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Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

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Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#41

Post by rpgwaiter »

mortureb wrote: post #26
MBCook wrote: post #19

It’s almost as if robotaxis are solving the problem in a way that they can make money off of, not trying to be an actual solution. Why would investors do that? Oh right. Robotaxis are just an attempt to do Uber without having to pay drivers. They’re not an attempt at fixing congestion. Or safety (though I’m sure they claim it). Or bad public transit. They’re aiming for the local maxima. “Fix” taxis/Uber as they exist…

Nah what you luddite. You seem more concerned about maintaining artificial jobs and stifling progress to “prevent people getting rich off of it”. Having a 100% automated driving system will fix traffic. It will be better for the environment. It will give us back more time in our day.

The problem of "but my pointless job!" Always has the second part missing, which is "the economy is down a payng job and the displaced family still needs food on the table". If the government offered to meet people's basic needs in these situations (no, the current unemployment system is not sufficient), I bet the complaints would stop.

Hell, I bet the Luddites from back in the day wouldn't have minded the technological progress if they had their needs met otherwise.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#42

Post by acdha »

vkou wrote: post #20

How could anyone, even for a second, believe that flooding the roads with a bunch of private cars that occupy road space when when they are not carrying a passenger was going to help traffic?

A lot of elites hate transit and bike infrastructure: it’s not something they’d use personally, benefits people who are poorer and browner than they are, and they’re usually old enough to see cars as a sign of freedom and status. Those people really wanted to believe self driving cars and deregulated cabs would allow them to justify not investing in transit because that frees up money to spend on the transportation mode they use.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#43

Post by jprete »

mortureb wrote: post #37
jprete wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it actually won't. There is nothing that a driver would do that an automated taxi would not, because both the driver and the automated taxi are optimizing for their ability to give as many rides as possible for as much money as possible. The main reason to think their behavior would differ is on the margins where drivers have to go home and sleep and robotaxis do not. But that really makes it likely that a robota…

I said all vehicles. If they’re all automated, they can all talk to each other and effect all those changes.

Do you think that people would be on the road _less_ if everyone were using taxis instead of personal cars? If so, why? What's the actual reason why robotaxis reduce the demand, or consumption, of road miles?

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#45

Post by mike_d »

BurningFrog wrote: post #14

The solution for too much traffic is well known and independent of robotaxis. "Road Pricing" means that vehicles pay for driving on congested roads. The price is set so that road supply and demand match, and traffic flows optimally. It also gives the road owner an income for providing important roads.

This already exists in the form of a gas tax and road use taxes (registration). NIMBYs get in the way of building the lanes that already have demand and funding.

Extending it further really just ends up as a restriction on the movements of the poor.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#46

Post by MBCook »

mortureb wrote: post #26
MBCook wrote: post #19

It’s almost as if robotaxis are solving the problem in a way that they can make money off of, not trying to be an actual solution. Why would investors do that? Oh right. Robotaxis are just an attempt to do Uber without having to pay drivers. They’re not an attempt at fixing congestion. Or safety (though I’m sure they claim it). Or bad public transit. They’re aiming for the local maxima. “Fix” taxis/Uber as they exist…

Nah what you luddite. You seem more concerned about maintaining artificial jobs and stifling progress to “prevent people getting rich off of it”. Having a 100% automated driving system will fix traffic. It will be better for the environment. It will give us back more time in our day.

> Having a 100% automated driving system will fix traffic.

How? If we replace every car driven by an individual with a car driven by machine… you’re left with the same number of cars. Just as much traffic. Still need all the roads. And parking lots unless the cars drive more to avoid parking.

Better for the environment? I don’t see it. Every car taken off the road (including EVs!) is less polluting. Less fuel. Less maintenance. Less pavement needed. Less particle emissions from wearing down tires. Moving people to walking, bikes, busses, subways, whatever is better than individual cars.

More time in your day because you’re not driving during your commute? What if we set things up so you don’t have to commute so far? Or at all. Either one would be better even with automation driving for you.

Between the pandemic’s changes in traffic patterns and seeing other cities around the world change I’ve come to the realization we could have so much more than what we have today but with robots driving for us. We can ask for more. We can change more than one thing at once.

And what we do doesn’t have to be decided by a tech company just doing something. That may not be the best policy. It may be a waste of money. It may be a real part of the solution!

We can want more. Instead robotaxis are clogging streets and blocking ambulances and we’re celebrating “progress”.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#47

Post by MBCook »

epicureanideal wrote: post #28
MBCook wrote: post #19

It’s almost as if robotaxis are solving the problem in a way that they can make money off of, not trying to be an actual solution. Why would investors do that? Oh right. Robotaxis are just an attempt to do Uber without having to pay drivers. They’re not an attempt at fixing congestion. Or safety (though I’m sure they claim it). Or bad public transit. They’re aiming for the local maxima. “Fix” taxis/Uber as they exist…

I’d rather not ride a bus with potentially mentally unstable, smelly, or violent others, especially without at least one other human guaranteed to be present.

> I’d rather not ride a bus with potentially mentally unstable, smelly, or violent others

There are solutions to that other than robotaxis. Like healthcare.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#48

Post by acdha »

ars wrote: post #23

People want to move around. This is a fundamental fact. And once they learn how much they can move, they are unwilling to move around less (or slower). This is something all the "get rid of cars" people ignore, and it's why it will never work.

That works if most other people don’t have cars. Once they do, you’re not moving, you’re part of a traffic jam and the freedom promised in the car commercials is really the freedom to spend that time realizing much of your life, money, and health you’re spending to enjoy that quality traffic time.

Similarly, people do want to travel but not endlessly - they want to meet their friends, spend time with family, work, shop, etc. Americans conflate those with driving long distances because much of the country was architected around that lifestyle, but millennials flocked back to the cities because they realized the advantages of not needing to travel so much. Time sitting in traffic kind of sucks compared to just about anything else, and living somewhere you can do the things you want on foot, bike/scooter, etc. is worth a lot.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#49

Post by MBCook »

diogenes4 wrote: post #34
epicureanideal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather not ride a bus with potentially mentally unstable, smelly, or violent others, especially without at least one other human guaranteed to be present.

Meanwhile i'm trying to figure out if any city in the us is willing to ban cars. I can't think of any other factor that lowers the quality of life in cities that even comes close to them.

I’d love to see some of the east, where there were cities built long before cars that have some of the public transit infrastructure necessary, to start doing what Paris and other places have done by removing cars from streets and replacing them with walkable parks and neighborhood shops and gathering places.

More like they used to be.

New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, there’s plenty of places that could do it. They could prove the concept.

I don’t see how it would work in a city like Dallas or LA as they exist today. They would try and it would be deemed a failure and never tried again.

But successful trials in a few very dense places could really start to show the benefits and maybe we could start bringing it to other cities, even those more traditionally spread out.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#50

Post by ufo »

mike_d wrote: post #45
BurningFrog wrote: post #14

The solution for too much traffic is well known and independent of robotaxis. "Road Pricing" means that vehicles pay for driving on congested roads. The price is set so that road supply and demand match, and traffic flows optimally. It also gives the road owner an income for providing important roads.

This already exists in the form of a gas tax and road use taxes (registration). NIMBYs get in the way of building the lanes that already have demand and funding. Extending it further really just ends up as a restriction on the movements of the poor.

I think the parent poster is talking about fees that are proportional to congestion, to disincentivize driving during rush hour.
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