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Waymo in Portland

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Re: Waymo in Portland

#211

Post by tjwebbnorfolk »

fsckboy wrote: post #202
starkparker wrote: post #127

For context, this is coming in as TriMet is laying off staff, reducing service frequency, eliminating bus lines, and cutting parts of light rail routes due to a $300M budget shortfall. The cuts were exacerbated by state Republicans getting a proposed payroll tax repeal onto the ballot next month; TriMet relies heavily on payroll taxes that are deeply unpopular among the self-employed and small business owners, so the…

> TriMet relies heavily on payroll taxes that are deeply unpopular among the self-employed and small business owners just a point of clarification, the term "payroll taxes" refers to Social Security and Medicare taxes that are applied to your paycheck; you don't pay them, self-employed and employers pay those. Wage-earners do not pay them directly, but do collect the social security and Medicare benefits that they pa…

Employers and employees split payroll taxes 50/50 by law. You definitely pay payroll taxes as an employee in the US.

If you are self-employed, you have to manually pay the tax because there's no employer wage to automatically deduct from.

A quick search could have resolved your confusion before commenting nonsense.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#212

Post by rootusrootus »

guywithahat wrote: post #135
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> something like a Rivian but with Waymo tech So a Tesla?

I, independently, made almost exactly the same comment before seeing yours lol. I already do 20+ hour cross-country trips in my Y without a break to sleep, which is only possible because I'm not meaningfully fatigued driving. it's still technically supervised but I think that's beyond the point OP is making

> I already do 20+ hour cross-country trips in my Y without a break to sleep

Always feels a little weird to read a comment that is plausibly going to end up being referenced in a future news article.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#213

Post by ssl-3 »

xnx wrote: post #175
nostrademons wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why one of those second-order effects wouldn't be the death of car ownership, with everyone using a rideshare service instead. Hell, that's the business model for Waymo and almost everyone other than Tesla in the autonomous-vehicle industry. It just doesn't make sense to own your own vehicle, use it for ~2 hours/day, and have to worry about parking/storing/fueling/maintaining it when you could have a serv…

> The future looks an awful lot like intermodal containers for people. Love this concept. As self-driving vehicles become a larger share of road use, roads can be more efficiently designed just for them: no speed limit, just 2 strips of pavement for the tires, no signage or striping, etc.

Perfect.

We'll just build the cars with parts that seldom fail. And we'll make them very strong, so that the only risk from hitting a deer or even a cow is a splash of gore.

That should help eliminate the need to turn. A loud horn and flashing lights will do pretty well for any errant humans that cross the path.

We can even reduce rolling resistance by using steel wheels instead of rubber, and we can make the road a surface of continuous steel for durability.

We can even hitch the cars together so they can't collide with eachother and they can collectively share the propulsion load. (Maybe even with automatic micro payments, so a car with low battery can pay the others to help it along.)

What would we call this thing?

Re: Waymo in Portland

#214

Post by charcircuit »

starkparker wrote: post #158
jrflowers wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Waymo shows up with a convenient solution to both problems. No it didn’t. Bus rides cost $2.80 in Portland.

And in August, the bus line that serves my neighborhood completely goes away, and the next closest bus line with stops 2 miles away will end weekday service after 6:30 p.m. and weekend service altogether. I don't give a fuck if it's free, if it's inaccessible. I'm not crossing SE Foster on a rainy evening to catch a bus that won't take me home afterward.

So use your car instead?

Re: Waymo in Portland

#215

Post by throwaway-blaze »

Silamoth wrote: post #62
boc wrote: post #4

I've determined that my ultimate dream car would be something like a Rivian but with Waymo tech, so I can drive it manually when I want/need (snowstorms, off-road), but I can also let it drive me across the country at night while I camp in the back. Would absolutely change the way we move across the US, especially if you have hobbies that involve a lot of gear and equipment.

