The city where I live—Yokohama—is very different in layout and density from the U.S. cities shown in that video. My neighborhood consists of many small plots of land, each with a different owner, separated by narrow streets. Unless it all gets wiped out by a tsunami, it’s never going to be rebuilt or have its layout changed—the landowners, many of whom live on their plots of land, would not stand for it.
My house is on the side of a steep hill. If in a few years—I am now 67–I become unable to walk up that hill, the only way I will be able to go anywhere is by calling a taxi. (No one in my family here knows how to drive.) Because of demographic trends, there is a shortage of human taxi drivers now and that shortage is likely to get worse. If I do become significantly less mobile five or ten years from now, I will be able to keep living in my home only if self-driving taxis are available.
So for me, in that very likely scenario, self-driving cars would make my life better. In Japan, there are millions of people in similar situations to mine.
You raise a very valid point, and it is a point that I do not see expressed very often.
While it is "easy" (and, I think, proper) to build new areas of cities to be walkable at some point in the future, the fact remains that today cities already exist as they stand and many of them may not be very walkable.
Even in already-walkable cities, it is important to consider the fact that all of us will eventually (hopefully!) live long enough to be considered old.
Looking forward to when I myself may become old, I think I'll still like to be able to get from A to B (and back) with a minimum of fuss and at a time of my choosing.
So it is my hope that by the time I reach that point, the world will have options for me and other old people that are better than old people have today.
And that's just me, some day.
But many people are old right now. They can benefit from things like self-driving cars right now, even in walkable cities.
Have you ever interacted with a person over 70 that has mobility problems? Do you really expect an 80 year old to ride a scooter up a hill in the rain/snow? Getting into the car is difficult enough.
I'm not saying to ban cars, just to de-prioritize them
The use case for bicycle-and-similars is way more than the use case for cars specially urban places (also outside urban places)
I know what you're getting at here and I agree with you in spirit, but:
A lot of life-alteringly physically disabled people can drive cars. For example, lower-body paraplegics and double amputees can use hand throttle and brake controls. Single leg amputees can drive with a single leg, single arm amputees can drive with a knob on the steering wheel, and so on.
And bicycles do not work to all ages in the same way that cars don't. When you can't make safe decisions in traffic a bike can't work. Heck, a tumble off a bike could be the end of mobility for an elderly person.
(I wonder how many places expect mobility scooters to be on the sidewalk vs. allowed on a bike path?)
Let's give that self driving e-scooter four seats, oops that's a kei car... They weigh almost exactly one ton too, before adding four adults and a suitcase or two.
Just take see how roads in Tokyo already look like[1]. Cars are already driven like factory floor robots[2]. Actually automating those hurts nothing.
Almost all of these "cars bad" arguments fall for the trap of focusing solely on the disadvantages of cars while completely ignoring the huge upsides that make them by far most popular form of transport in rich countries in the first place: Long distance transport directly from your home to the front door of your destination in a private, climate-controlled cabin with zero transfers or unnecessary stops.
Self-driving will make our lives better because it takes that already very successful form of transportation and makes it significantly safer and more efficient without compromising any of its advantages.
I have no desire to educate but I have to indicate that there is plenty of research on why people prefer cars and that’s not it.
Still, assuming that walking from home to a train / metro station is a problem has to come from a car centric place. It’s ridiculous. In many cities that is the best part of the day for many people. You rarely hear from people driving that car commute is the best part of their day.
In very specific situations (in the summer on a sunny day in a low-crime area when its just you commuting with no small children or excessive cargo and no time pressure) walking a few blocks to and from a train station could indeed be a pleasant experience. Take away a few of those points though and cars start to look pretty attractive again. Even more so if we're talking about a hypothetical self-driving future where several of the few remaining disadvantages of cars have been mitigated.
I watched part of "Watch: How Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities (and what to do about it)" and the arguments seemed pretty weak. A lot of it was along the lines of current cars cause problems in cities and self driving cars are still cars so self driving cars bad. But there's a lot of flexibility as to how they get used and regulated.
Just thinking about one city issue local to me - I live near Oxford Street in London which is currently overcrowded with thousands of people plus buses and taxis and the like. They've wanted to pedestrianize it for ages and probably will but there are problems with accessibility for the handicapped and delivery of stuff to the stores. That could maybe be sorted with slow moving self driving evs picking those up? I'm not sure but at least it's another option.
Who says self driving cars will need to pertain their existing form? Hopefully that fact that you wont own the vehicle will lead to companies building more minimal form factors since in most cases it's a single rider and they'll incentivised by keeping costs as low as possible.
"Corporate culture" has had a downward history everywhere since companies started weaponizing "culture" to demand a one-way loyalty from employees so as to extract more unpaid labor from them.
Cycle infrastructure needs to be continuous, feel safe to ride, and exist where people actually go to, not near the riverside.
Build them and they will come.
Cycle infra is not only cycle lanes. Cycle lanes are needed only where cars move fast (>30kmh). What is even more important is traffic calming in residential streets. LTNs, modal filters etc. Build for people, not cars.
They mean building infrastructure that is able to sustain more trips per hour while also reducing the risk of deadly collisions, noise and air pollution.
By providing convenient and safe infrastructure for people who walk, take transit and bike around we gain safer more pleasant neighborhoods that also allow more people to get around in their neighborhood.
The risk of deadly collisions, particularly when most people are going 30-50 km/h in the city and driving modern cars, is already low.
Modern cars are also quiet with emissions nothing like the cars of our grandparents.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by trips per hour and how one is supposed to conveniently commute outside of one's neighborhood, particularly with small children and shopping?
