Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse::px-captcha
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mixed use spaces that allow people to walk to stuff.
They are real game changers!
Nah, bro. We need wider streets and more cars. That will surely reduce traffic.
Just one more lane, bro. I swear we’re going to fix traffic this time. Just one more.
Actually good trains and bus systems, actually good bike infrastructure, mixed use spaces that allow people to walk to stuff.
You forgot the single biggest factor: quit mandating low density. In order for walkability to happen, more trip origins and destinations need to be closer together.
Exactly. In my first time in the US I would spend weeks astonished by the terrible use of land they make of it. Then I discovered businesses were forced by law to build these stupidly large parking lots.
How the fuck was Uber supposed to help traffic? That’s the most American take on solving traffic issues I’ve read in a while.
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The actual study modeled a 40% reduction in number of taxis on the road when hailing was made more efficient, with carpooling passengers, and a re-purposing of parking space:
In the 2010s, the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where one of us serves as the director, was at the forefront of using Big Data to study how ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. The findings appeared to be astonishing: With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses.
But it turns out that just like with widening highways, human behavior responds to the increased efficiency by stepping up the demand to reach the previous equilibrium again.
I imagine that the fact that you call cars with an app instead of waiting for an empty taxi to pass by is more efficient, and you can have less cars for the same number of passengers. Basically having less empty taxis on the road.
I know it’s a stretch, but this is the only way I can see Uber reducing traffic.
It’s almost like we need to prioritize a better form of interconnected transportation that’s more efficient at moving larger amounts of people with a small foot print.
To clarify, it does not have to be a bus, but it can be a tram, train, subway, elevated rail, cable car, bike, scooter.
It’s almost like people don’t enjoy sharing rides with crackheads that don’t really reach their destination…
Agree. I literally have to drive to work. There’s a public transit stop right by my house but then I’d have to take 1 more train, and 2 busses to get within 10 ish blocks of my office. No thanks. Especially in the winter when the homeless chill in the trains and busses taking rips off their crack pipes thinking they’re being sneaky. It smells like burnt plastic. I know what you’re doing. I’m not going to put myself around that.
No idea why you’re getting down voted. Ignoring issues with public transportation is only going to repel people who could otherwise be convinced it’s viable and also more likely that those issues are never addressed in the first place.
As valid you point is, it also holds true for taking a Uber Pool or Robo taxi where a drunk or crackhead decided to jump in and join you, or you them.
The only difference being if it happens on a Uber Pool ride you don’t have the option of “jumping on the next one” without forking over a sum of money or canceling your trip.
Not to mention at the same time you are stuck in the same congestion caused by a inefficient (though comfortable?) mode of transportation.
You are correct, there are too much crackheads and not enough infrastructure investments.
Can’t read the article since it’s behind a paywall.
Uber/Lyft and ride share companies in general put more cars on the road. Even worse, most of them just sitting idle waiting for the app to send them a fare (idling vehicles bad for environment).
Robotaxis are no different. Most of them will just sit idle or drive around aimlessly until a rider(s) are assigned. If conditions are less than ideal, then they are often just found sitting until the conflict can be resolved.
Witnessed multiple times where an automated car just sits at a light with hazards on because the light was broken due to recent power surge. Just 1 downed vehicle in a 3 lane road in downtown area caused significant traffic to pile up.
I just want sane non-car centric infrastructure. Why is that so hard for this country to do? Need to undo this 1950s era of urban planning and transportation.
Here ya go https://archive.md/dJLiu
Uber was supposed
Uber was never supposed to do anything good.
In their beginning, Uber was a special purpose vehicle for Big Tech (=their investors) to perform political changes in all kinds of foreign countries, making them compliant, using methods that the others couldn’t use openly.
After their evil head has left, they are just another startup that has become big and fat and brainless.
Being stuck in “traffic” surrounded by empty cars would make me want to walk into the ocean.
Oh god thank you for that depressing image
Ridesharing apps could try to reduce the number of cars in the road but that would slow down their service. They can optimize anything they choose to, but right now they have been trying to flood the market with many drivers so rides are available quick with low prices. They don’t care about congestion or drivers. This is what you get.
The fact that more car rides happen with ridesharing should have been predictable, I guess. Suddenly car transport is available to people who can’t afford the high costs of keeping their own car in NYC. And it eliminates the parking problem.
Robotaxis could potentially help traffic by being smaller than current cars. The vast majority of journeys shouldn’t require anything bigger than a Renault Twizy.
On the one hand, you are right. On the other hand, will the consumers of robotaxis want to use small cars or will they push for full size ones?
Don’t give them an option…
Maybe because Im a car guy who enjoys driving but a self driving car is not only at best not even fixing car dependency but at least with a conventional car I can shift self driving cars I see being extremely boring to use there’s a reason why I always use my bike for my daily commute and my car as a weekly whip and the country side
