Comment by cyberax

> Nothing about this addresses NJB's argument that self-driving cars take up more space than regular cars, because there will now be cars with 0 people in them.

And? There are also buses that trundle around with nobody but the driver in it. Or unused bikes and e-scooters that litter the sidewalks.

> Ultimately the thing you want to transport is not cars, it's people.

Yeah. And let's make it efficient. Put these people into 3-level bunk beds. This way they can travel all together in just 1 bus to their assigned workplace. And you don't need to run buses until they're allowed to clock off their shift.

Efficiency!

> On the other hand, when congestion is so bad that cars simply don't move

In this case you close the downtown offices and force them to work on alternate days, like they do in India with cars. Remote work already can replace 70% of all work, and with AI this number will grow.

Apart from that, mild carpooling will decrease the number of cars by 2x. Small vans with 6 seats can _easily_ remove all congestion.

> no matter how many lanes they have, getting people out of cars into more efficient forms of transport, will also help cars.

Just one ask for urbanists. Can you just stop lying, please? Just one thing. Don't say that "transit help cars". It doesn't. There is a lot of research from _you_ (e.g. https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/7/does-buildi... ) that proves this. Transit does NOT decrease the travel time for cars ("traffic") it _increases_ it by increasing congestion due to increased housing density that transit forces.

You want to pack people into 3x3 jails ("microapartments")? Fine. But be honest about it.