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Waymo in Dallas

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Re: Waymo in Dallas

#491

Post by bwhiting2356 »

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…

waymos don't remove lanes of traffic, they remove parked cars and parking infrastructure, which is still pretty huge. In many suburbs, parking is the real bottleneck not traffic.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#492

Post by yreg »

missedthecue wrote: post #485
yreg wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a bus not fit for endless culdesac suburbia where people are commuting between the suburbs instead of to the downtown? I really don't get it. Pretty much everywhere outside of US buses work no matter the city layout. Just add some stops and run some buses.

because you can't fill the buses! 1. Cul-de-sacs and surburbia lack through-streets. So it forces heavy long buses to navigate winding narrow loops. This makes your routing complex and slow. 2. When commuters travel suburb-to-suburb instead of hub-and-spoke downtown, origin-destination pairs are too scattered to support fixed routes with meaningful frequency. 3. Low passenger volume per mile makes fixed-route bus ope…

1. I promise you that a bus can get through winding narrow loops just fine. All medieval old towns are like that.

2. You either create loops or hubs where people transfer. The hub can be just a regular bus stop where lines meet.

3. Looking up the density of Dallas suburbs I can tell you that buses can work well in far less dense places.

4. The math doesn't add up, if you can get somewhere by car in 20 - 30mins driving then even with 15 minute walk on either side the bus will take you there in less than 'hours'. And walking 15 minutes to the bus stop is not the end of the world. There would also be plenty of people living/working closer to the stop.

From your original comment I got the idea that you think buses need to be these massive heavy vehicles, but that's not really the case either. I've been to places where the public transport was operated by microvans with as low as 12 seats. I don't think they were actually much bigger than american pickups. But I think a regular bus would work alright.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#493

Post by null3cksor »

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…

This is a simple conversation involving ‘what abouts’ and divert your attention to delay public transit build.

In the end you waste long enough time to defend it to delay investments in affordable housing and public transit, both. You then funnel that money into road construction and fuel subsidies.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#494

Post by zzyxy »

toddmorey wrote: post #367
jdale27 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is already working, on roads today, for less time and money than it took to build zero miles of high speed rail in California.

You can’t do inter-city Waymo trips. These are different animals.

The thesis needs some refinement. One can get a Waymo ride from San Francisco to San Jose, though one can also argue that Bay Area is one big suburb and thus the trip does not count as inter-city, even though both SF and SJ are most certainly different cities.

That said, Waymo is indeed not the right tool for the actual inter-city trips.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#495

Post by birdman3131 »

yreg wrote: post #492
missedthecue wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because you can't fill the buses! 1. Cul-de-sacs and surburbia lack through-streets. So it forces heavy long buses to navigate winding narrow loops. This makes your routing complex and slow. 2. When commuters travel suburb-to-suburb instead of hub-and-spoke downtown, origin-destination pairs are too scattered to support fixed routes with meaningful frequency. 3. Low passenger volume per mile makes fixed-route bus ope…

1. I promise you that a bus can get through winding narrow loops just fine. All medieval old towns are like that. 2. You either create loops or hubs where people transfer. The hub can be just a regular bus stop where lines meet. 3. Looking up the density of Dallas suburbs I can tell you that buses can work well in far less dense places. 4. The math doesn't add up, if you can get somewhere by car in 20 - 30mins drivin…

I can't say for a properly designed system but I can get anywhere in my city (~90k population / ~0.25m metro) in 15 minutes via car. (Some days traffic effects a bit.)

Many bus stops are up to 1:45 away.

Can and implemented are often worlds apart.

A 12 seater is not a microvan. That is in full size van territory.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#496

Post by hahla »

yreg wrote: post #483
missedthecue wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the simple fact of the matter is the Waymo is a better public transport solution for Dallas than the bus. The bus doesn't work very well in endless cul-de-sac suburbia, and that's what the Dallas/Fort Worth area (and indeed most of America) is. Like, you have to understand that most of Dallas isn't even commuting into downtown Dallas every day to work. They are just commuting to other suburbs and then back to their s…

Why is a bus not fit for endless culdesac suburbia where people are commuting between the suburbs instead of to the downtown? I really don't get it. Pretty much everywhere outside of US buses work no matter the city layout. Just add some stops and run some buses.

Your entire view point is framed incorrectly. The problem isn’t can a bus solve the problem, it’s the majority of people don’t want to endure the hassle of riding the bus.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#497

Post by TiredOfLife »

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.

And a 3km long train evem more

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#498

Post by satvikpendem »

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.

Not tipping being "sociopathic" as if you are even actually using that word correctly must be the most American thing I have ever read. Most of the world does not tip like this.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#499

Post by xyst »

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…

Quite possibly the worst of both worlds.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#500

Post by alooPotato »

yreg wrote: post #492
missedthecue wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because you can't fill the buses! 1. Cul-de-sacs and surburbia lack through-streets. So it forces heavy long buses to navigate winding narrow loops. This makes your routing complex and slow. 2. When commuters travel suburb-to-suburb instead of hub-and-spoke downtown, origin-destination pairs are too scattered to support fixed routes with meaningful frequency. 3. Low passenger volume per mile makes fixed-route bus ope…

1. I promise you that a bus can get through winding narrow loops just fine. All medieval old towns are like that. 2. You either create loops or hubs where people transfer. The hub can be just a regular bus stop where lines meet. 3. Looking up the density of Dallas suburbs I can tell you that buses can work well in far less dense places. 4. The math doesn't add up, if you can get somewhere by car in 20 - 30mins drivin…

Just scale your small bus further down and you get a cybercab/waymo. It gets full easily but its routes are fully customizable and you never have to change lines and it runs at all hours with no wait. Ohh and its actually way cheaper to run per passenger mile. IMO shared, electric, autonomous AVs are the best solution for mass transit for 90% of the routes
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