Self-driving cars still take up space on the road. Even more than human-driven cars, because now there will also be cars transporting 0 people. It's going to make congestion worse. Public transit is the solution to congestion. Well, one of the solutions, because bikes are probably a better solution for most people: they do start in front of your home, can park anywhere, and don't cause congestion the way cars do.
We're talking about cities, of course; in rural areas, nothing beats cars.
> Self-driving cars still take up space on the road
This is a false argument. Think about this: a bus every 10 minutes is effectively 500-900 meters long! It easily "takes" as much space as 100+ cars. In other words, nothing would change from the traffic perspective if instead of 1 bus every 5 minutes, you had 100 individual cars.
The "people in the shape of a bus" argument makes sense only when you're talking about the performance in a very narrow case of transporting people in a steady, uninterrupted stream of buses. Or if you need to size your traffic bottlenecks.
Moreover, a bus route necessarily is unoptimal for at least some people on a bus. They are effectively "thicker" than other people because they take up more "effective space". But wait, there's more! Buses also necessarily move slower due to stops, so the "effective length" of a bus becomes even longer because cars will clear the road faster.
But wait, there's even more! A single bus needs about 3 drivers to be effective. So with the average daily busload of around 15 people, you have almost 20% of the bus taken by the drivers on average. This makes bus trips pretty expensive. Not quite to the level of Uber/Lyft, but surprisingly close.
And these problems are fundamental. That's why urbanists like NJB don't like to talk about that.
> a bus every 10 minutes is effectively 500-900 meters long!
uhhhhhh what. What does every 10 minutes have to do with this at all
> It easily "takes" as much space as 100+ cars.
are you ok??? have you seen a bus before??
> A single bus needs about 3 drivers to be effective
I have never ever seen a bus with 3 drivers in it. If you're talking about 3 drivers over the course of 24h, those drivers are not in the bus at the same time, and therefore don't make up 20% of the passengers on the bus. If you're saying the average bus route serves 15 people per day, you are certainly mistaken.
> We're talking about cities, of course; in rural areas, nothing beats cars.
Where I grew up in NW Scotland, it's a five hour round trip to go to the supermarket. You pretty much need a car for that.
Where I live right now it's a five minute walk to the supermarket, but I still need a car because the things I work on are a long way from where I live, often up steep muddy mountain tracks.
When I lived in the middle of Glasgow people used to come up and have a go at me about driving a massive V8 4x4 in the middle of a city. What am I supposed to do with it? Bike to the suburbs and then go and drive up a mountain?
"But why not get a job where you don't need to drive hundreds of miles in a massive 4x4?"
Because then the things on the tops of mountains don't get fixed when they break, and the radios don't work properly, and then people like you die in a fire.
Sometimes it's hard for people to grasp that just because their not-really-a-job tapping numbers into an Excel spreadsheet all day can be done from home or from an easily walkable city centre location, it doesn't mean that everyone's job looks like that.
I do wish I could usefully use a cargo bike. Those things are awesome.
What people really misunderstand in these discussions is that no one is talking about completely killing off driving as an option, and no one says that public transportation works in literally 100% of circumstances.
We just want there to be viable public transportation options for situations where it makes sense. This even makes it easier for the people who do have to drive, like you, as there will be less congestion because a single bus can replace literally dozens of cars, combine that with a single tram and a single metro car and you're replacing literally hundreds of cars that would otherwise be on the roads instead.
Self-driving cars still take up space on the road. Even more than human-driven cars, because now there will also be cars transporting 0 people. It's going to make congestion worse. Public transit is the solution to congestion. Well, one of the solutions, because bikes are probably a better solution for most people: they do start in front of your home, can park anywhere, and don't cause congestion the way cars do.
We're talking about cities, of course; in rural areas, nothing beats cars.
> Self-driving cars still take up space on the road
This is a false argument. Think about this: a bus every 10 minutes is effectively 500-900 meters long! It easily "takes" as much space as 100+ cars. In other words, nothing would change from the traffic perspective if instead of 1 bus every 5 minutes, you had 100 individual cars.
The "people in the shape of a bus" argument makes sense only when you're talking about the performance in a very narrow case of transporting people in a steady, uninterrupted stream of buses. Or if you need to size your traffic bottlenecks.
Moreover, a bus route necessarily is unoptimal for at least some people on a bus. They are effectively "thicker" than other people because they take up more "effective space". But wait, there's more! Buses also necessarily move slower due to stops, so the "effective length" of a bus becomes even longer because cars will clear the road faster.
But wait, there's even more! A single bus needs about 3 drivers to be effective. So with the average daily busload of around 15 people, you have almost 20% of the bus taken by the drivers on average. This makes bus trips pretty expensive. Not quite to the level of Uber/Lyft, but surprisingly close.
And these problems are fundamental. That's why urbanists like NJB don't like to talk about that.
> a bus every 10 minutes is effectively 500-900 meters long!
uhhhhhh what. What does every 10 minutes have to do with this at all
> It easily "takes" as much space as 100+ cars.
are you ok??? have you seen a bus before??
> A single bus needs about 3 drivers to be effective
I have never ever seen a bus with 3 drivers in it. If you're talking about 3 drivers over the course of 24h, those drivers are not in the bus at the same time, and therefore don't make up 20% of the passengers on the bus. If you're saying the average bus route serves 15 people per day, you are certainly mistaken.
3 replies →
> We're talking about cities, of course; in rural areas, nothing beats cars.
Where I grew up in NW Scotland, it's a five hour round trip to go to the supermarket. You pretty much need a car for that.
Where I live right now it's a five minute walk to the supermarket, but I still need a car because the things I work on are a long way from where I live, often up steep muddy mountain tracks.
When I lived in the middle of Glasgow people used to come up and have a go at me about driving a massive V8 4x4 in the middle of a city. What am I supposed to do with it? Bike to the suburbs and then go and drive up a mountain?
"But why not get a job where you don't need to drive hundreds of miles in a massive 4x4?"
Because then the things on the tops of mountains don't get fixed when they break, and the radios don't work properly, and then people like you die in a fire.
Sometimes it's hard for people to grasp that just because their not-really-a-job tapping numbers into an Excel spreadsheet all day can be done from home or from an easily walkable city centre location, it doesn't mean that everyone's job looks like that.
I do wish I could usefully use a cargo bike. Those things are awesome.
What people really misunderstand in these discussions is that no one is talking about completely killing off driving as an option, and no one says that public transportation works in literally 100% of circumstances.
We just want there to be viable public transportation options for situations where it makes sense. This even makes it easier for the people who do have to drive, like you, as there will be less congestion because a single bus can replace literally dozens of cars, combine that with a single tram and a single metro car and you're replacing literally hundreds of cars that would otherwise be on the roads instead.
6 replies →