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California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

cpuc.ca.gov

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Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#221

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

accurrent wrote: post #180
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is public transport, but you mean mass transit. People don't use mass transit because it sucks, blaming other modes of public transit doesn't cut it. The design and implementation of it is what keeps people from using it. The good news is automated vehicles will add flexible options for new types of public transport that are between single-trip taxies and mass transit and will lower costs to all kinds of public…

European and Asian nations tend to have perfectly usable mass transit (including developing countries). Sure there are some us cases for cars, but for daily commute its not needed. To add to it mass transit is generally heavuly subsidized that means that less well off people can get to work/school at low costs. It reduces poverty and income inequality.

Mass transit is great when it's available, which means in places of high density, which is why you list Asia and Europe. It's right there in the name.

I live in Europe in a village of about 1500 people are there is no usable public transport (2 buses a day).

Relative to total area, mass transit is almost nowhere. That's also true for for total road kilometers.

I agree with your last sentence, but for those who live outside of cities or other places of high density, public transport is unusable or unavailable. Governments roundly ignore people who live in these places (due to expense and political irrelevance) so there is always a fairly decent percentage of the population that is "public transport poor".

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#222

Post by aledalgrande »

whimsicalism wrote: post #45
tempest_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people underestimate how much of a quality of life improvement these are for people even when compared to Uber/Lyft I do underestimate it. What are quality of life improvements? Seems to be the same thing from a customer perspective. I guess if you are concerned for your safety from the uber driver it is an improvement but it is the only one that comes to mind.

Having a car to yourself is honestly just way better, maybe I'm just antisocial Like I will easily pay a premium to have self-driving most of the time. I can play my music on the speakers, I can work more comfortably in the car, etc. etc. Also, I find Uber drivers are pretty bad drivers often - comparative advantage

> Like I will easily pay a premium

which would probably be the same as Uber after tip

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#223

Post by TulliusCicero »

dragonwriter wrote: post #166
NewJazz wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they are actually. They do research and surveys into traffic speeds. Just because it is difficult to enforce doesn't make it any more justified to go 35 in a 25. That is a big difference, by the way. Almost twice as fast. The fastest humans can run at 25 mph (albeit at short distances). Zero humans can run at speeds of 35 mph. So not just a mathematical difference but a physiological difference as well. Suddenl…

> 35 in a 25. That is a big difference, by the way. Almost twice as fast. 1.4 times as fast is not "almost" twice as fast. 50 is twice as fast as 25; 49 is 1.4 times as fast as 35 which is 1.4 times as fast as 25.

You're correct, but it is true that 35 mph would be roughly double the kinetic energy, which probably matters for accidents.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#225

Post by unshavedyak »

NewJazz wrote: post #31
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #9

As a resident, I don’t support this at all. Waymos are annoying to have on the road - they go extremely slowly (with good reason) and make weird traffic moves. Do we want our roads getting clogged up with super slow taxis that steal jobs from ordinary people and give them to the tech industry?

This is a complicated comment. Do they really drive that slow... Or just, like, the speed limit? Or generally safe(r) driving speeds? All things equal, slower is safer! Why would roads be anymore clogged than they are already? Because transportation becomes cheaper? So should we jack up fuel prices or insurance prices so there are fewer cars on the road? Real questions. And onto the "stealing jobs" comment... Under t…

> Do they really drive that slow... Or just, like, the speed limit? Or generally safe(r) driving speeds? All things equal, slower is safer!

So i have no idea about Waymo, but man i can only imagine how much drivers will rage over them the more of them there are. God knows they'll go the speed limit, and so many drivers absolutely loathe that.

As it is, i drive 5 over just to reduce the insanity of people passing/etc. Which, i still get aggressively passed quite a bit, but that 5mph matters. I'm used to drivers going ~10-15mph over the limit, and every mph under +10 is a significant problem for them.

I look forward to these on that point alone. The more cars there are on the road normalizing ideal speeds (whatever they may be) the better. People are far too aggressive on the road in my experience. At least as a WA native.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#226

Post by unshavedyak »

w45yw45ywtg wrote: post #98
NewJazz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a complicated comment. Do they really drive that slow... Or just, like, the speed limit? Or generally safe(r) driving speeds? All things equal, slower is safer! Why would roads be anymore clogged than they are already? Because transportation becomes cheaper? So should we jack up fuel prices or insurance prices so there are fewer cars on the road? Real questions. And onto the "stealing jobs" comment... Under t…

As a nitpick that I'm sure varies from state to state... All things can't be equal if you're going slower than the rest of traffic since by definition there's a speed differential relative to the vehicles around you. In drivers-ed in California for example the advice from the dmv is actually to go the speed limit /or/ keep with the flow of traffic. If everyone around you is doing 80 in a 65 zone then you should still…

I expect it'll help - though. Ie reduce the average, making more lanes of traffic safer by body blocking the speeders.

Though, I do expect there to be an initial surge of aggression when people are forced to reduce their speeds by 15mph.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#227

Post by bragr »

_acco wrote: post #117

I love Waymo and use it all the time. One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out: As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, you're always checking the eyes of other drivers to confirm if they see you. I've had a couple incidents where I was a little thrown/unnerved because I couldn't confirm if a Waymo was registering me. It ultimately behaved fine, but I had to put my guard way up be…

Joking, not joking: Cylon scanner [1] at the top the windscreen that locks on to you when it's giving way

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faukADr0_6g

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#228

Post by nradov »

ugh123 wrote: post #204
bagels wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will waymo help with something like the super bowl? It's going to be overcapacity too.

> How will waymo help with something like the super bowl? It's going to be overcapacity too. Ability to scale the amount of Waymo cars to an area is immensely easier than scaling the amount of Uber/Lyft drivers available and willing to go to said area.

Nope. Cars are expensive. Waymo won't keep a bunch of extras sitting around just so that they have reserve capacity to scale up service during unusually busy events. It's more profitable just to make customers wait, or ask them to pay a higher fare for priority service.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#229

Post by ironmagma »

_acco wrote: post #117

I love Waymo and use it all the time. One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out: As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, you're always checking the eyes of other drivers to confirm if they see you. I've had a couple incidents where I was a little thrown/unnerved because I couldn't confirm if a Waymo was registering me. It ultimately behaved fine, but I had to put my guard way up be…

The cars could see you at one moment, and then not see you the next. They lack any good object permanence unlike humans, so I'm not sure surfacing this information would help.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#230

Post by silentsea90 »

hamandcheese wrote: post #112
standardUser wrote: post #70

I was very bummed on a recent trip to SF to find there was a waitlist for Waymo and I couldn't use the service! But I've since been 'accepted' so my next West Coast trip I'll definitely be taking a driverless car. I was a long time SF resident so I'll use my local knowledge to choose the most ratchet route possible. The potential for self-driving cars to bring down the cost of rides is very exciting to me. I've been…

For now, Waymo in SF costs significantly higher than Uber. I just checked and was quoted double - $25 to go from the outer richmond to Japantown.

It is still a fun novelty mode of ride with limited supply and is priced accordingly and is not a mass transport option yet. Once the supply of cars rises the prices will fall to establish a new equilibrium hopefully much lower than Uber.
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