> The risk of deadly collisions, particularly when most people are going 30-50 km/h in the city and driving modern cars, is already low.
The probability of a pedestrian being killed when a motorist strikes them with their vehicle depends very strongly on the speed of the vehicle. At 30kph the risk is less nearly 0%, but it rises rapidly to 50% when the impact happens at 50kph[0]. Would you take those odds? I wouldn't. Especially given that motorists tend to interpret speed limits as minimums rather than maximums.
> Modern cars are also quiet with emissions nothing like the cars of our grandparents.
I live next to seven lanes of traffic. Modern cars are not remotely quiet. Their emissions are not limited to what comes out of their tailpipe, either. You must include the microparticles that are emitted from the tires, the asphalt and the brake pads [1].
> Can you elaborate on what you mean by trips per hour and how one is supposed to conveniently commute outside of one's neighborhood, particularly with small children and shopping?
Public transit. Bicycles. Living in a neighborhood with mixed use buildings. I have never had a driving license and my family with two small kids has somehow figured it out with a combination of the above. Many others do the same. It is not rocket science. The first step is ditching the car.
How often do collisions with pedestrians occur at 50 km/h? If the pedestrian doesn't literally jump in front of the car from an somewhere he's visually obscured, there's usually time to stomp on the brakes. I've done it multiple times with cyclists riding in the wrong direction on the bicycle lane, over crosswalks where they should be dismounting, or just plain "jaycycling".
We clearly have different views on what's quiet and what's not. If I'm on my terrace I can hear cars when they drive past, but not inside my home and it being a 30 zone it doesn't bother me. Were you forced to live next to seven lanes of traffic, where I assume the limit is much higher than 30-50 km/h?
I don't have much to say about tire particles and whatnot. Are you just as much against microplastics in food and cosmetics?
If you've never gotten a license, it surprises me you're so against something you've never tried. I tried cycling for about a year and a half. I learned I don't like sweating profusely in summer, getting rained on in spring or fall, or riding on snow in winter. I can drive to work and drop my child off at kindergarten in 15 minutes, with a bicycle and a trailer it would take me more than 45 if the weather is good. I don't need to hurry home after grocery shopping and I only need to shop once every week or two, as opposed to two to three times a week if I'm limited to what I can fit into a backpack, and I don't need to drink tap water since I can fit a few crates of mineral water in my trunk. The risk of getting my car stolen is lower than my bicycle getting stolen, which has happened in the past. You're absolutely right, it's not rocket science. Foe me the choice is clear.
I still don't know what you mean by trips per hour.
> How often do collisions with pedestrians occur at 50 km/h?"
Enough to kill several dozen people every year in my city and severely injure over a hundred, according to official statistics.
> it surprises me you're so against something you've never tried
I have plenty of experience with what it is like to walk and cycle in busy streets, and I do not wish to force that upon my neighbors. Whether or not driving would be convenient for me is not the issue -- the issue is how it makes our neighborhoods dangerous, noisy and dirty. I don't want to be responsible for that.
Other people only care about what is convenient for themselves. I get that. I see it every day.
Trips per hour means exactly what it says. Single occupancy four-wheeled vehicles are the least efficient mode of transportation in terms of throughput (people moved per hour). [0]
> Are you just as much against microplastics in food and cosmetics?
Textbook whataboutism. Do you believe that I need to be some sort of monk-like hippy vegan to be opposed to traffic in my neighborhood? Or is it okay for some regular person to care about something that you don't care about?
You must live in a gigantic city if several dozen pedestrians die in car accidents every year. In the entire country of Germany last year a total of 177 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents where cars were involved and the driver at fault.
>I have plenty of experience with what it is like to walk and cycle in busy streets, and I do not wish to force that upon my neighbors
I wouldn't want to force people into things in general, period. From what I can tell, most people are just fine with a car-centric lifestyle. Barely anyone is evangelizing to cyclists that they should give up their bicycles and drive cars instead. I wouldn't want to force you to drive a car. I can tell you about the many benefits but I'll do so without moralizing or finger-wagging and ultimately the choice is yours. The same can't be said of many bicycle activists, they seem to be just fine with using any and all means to shove their lifestyle down everyone's else's throat.
You didn't respond to my question as to whether you were forced to live next to seven lane traffic, so I'll assume it was a choice. Why would you choose to move there in the first place if you hate the sound of cars so much? That's the rough equivalent of a car enthusiast deciding to move to Amsterdam and then complaining about the cyclists on the road.
From what data does your infographic draw from?
The "whataboutism" is to determine whether your particle concerns are limited to cars, which indicates an ideologically driven anti-car crusade, or whether particles of everything and anything in general disturb you in your everyday life.
> it is better to cry in a Mercedes than on a bike
Do you perceive bicycle as a poor man's mode of transport?
Rich countries is where everyone can travel by public transport or bicycle (or car).
Poor countries is where everyone HAS to travel by car (locked in car dependency)
I see what you are trying to say: its better to cry and have wealth than to cry and not have wealth. But bike=poor, car=rich is not a good analogy. It sends the message bikes/public transport are for loosers, when its not. Well it might be in car-centric societies, but not in more fair societies.
Hoooooooo, it was a joke! (and I noted that). Honestly, this does not require a comment like that.
This is from someone who commutes to the office by bike daily (30 km) in a country where biking=good! :)
Actually the joke was Mercedes vs "trottinette" but I did not have a good translation of this French work handy (a kind of scooter you stand on and you traditionally move by pushing your foot on the ground - now they are electric). Which of course does not change anything because the scooter is good and comparing this in car-centric countries etc.
Watch: How Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities (and what to do about it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0