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Waymo in Portland

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Re: Waymo in Portland

#461

Post by bsder »

blks wrote: post #228
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…

Waymo is an expensive taxi service, not a solution to public transport.

> Waymo is an expensive taxi service, not a solution to public transport.

Why not both?

The absolute biggest problems with mass transit in the US are the "first mile" and the "last mile".

If I wanted to take mass transit, I had to show up before 7:00 AM in order to park my car. Every single train after 7:00AM became useless to commuters. That's idiotic.

And then I needed a car at the destination station to drive to my workplace. So, a bunch of us had completely idle cars parked at the commuter station that we used roughly 15 minutes per day but needed parking at both the station AND the workplace--just to use the train. Good lord that is stupid.

Waymo at the right price solves a whole bunch of these issues. Suddenly utilization of your train can go up because you've decoupled train utilization from train station parking. In addition, train utilization isn't so dependent upon close distance to the station. Now, you can build a transit station and allow it to organically fill in instead of getting killed because it's an expensive money sink for 10+ years until housing builds around it. etc.

Sure, you should be able to take a bicycle from the station; that's not how the US is laid out so you have to deal with what you are stuck with today. Sadly, this isn't the old days where everybody works at the mill and dropping a station right there gets you 80% of the population; you have to put that station in and wait a decade while things adjust.

Waymo gets you across the interim while the mass transit convenience transitions from poor to something useful over multiple decades.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#462

Post by hnav »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #277
xnx wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all the organizations with access to my data (e.g. ISP, social networks, cellphone service provider, current US government, etc.), I absolutely trust Google the most. Do you think Google is lying about the microphone?

> I absolutely trust Google the most. why?

robust culture of data protection because of lots to lose

Re: Waymo in Portland

#463

Post by soiltype »

floxy wrote: post #448
soiltype wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that's an unusual definition of notable.

notable adjective no· ta· ble ˈnō-tə-bəl for sense 2 also 1 a : worthy of note : remarkable | a *notable* improvement https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/notable

I misread that you were retracting "notable" and replacing it. I thought you were adding "it can't suck for any reason" to your definition.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#464

Post by soiltype »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #434
soiltype wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I wasn't making any rhetorical argument. That part of the comment was just me musing.

Muse this - train is a tool, just like a car, bus, bike, plane, drone or rollerblades. Repeating "trains" in every transport context is unproductive. Each mode of transport requires certain density. Most US cities just don't have it. It's that simple.

No

Re: Waymo in Portland

#465

Post by ggreer »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #451
wskinner wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road wear and tear increases as the fourth power of axle load. Are you counting the spending on bus stops, bus parking, dedicated bus lanes, and more on the other side of the ledger?

In FY25, according to their budget [1], TriMet - the Portland public transit authority - spent $19M on bus services. In that same budget, PDOT spent $56M on streets, signs and streetlights, before you even consider the $242M spent on "asset management" - which appears to generally be capital improvements; i.e., rebuilding roads [2, page 509]. I don't care what fraction of that wear and tear is due to buses, it's not…

Your first link is for the bus budget in Portland, Maine. The system cost for busses in Portland, Oregon in 2025 was $453 million.[1]

1. https://trimet.org/about/pdf/trimetridership.pdf

Re: Waymo in Portland

#466

Post by 15155 »

array_key_first wrote: post #306
rootusrootus wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> buses and lightrail are significantly more efficient per person than personal vehicles Assuming the transit is fully utilized and the car is mostly not. And maybe that's a good way to look at it. But in Portland the light rail is often well under capacity, and in that case a carpool likely wins on efficiency. > the cost of cars also includes the cost of roads, the cost of land under those roads, the cost of parking…

Right, the reason it might be underutilized is if you're bad at designing cities for it. Which the US is, so it is. We design cities for cars, which results in the cities spreading out further and further, which makes transit less desirable and more expensive. Other countries don't have this problem to this degree, because they don't design their cities exclusively for cars. Also, I don't think most roads would need…

Portland was originally designed around mass transit and is a completely planned city - this argument does not hold water there specifically.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#467

Post by simondotau »

sheept wrote: post #186
xnx wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Portland is really forward-thinking, they would be smart to use this opportunity to jump to the next stage of public transport by focusing on flexible bus routes and Waymo/rideshare subsidies for the poor and disabled.

