Comment by SR2Z
2 days ago
No, it's the human driver vs the Waymo. I'm not going to entertain fantasies where all the cars magically disappear from the road; there's no political will for that and no politician is dumb enough to try.
To be perfectly clear, the difference between an empty road and a Waymo is mostly academic if you're on a bike. The Waymo is just that good at respecting space.
I’m not talking about cars magically disappear from the road, I’m specifically talking about taxis and rideshares versus using another way to get around, which even includes personal car ownership.
Studies have shown repeatedly that rideshares lower transit usage and don’t reduce personal car ownership.
Improving transit and allowing Google to blow $100B on making cars drive themselves are not mutually exclusive.
In the US, in particular, last mile transportation is mostly done by car. Transit cannot economically serve low-density suburbs.
In a city? It depends on price versus convenience. As more and more cars drive themselves, the city can get away with taking back more and more space for transit and cyclists. People should choose mass transit because it's convenient, not because there's no way to call a car.
But the studies say that Google blowing $100B on self driving cars changes human behavior to take less transit which then costs taxpayers money because transit ridership and revenues decrease.
This idea that companies have to be allowed to do business however they want is not something we just have to do.
We can as citizens and governments say “no, you’re not allowed to run a robot taxi company because it’s overall bad for our city.”
Laissez Faire capitalism is an ideological cancer to American society.