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Waymo in Dallas

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Re: Waymo in Dallas

#431

Post by conductr »

nunez wrote: post #362

I'm happy that Waymo's finally lighting up Dallas, but they need to expand its service area quickly for it to be useful there, IMO. Austin, Houston and San Antonio are hub and spoke cities. They are designed with their downtowns as loci for their metros with suburbs sprawling around them concentricly. Waymo gets you to a lot of places within these cities for that reason. Dallas is built around and between Dallas and…

I live just north of the service area in Dallas and cross into it daily, it’s been pretty great to see the traction it seems to be getting here. The service area is a great way to launch. It’s the fashionable part of town, covers most night life for young people, it’s created a buzz and a lot of people will jump onto it just as soon as they widen the service area. I’m sure it’s all a phased thing, Waymo overall has been super patient and slow to launch their services. The opposite of the Tesla/Uber/and any other startups with the break stuff mindset. I find it very attractive for a transportation company to actually care that much. I also want them to succeed and I know if they were cruising all over DFW, there’d be a lot of deadhead going on (miles without cargo). They need/want critical mass of demand more than they want to show a full coverage area. I see how that strategy makes a lot of sense. I don’t see how targeting people’s long commutes as a launch strategy makes much sense. A critical mass of demand tying up the limited available assets twice a day, seems like it would just create frustration. Better to grow into that I would think.

But also I support the critique. Especially of DART, which I don’t see how the rail service ever works in a city designed like this. With residents who hop all over the metroplex on a somewhat random and sporadic basis, covering great distances. I think Waymo/robot is the best path for mass transit until we use it so much we stop buying cars. Then, the city can build rails and hopefully robots can be more efficient with less lanes of road. The Waymo solution gives A to B where a rail requires ABCD, in a metro where first and last mile may be 10+ miles each, that just doesn’t work. Also, rail has a chicken and egg problem. It really needs critical mass to run more frequently and justify the expense but it can’t get much usage at all because of this first and last mile problem. So it is kind of like a zombie of solution, we invest in it to seem modern and whatnot, but in reality it’s mostly a transportation subsidy for lower income people that can’t drive, it supplements the bus system which many car owners would never use and don’t consider an option for their first/last miles (it’s a class thing in Texas, just is, most people will never use a public bus). A small percentage of the population use it more than twice a year.

Idk, just thoughts.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#432

Post by robomartin »

xnx wrote: post #359
robomartin wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America, the place where they will try anything except for building good public transportation, walkable and bikeable neighborhoods. This isn't a movie. It's real life. In the movies, sure, you can have a wizard reshape entire cities, power distribution, roads, sewers, potable water production and deliver, move entire neighborhoods kilometers away, move businesses, factories, airports, etc. In the real world, once…

The California highspeed rail project is 33(!) years old.

Even better. I didn't remember. It's a suppressed memory!

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#433

Post by robomartin »

vel0city wrote: post #323
robomartin wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America, the place where they will try anything except for building good public transportation, walkable and bikeable neighborhoods. This isn't a movie. It's real life. In the movies, sure, you can have a wizard reshape entire cities, power distribution, roads, sewers, potable water production and deliver, move entire neighborhoods kilometers away, move businesses, factories, airports, etc. In the real world, once…

You say it can't be done, but it's literally happened several times before. The most recent being when we built all these urban highways. It turns out you don't actually need to tear up sewers and electrical infrastructure to run bus routes. Who knew. Density can change when you change zoning laws.

> The most recent being when we built all these urban highways.

What? Clarify please, because if you are going back to the 1950's/60's/70's you are talking about a very different country. Today all all of that you are talking about would solidly fit in the "fantasy" category.

You must not be from Los Angeles. Come drive our highways for a few months. I've had better experiences in third world countries.

> to run bus routes

That only works in certain locations and do absolutely nothing for the largest sources of traffic. Nothing.

Just like carpool lanes, which area massive joke on us: nobody carpools to use those lanes, so the traffic reduction they deliver, expressed as a percentage and rounded to the nearest integer is, zero.

The US, in general, was not built for the kind of mass transport Europeans are used to. And that will never happen here. In the US, self-driving cars will be our solution to the problem. Give it about ten years and we are really going to start to see adoption and the benefits of it. In a sense, virtual mass transit using existing infrastructure. That might work, slowly, but it could work.

In ten years I hope that the only human-drivable cars I will own will be my race cars, which get towed to the track. Everything else should be electric and self-driving to a large extent.

Oh, yes, and I want to ride a Joby multicopter hailed using Uber to go to the major airports from local verti-ports. Driving in Los Angeles absolutely sucks.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#434

Post by robomartin »

vel0city wrote: post #314
robomartin wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do self-driving cars reduce congestion? At what scale? As a non-trivial percentage of road traffic they can reduce congestion in a million different way. For example, predictive and cooperative route planning (you know what the road looks like 0 to N Km ahead and plan accordingly. The other one is one of the most frustrating things humans do while driving: Slow down while going uphill. Where I live, except of a…

The average passenger capacity per mile of a Waymo is 1. Moving the same number of people with fewer passengers per car increases traffic.

> Moving the same number of people with fewer passengers per car increases traffic.