Self driving cars aren't the next stage of public transport; they're a bandaid solution to American urban design. They're still cars, so they still contribute to traffic and increased pavement wear, and I cannot imagine they'd be cheaper at scale than buses for storage/maintenance/cleaning.

“Self driving cars aren't the next stage of public transport; they're a bandaid solution to American urban design.”

That might be an unintentionally excellent analogy, because like a Band-Aid, self self driving cars have the potential to heal the urban environment. The widespread adoption of self driving cars doesn’t take cars off the road, but it does reduce the reliance on destination parking. Entire city car parks could be replaced with medium density residential, substantially increasing density and paving the way to walkable cities.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#468

Post by mmooss »

Zigurd wrote: post #344
mmooss wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A robo taxi only has down time when there are no rides, or for charging and maintenance/cleaning. It's wierd to see this fantasy of machines on HN, of all places - that they have no downtime, no additional costs - it's only a savings from employing people), and (not said here) they don't make mistakes. Lots of machines have far more downtime and cost than people. Many have more maintenance hours than operating hour…

Of course they have downtime. They need to charge. Waymo partners with car rental companies for depot operations where they inspect for damage and clean the cars. Damaged cars need to get repaired. But, a Waymo car has a huge impact compared to gig drivers. Even ones that do it 12 hours a day. The Waymo fleet is maximally available for both rush-hour busy times plus closing time at bars and nightclubs. I don't know i…

> a Waymo car has a huge impact compared to gig drivers. Even ones that do it 12 hours a day. The Waymo fleet is maximally available for both rush-hour busy times plus closing time at bars and nightclubs.

What makes you say that there is a difference, the difference is in Waymo's favor, or that it's so large?

Rideshare drivers also know about rush hour and closing time, and rideshare companies adjust availability for those times. There's no reason to think Waymo will handle it's inventory of rides better than Uber.

> Gig drivers optimize, or try to, their individual revenue and other preferences the shape their responsiveness to customer demand. In other words it's two sided market among individuals. Waymo isn't. Waymo optimizes across their whole fleet for revenue, presumably, and customer satisfaction.

That is really a bizarre notion. Why would Waymo's interests be any more aligned with customers than rideshare drivers? Waymo cars are robots operated by a corporation in another state or country. Rideshare drivers are human beings in the same car, who live in the same city or town.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#469

Post by 15155 »

troad wrote: post #427
RoddaWallPro wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rode the MAX when living there for a few years. I vividly recall screaming drugged out homeless riders being a regular feature. The last time I rode, a year ago, there was someone in the throes of the fent-bends in my section, who smelled like he was dying (he well may have been). These incidents haven't made me fear, because I am a relatively big and tall male, but they _definitely_ will for others. And even then,…

The NYT reported recently that the rollout of more impermeable ticket gates have noticeably reduced the proportion of unstable people on the subway. Not everyone who fare evades is unstable, obviously, but the article suggested that a high proportion of the unstable were fare evaders, so their reduction was an unexpected corollary benefit of the new gates. (I assume this would conceptually clash with the effort to ma…

Any form of station-side ticket gate would be a complete and utter non-starter for the MAX - half of the stations are practically rural.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#470

Post by ssl-3 »

fragmede wrote: post #457
troupo wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of potential high-traffic corridors, and the US is still incapable of serving them.

The Brightline in Florida exists, as does the Acela on the East Coast. These things are entirely possible in the US, we just don't seem to want them enough.

Sorta, kinda.

Suppose in some hypothetical future, we can take the (expensive) train to our destination in Somewhere, USA, and it drops us off.

So there we are, at a train station in Somewhere, USA.

What happens next? A bus? Light rail? Uber/Lyft/taxi? A friend who has time to show up? Renting a car? What's our next move? (Lots of destinations don't have much for local public transport.)

For contrast: When I drive myself to Somewhere, I've still got my car to use after I get there. I can go anywhere I want to go, at any time I choose to do so, and I can bring as much stuff and as many people as suits me without much additional cost.

I don't have to wait around for a train. I don't have to deal with checking luggage, or retrieving luggage. I can just pop into town -- with my car -- and set forth to do whatever I want. The bags can ride along with me until I get to wherever it is that I'm crashing for the night and until then, they don't present any particular burden at all.

I might have been better-rested if I took the hypothetical train, but getting dropped off at a train station isn't a very complete solution.

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