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Waymo in Dallas

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Re: Waymo in Dallas

#601

Post by infecto »

Grombobulous wrote: post #585
infecto wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to say “with respect” don’t say it at all. You can share your ideas without calling names. A bus would simply never work. Busses, trains and other modes of group transport or hard or near impossible to get right in a sprawling suburban metro. It would be amazing if it was possible but folks are going to work in so many directions (there is not a single workplace hub) and after work they may be going to an…

Then why does public transit work in other countries with suburbs? Obligatory repost of this video about small towns and cities in the Netherlands being easily accessible by public transit and cycling: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ztpcWUqVpIg I will also point out that a large proportion of suburbs in the US are comparatively brand new developments. While we might not be able to retrofit existing developments, fast-gr…

Transit going to where. That’s the problem, you could build a new development that is transit oriented but where is it going? The average person in Texas does not want to transfer busses.

Your comparison to Netherlands is rough because you are talking about a country that has a fairly mild climate and older cities that generally have density and not much sprawl. I don’t comprehend these examples.

Also those cities are incredibly tiny with probably a concentration of employment. Keep in mind the Netherlands is about 115 miles wide and maybe 180 north/south diagonally. That’s roughly the size of the Dallas metro area.

Someone who lives in Arlington might commute to downtown Dallas, an office building in Plano or downtown Fort Worth. You multiply that by millions of people and it becomes a very hard problem that a typical city bus cannot handle.

Now I do think there is probably opportunity for a Waymo like solution with 10 seats that could do driverless ride sharing but I don’t see how a city can build a bus system that works, people don’t want to take a bus unless it has zero transfers. The last mile problem is incredibly hard and places like Texas are hot. I asking through a strip mall parking lot is further than most of the cities in the Netherlands in that video.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#602

Post by yieldcrv »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #22
yieldcrv wrote: post #18

Waymo sells itself People hate human drivers more than they hate the idea of AI drivers https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/business/uber-sexual-assa...

The real test is, can these self-driving cars drive I-4 without getting into any sort of wreck? https://www.worldatlas.com/places/the-most-dangerous-highway...

they don’t do highways in general, very limited access. could change at any time though especially as some cities have no other route

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#604

Post by panick21_ »

121789 wrote: post #235
padolsey wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem so used to it now. I love them, I think they're probably one of the most exciting tech I've used in the last ten years. They're also like magical little rescue pods when socially overwhelmed in a busy city.

the easiest way to understand their value is to be a pedestrian. it is insane how quickly you realize how safe and careful they are vs. humans. the "bugs" with getting stuck in intersections and stuff like that means very little to me if I can bike or cross a crosswalk with confidence

Easiest to understand their value as a pedestrian in a place that doesn't care about pedestrian and looks at their deaths as irrelevant.

We know a lot about how to improve road safety for pedestrians, but its just not valued in some places.

Replacing 100s of millions of cars with smart robot is not safety solution. Actually improving road safety with cheap well proven methods is the solution.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#605

Post by weatherlite »

ragazzina wrote: post #586
weatherlite wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an expert but in general that's usually not how tech works. It generally gets commodified and cheaper : TVs, mobile phones, computers etc etc. They're either becoming cheaper or you get a way better product for the same price (think of today's TVs that make the 80s tvs look like something from the middle ages). Yes Google in the initial decade will possibly have a big head start but in the end Tesla and a bunch o…

>not how tech works. It generally gets commodified and cheaper: TVs Hardware gets commodified and cheaper, not services usually. Do you pay less for cable tv now compared to 20 years ago?

Its complex. Cell phone plans became way cheaper in my country than 20 years ago, they used to be shockingly expensive. People old enough will remember SMS weren't cheap and a single minute of call was shockingly expensive. I'd same similar thing happened with the internet, you can now get a basic plan for cheaper than 20 years ago. Is it as cheap as it should be? Probably not.

It's interesting this hasn't happened with cable I somewhat agree with you there. However you have alternatives that are just as good like Netflix and cost 20 bucks or less if you can live with ads.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#606

Post by panick21_ »

xnx wrote: post #420
Zambyte wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want trains.

I think you'd want them a lot less if you had to pay the full price in fare (often $30+/ride)

I live in Switzerland and it actually saves money for your society. Its universally considered a fantastic investment for the country and many people are happy to pay it, both in taxes and in ticket cost.

You are simply applying two different standards for road cost and rail costs. Roads are fully tax funded and all land use decisions are made to support them. And then there is insanely huge subsidy in how parking lots work, not to mention tons of other regulation that forces the creation of parking, zoning and so on.

Your statement only makes sense, because what your 'normal' is actually an insanely pro car, anti train normal.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#607

Post by baggachipz »

xnx wrote: post #162
baggachipz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also when the partnership with Rivian really takes off. Uber clearly wants its own fleet of robotaxis; they already unsuccessfully burnt a lot of money on it years ago. Looks like they're content letting other companies take the risk while helping fund them.

It's hard to see how Uber is in any way relevant to the future of self-driving.

Yeah well I'm sure they would like to prevent that.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#608

Post by panick21_ »

amazingamazing wrote: post #221
Zambyte wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want trains.

Too much capex

Capex for countries isn't really that big of a problem. You can raise lots of capital for long term, a proper investment should increase land values (or property values).

Generally societies that invest a lot of capex in high capacity transit do quite well.

Also roads have high capex along with operation cost, along with high private cost. Not even mention the additional cost for health and other hidden costs.

If you go by total lift-time cost by capacity then its a fantastic deal.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#609

Post by galangalalgol »

bluGill wrote: post #568
Yizahi wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't dispute Dallas numbers and I may be wrong. But in general this feels wrong at a first approach. Denser low rise apartment blocks with more commercial square are per inhabitant and fewer expensive infrastructure per inhabitant (road area, length of water/sewers/electricity/data lines, amount of common things like lamp posts, signs, security (police/fire/medical etc.)) just logically should be better financi…

When logic and the observation disagree that means your logic is missing something. Don't double down on flawed logic, figure out where the flaw is. I don't know where your flaws in logic is coming from, but I have seen the numbers enough different places to know there is one someplace.

I know this isn't /. but a car analogy seems appropriate here. A city is like a modern cramped engine bay vs an old one where you can sit next to the motor to work on it. Anything you try to fix or upgrade in a dense city causes large problems.

Also, governance isn't like manufacturing, it doesn't get easier at scale, it gets so much harder.

Living in a perfectly planned super dense urban utopia where I can quickly walk wherever I want is extremely appealing to me. I would also like living in the wilds where once a week I drive to the general store and back as the full day's task. Suburban living is my least desired outcome. But everywhere there is room for it, it happens, even without a city to latch onto. There are good reasons for that.

Re: Waymo in Dallas

#610

Post by panick21_ »

cortesoft wrote: post #60

I live very close to LAX, and we have hundreds of Waymos in our area. At first i was a little weary, and kinda weirded out by all of them. They have become completely normal, and cause WAY fewer traffic incidents than human drivers. They are very predictable, and will always let you pull in front of them when changing lanes (unlike a lot of other LA drivers). I have seen a few incidents where they seem 'stuck', and i…

If you live in car sewer then slightly better shit is considered acceptable.

I prefer not to live like that.

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