldn't
almost any technology be the "best", given the right financial incentive?

I agree that for the next 10 years, hybrid electric cars are the solid bet.
They have the ear of the lawmakers, it seems, and so not only are they 'cool',
but they've got massive tax incentives helping them. I'm completely in favor
of more efficient cars, of course, but it does seem odd to offer so many
benefits based not on efficiency, but on one particular technology used to
achieve efficiency.

~~~
jandrewrogers
Gas taxes (and vehicle registration fees) can completely cover the cost of
road construction and maintenance -- several states work this way. A number of
US states have constitutional and legal requirements such that this is the
only way they can fund their transportation departments. That some states
spend many times as much per road mile (I am looking at you California) is a
reflection of their inefficiency and politics, not necessity.

I am a strong proponent of the model where all roads and road maintenance
should be paid for by gas and use taxes. It works well in states where this is
a reality and a couple of studies have shown that they tend to produce better
quality roads in addition to being more cost efficient than states where roads
are funded out of the general budget.

The lack of a politically guaranteed budget forces a measure of long-term
fiscal conservativeness and cost control on the government organizations that
maintain the roads. There is a concept of long-term ROI; if doing a better,
somewhat more expensive job today significantly reduces costs a few years down
the road, it is worth it because it is effectively like increasing the DoT's
budget via investment in future years.If they waste money, they can't go back
to the taxpayers and ask for more. It provides a bit of negative feedback to
the government decision process that is often sorely needed.

------
raintrees
A friend of mine retold an observation he had read: If an alien species were
to observe our planet from on high for awhile, they may come away with the
idea that the automobile is the highest life form on the planet we call
Earth...

~~~
fiddly_bits
An alien observer might also note that as soon as we discovered what we could
do with oil, we busied ourselves with using it up as fast as possible.

------
ricardonunez
I watched a documentary about Jacque Fresco where he shows some of his
futuristic cities where this is implemented. Very interesting stuff with
trains. Maybe a world without car will make the segways more popular.

------
zf1234
Automated hover taxis would be nice. And Evacuated Tube Transport to replace
trains and planes.

------
jQueryIsAwesome
Cars are one of the worst inventions by human kind. Aside from the points
mentioned in the article there is also many deaths by cars (traffic accidents)
and the huge amount of cars now days tend to saturate the roads and make
mobilization a really slow process.

My solution would be to get rid of cars all together an use only electrical
trains driven by few professionals who are less likely to cause accidents;
with fixed schedules (and speed) time management would be easier for everyone.
And for short distances encourage the use of bicycles (witch also helps to the
obesity issues)

~~~
dalke
Before cars became commonplace, we used horses to help transport goods and
people inside cities. Horses dump manure. A lot of it. Quoting from
[http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-
th...](http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-
horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/) :

"A horse will on average produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day.
Consequently, the streets of nineteenth-century cities were covered by horse
manure. This in turn attracted huge numbers of flies, and the dried and
ground-up manure was blown everywhere. In New York in 1900, the population of
100,000 horses produced 2.5 million pounds of horse manure per day, which all
had to be swept up and disposed of." ... "Of course, urban civilization was
not buried in manure. The great crisis vanished when millions of horses were
replaced by motor vehicles. "

------
Radzell
How about those jet packs that we have been promised for so long.

------
marshallp
How about flying carpets (Neil Gershenfeld at MIT is working on making one)

------
majmun
should cars have rights? to defend them self against this anti-car propaganda.

