Comment by dfabulich

13 hours ago

Self-driving municipal busses would be fantastic.

Also, a real nightmare for the municipal trade unions. (Do you know why every NYC subway train needs to have not one but two operators, even though it could run automatically just fine?)

Why would you need buses?

  • Mass transit is a capacity multiplier. If 35 people are headed in the same direction compare that with the infrastructure needed to handle 35 cars. Road capacity, parking capacity, car dealerships, gas stations, repair shops, insurance, car loans.

  • Believe it or not, in some cities that have near grid-lock rush-hour traffic - there's between 50-100%+ as many people traveling by bus as by car.

    If all of those people switch to cars, you end up with it taking an hour to travel 1 mile by car.

    It's almost as if they have busses for a reason.

    • First, these cities should be fixed by removing the traffic magnets. It's far past the point where we used the old obsolete ideology of trying to supply as much traffic capacity as possible.

      But anyway, your statement is actually not true anywhere in the US except NYC. Even in Chicago, removing ALL the local transit and switching to 6-seater minivans will eliminate all the traffic issues.

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