At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you. I’m not saying cars shouldn’t ever exist. The ‘last mile problem’ is a thing, and proper self-driving cars could be good for p…

Public transit only works if you live in the densest of the dense part of a city. If you live out in Beaverton or Gresham these bus lines lose money hand over fist, not to mention farther-flung places.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#216

Post by NobodyNada »

fsckboy wrote: post #202
starkparker wrote: post #127

For context, this is coming in as TriMet is laying off staff, reducing service frequency, eliminating bus lines, and cutting parts of light rail routes due to a $300M budget shortfall. The cuts were exacerbated by state Republicans getting a proposed payroll tax repeal onto the ballot next month; TriMet relies heavily on payroll taxes that are deeply unpopular among the self-employed and small business owners, so the…

> TriMet relies heavily on payroll taxes that are deeply unpopular among the self-employed and small business owners just a point of clarification, the term "payroll taxes" refers to Social Security and Medicare taxes that are applied to your paycheck; you don't pay them, self-employed and employers pay those. Wage-earners do not pay them directly, but do collect the social security and Medicare benefits that they pa…

> Payroll taxes would not pay for things like mass transit

In Oregon, TriMet is funded by a payroll tax: https://www.oregon.gov/dor/programs/businesses/pages/trimet-...

> The Oregon Department of Revenue administers tax programs for the Tri-County Metropolitan Trans­portation District (TriMet). Nearly every employer who pays wages for services performed in this district must pay transit payroll tax.

> The transit tax is imposed directly on the employer. The tax is figured only on the amount of gross payroll for services performed within the TriMet Transit District. This includes traveling sales repre­sentatives and employees working from home.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#217

Post by guywithabike »

alphawhisky wrote: post #183
starkparker wrote: post #127

For context, this is coming in as TriMet is laying off staff, reducing service frequency, eliminating bus lines, and cutting parts of light rail routes due to a $300M budget shortfall. The cuts were exacerbated by state Republicans getting a proposed payroll tax repeal onto the ballot next month; TriMet relies heavily on payroll taxes that are deeply unpopular among the self-employed and small business owners, so the…

I'm sure that they'll just dodge regulations like every other Service as a Software company. Literally taking the money out of the City's hands and providing a slower, less safe, less equitable service. While taking profit too. Sheesh.

By every available measure, Waymo is safer and more equitable than cabs and rideshares. Waymos don't refuse service on skin color or disability. They don't have to stop every block along a fixed route like TriMet. And they're not profitable. So what's your actual beef, here?

I actually live in Portland, and Waymos are going to be a massive improvement over the chronically inattentive, unskilled drivers around here. Waymos aren't glued to their phones at intersections. That, alone, is 70% of all pedestrian crashes caused by human drivers in Portland.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#218

Post by guywithabike »

fhka wrote: post #132
Cider9986 wrote: post #119

Thank goodness that Waymo has no plans to use the cameras recording you in the car for targeted ads. I will feel so secure and private being recorded at all angles in a car I don't own and can't sue. "Waymo: ‘no plans’ to use in-car camera data for targeted ads" ( https://www.theverge.com/news/644770/waymo-interior-camera-a... )

I also don't understand why people aren't more upset about the privacy issues. They have your whole travel data, your face, your voice, "private" conversations. And the people in the Philippines who can intervene in the "self" driving can comment on your bodily features if bored.

> I also don't understand why people aren't more upset about the privacy issues.

I think a lot of people are starting to realize that despite years of doom-and-gloom finger wagging about privacy, their lives have never actually been negatively impacted by the horrors of targeted ads and, if anything, are materially improved (free internet search engines, free email, free social networks, and so on).

Re: Waymo in Portland

#219

Post by mmooss »

tristanj wrote: post #165
mmooss wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Waymo doesn't have this cost, so it's effectively ~$25/hr cheaper to operate than Uber/Lyft. Waymo has other costs, such as engineering driverless operation.

Engineering costs are capital/fixed costs, they're paid once to develop the technology and don't scale with the number of trips. Operating costs (which is what I'm discussing here) are what it actually costs to run each ride. Waymo's marginal cost per trip doesn't include a chunk of some engineer's salary. Once there are enough trips, the fixed engineering costs are spread across more and more trips, exponentially tr…

Machines require maintenance, repairs, upgrades. Also, Waymo hasn't fired all their engineers for some reason, so those costs are not one-time.
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