The overwhelming majority --overwhelming-- of cars, SUV's and trucks on the road have exactly one passenger, including the guy commuting to his office job in an F-250.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#435

Post by SepiaSapient »

pfooti wrote: post #411
satvikpendem wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who tips on Uber? One price up front and paid, that is the deal. Anyone tipping on something like that is their own fault.

I dunno. Hard to say "I tip my Uber driver because I understand how little the drivers get paid" if I'm also moving to waymo instead. Hard to find ethical consumption under capitalism. But since you asked in kind of a flippant way: who tips on Uber? People who aren't sociopaths, I'd say.

>who tips on Uber? People who aren't sociopaths, I'd say.

Non-americans don't. To me, being socially expected to tip for a Taxi feels like a parody from a sketch comedy. ditto for tipping barbers or expecting tips over 10%. The only time I've tipped a Uber was when me and my friends were at risk of losing a train. The driver (unprompted) went pedal to the metal to make it on time, so afterwards I gave him a couple of bucks.

Tip culture is bad for rideshare drivers in aggregate anyways. The apps carefully manage the pay of drivers on each market so necessary supply is guaranteed at minimal cost. If a expectation of tipping exists, the platforms simply pay less. Now drivers also have maximize for tips instead of just driving the goddamn car.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#436

Post by turdprincess »

ssl-3 wrote: post #412
vel0city wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it can't be done, but it's literally happened several times before. The most recent being when we built all these urban highways. It turns out you don't actually need to tear up sewers and electrical infrastructure to run bus routes. Who knew. Density can change when you change zoning laws.

Busses. I rode on a public bus once while visiting Columbus Ohio. I knew a bus ride was in my future and I'd not done that before, so I asked questions of the various people I know who live there. Not one of them had ever had a ride on the bus in the city they call home, or knew how the bus worked, and all of them made a point of telling me that they were sure that it would be filthy and awful somehow. The COTA websi…

Boulder Colorado has a public airport bus route that is pretty widely used - it takes one hour and is well liked by the general public.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#437

Post by servo_sausage »

danans wrote: post #398
eagleinparadise wrote: post #232

As someone who works in commercial real estate, involved in about $300M of housing development, some of it affordable, i will say without any doubt that driverless cars are a very effective affordable housing policy that is not being considered or discussed by anyone. Any public dollar that gets contributed to housing, basically adds a 50% cost factor and assume whatever it is used for will take 2-3x as long to deliv…

> That car can be full time serving 4-10 units daily? A bus could serve 40-100 daily. The infrastructure already exists - the same as for cars. It's pretty low cost also - especially electric buses that have lower maintenance costs. The problem is that you have to ride with other people.

As infrastructure, busses don't make sense if you assume self driving EVs are going to be widespread.

Trying to keep using something that is comprised by fixed routes, schedules, and stops makes n little sense.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#438

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lokar wrote: post #288
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is value in uniform rule of law Sure. OP's point is these products and investments are accruing disproportionately to red cities and states. Sinking together isn't a great pitch.

I think elected state leaders should move to understand theses issues, hear from experts and the public, and craft good laws for these services. My state (CA) is doing well this. If your state is not, and this is important to you, I suggest you get involved in the process. Having companies ignore the law is not an alternative to the democratic process.

> My state (CA) is doing well this

Yup. And I invest there. I’m pulling back from New York, which is a shame, because I love it and still have interests there.

> Having companies ignore the law is not an alternative to the democratic process

Straw man. Nobody said this. The point is the current system of incumbent worship is not working. If it takes flipping parties to prove that, I guess yeah, but that won’t result in more rule of law.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#439

Post by JumpCrisscross »

runako wrote: post #273
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a worse pitch to suggest that companies can ignore laws they don't like, and operate above the law? It’s also worse to murder kittens. That isn’t the choice at hand. The difference is between states adapting with a regulatory framework and those sticking with economic incumbents. (Also, when the taxi medallion industry was at its peak, lenders did run roughshod over the law.)

In context, your comment reads as a defense of companies ignoring laws: >> that big companies are (sometimes) bound by the same laws that bind the rest of us > Not if they’re stupid laws! States won't adapt to new technologies at the same time, this is embedded in the design of federalism.

> States won't adapt to new technologies at the same time, this is embedded in the design of federalism

…how are you missing this.

I’m saying the states failing to adapt need to do so or have their governments replaced. That all of these states are also facing multi-party insurgencies doesn’t strike me as a coïncidence. Pretending the corruption in e.g. New York around this is fine is just such a weird take.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#440

Post by servo_sausage »

Grombobulous wrote: post #427
eagleinparadise wrote: post #232

As someone who works in commercial real estate, involved in about $300M of housing development, some of it affordable, i will say without any doubt that driverless cars are a very effective affordable housing policy that is not being considered or discussed by anyone. Any public dollar that gets contributed to housing, basically adds a 50% cost factor and assume whatever it is used for will take 2-3x as long to deliv…

With respect to you as a person and your ideas presented, this is one of the most car-brained posts I've ever read. > it's way more efficient than building $100 billion in transit that will take 200 years to build. What is efficient about a $13 highway widening project in Houston or the $24 billion (inflation-adjusted) and 15 years it cost to bury a highway in Boston? (It's not even much of a new highway, it's just u…

Because a transit method that follows a fixed route, on a schedule, is inherently worse than an on demand one; unless you can separate the traffic.
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