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Waymo in Portland

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Re: Waymo in Portland

#511

Post by Jblx2 »

Jblx2 wrote: post #401
Schiendelman wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's understandable, but I think the mass transit crowd is pretty different. I think you may need to meet more transit advocates!

I think there is also a couple of other factors at play with the online train / mass transit advocates on places like HN. It could just be my imagination, but I think there is trains-are-a-good-solution-for-other-people (but not necessarily for me) contingent. And there is a trains-are-good-for-you transportation method, that you have to put up with for the "greater good". A bitter pill to swallow, not something you…

Also, reading through the whole thread make me think there should be a meme about this.

Normal Person: I heard about shellfish, but it turns out I don't like to eat it, because it tastes bad.

Seafood Advocate 1: You are wrong, shellfish is highly nutritious. And one of the most calorie dense foods.

Seafood Advocate 2: Everyone knows you need to eat shellfish between the hours of 11AM and 1PM. If you learn to eat at the proper time, you would like shellfish.

Seafood Advocate 3: People in Japan eat shellfish, so it is highly likely that you like shellfish as well.

Seafood Advocate 4: The only reason someone could say they dislike shellfish is because of the anti-seafood conspiracy.

Normal Person: I thought this was originally a thread about chicken pasta recipes? Continues to not eat shellfish.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#512

Post by sensanaty »

llbbdd wrote: post #489
sensanaty wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.) You're saying all this as if this exact scenario isn't solved in plenty of places across the world? You take the bus or tram or metro or cycle or just walk if it's close enough. If the city is actually built with public transp…

> If the US bothered to build out the infrastructure, you could go anywhere you wanted to go via public transport as well. Public transit != mass transit. There's no reason that self-driving vehicle fleets can't be municipally subsidized and provide a dramatically better private experience than any mass transit anywhere in the world, and we already have the infrastructure for it.

Let's say you go to a concert or similar event where there's potentially thousands of people leaving at the same time. How many robotaxis do you need to carry the same amount of people as a single train carriage is capable of carrying? 200? 300? What about what an entire train, with multiple carriages, could carry?

Also why on earth would I want the gov't paying fucking Google for their robotaxis, rather than having them put that money into public transport which serves everyone else and not just the pockets of some silicone valley douchebags?

Re: Waymo in Portland

#513

Post by insane_dreamer »

nunez wrote: post #304

I've got to retract some shade I've thrown at Waymo when discussing Tesla FSD in the past. Like others, my biggest objection with it was their approach to scaling. Tesla aimed for the vision-only general solution with FSD, while Waymo held strong to its LIDAR-first geofence strategy. I held this opinion before using Waymo, as it wasn't available in my city (Houston, TX). I've used it several times after being invited…

I've tried Tesla FSD a couple of times (free trial in our Model 3) and didn't like it (even though I'm an early adopter who is used to putting up with rough edges; my wife tried it once and wouldn't touch it again). It acted like a nervous new driver.

Portland is a tough place to drive, lots of edge cases, so a good test case for Waymo.

Having said that, as good as Waymo might be, I'm still concerned about the effect on public transport, which I use when I can. We're in the suburbs but it's good for getting downtown (no parking to worry about) and to the airport, which unlike many US cities is served by rail. We're don't live near a light rail station (wish there were more of them!) but we park and ride. I wish more people would do that, but Americans are obsessed with single car transport and the cities are designed for that.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#514

Post by Barbing »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #148
Barbing wrote: post #7

Stiff competition for humans, especially drivers outside the top quartile or so. Waymo appears to its passengers to drive much more competently than certainly any sub-average rideshare driver. Although I like jobs for humans, I hope these aren’t all just set on fire because there is promise in reducing fatalities. Want to find a way for offline vehicles that can go 65MPH to remain legal though. Without Flock every bl…

I don't see why you should prefer jobs for humans. If a robot can do a job as well better and more cheapy than a human, it should, and that goes trebly for any sort of safety-focused job. The right fix is eliminating the need for make-work and not creating more unnecessary jobs. That is, of course, tremendously challenging. It's impractical to look at a job performed by millions and just saying "well fix capitalism"…

>prefer

Ehh, I’ll stick with the original:

“I like jobs for humans”

Perhaps other pathways to income/wealth accumulation & fulfillment are even better! As it stands I think we could read it as “I like humans“.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#515

Post by senordevnyc »

charcircuit wrote: post #477
senordevnyc wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly find it horrifying that you think stripping a person of their freedom and dignity for ten years is a reasonable penalty for being “noisy” on a train. I’d much rather be around the noisy-but-relatively-harmless person than someone with so little regard for their fellow man.

>for ten years Or longer if they show they are unable to reform while in prison. >penalty for being “noisy” on a train That is ignoring the second order effects of the situation. This noise is holding back the flywheel of public transportation that could have economic benefits to millions of people. The penalty is for the enormous cost of holding the rest of society back. The person who has such little regard for the…

You can make this kind of specious argument for any infraction, no matter how minor. Hard pass on your ridiculous dystopia.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#516

Post by TheCoelacanth »

cameldrv wrote: post #131
Silamoth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The European mind does not comprehend how big and sparsely populated the American West is. You can't even pitch a tent in most places in the Alps, and why would you, when you just stop at a hut that has a staff and you can get fed and sleep in bunks with 20 other people? Meanwhile I can drive to numerous places where there isn't a structure or even another person in a 20km radius. No one is going to run a train to a…

You're describing places that have few people and hence few car trips. Most car trips, even in the US, take place in densely populated areas.

The point of public transit isn't to handle 100% of all trips. It's to handle the most common trips in a more efficient and scalable way.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#517

Post by LunaSea »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #430
bbor wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, it is genuinely convenient that Waymo doesn't rely on an unpopular payroll tax for funding while the bus system does To be fair, it gets far more subsidies from the government in general by simple virtue of being a car, they're just A) longterm and thus assumed and B) less visible in general. So I'd say the connection between transit and controversial taxes is arbitrary, really--I'll grant you "convenient", but…

Road maintenance isn't a subsidy, it's a collective good that buses also benefit from along with many other types of human transport. This is separate from the cost to the government of running a bus system, which is exactly what large numbers of people really don't want to pay an additonal tax for and are therefore voting against.

If the road is privatised by the virtue of it being mostly used by private companies like Waymo (in the future) then they can foot the bill for road construction and maintenance.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#518

Post by llbbdd »

troupo wrote: post #494
llbbdd wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those places are comfortable with subpar transit conditions. There's nothing actually individually desirable about taking the train compared to having a private car take you directly between points A and B, people just seem to shy away from admitting that in favor of pro-social signaling in support of public transit.

Ah yeah, the subpar conditions of ... not being dependent on the car for 100% of your life. The subpar conditions of ... not having to spend hours driving on the highway. The subpar conditions of ... having a choice. I wonder if there are psychological studies on why Americans en masse cannot even perceive the idea of there being other transportation options than cars and (to a lesser extent) planes. Even though in t…

This is in a thread about self-driving cars - spending hours on a highway vs a train makes no difference to me if I'm not steering, except that I'm not packed in with the public, which I don't want.

I wonder if there are psychological studies on why non-Americans cannot perceive why trains are genuinely an undesirable solution in the US looking forward in 2026. America could have trains if it wanted to; we don't because they aren't actually a forward-looking solution to transit in the US given all other constraints, such as having spacious homes instead of being packed in like sardines like all the "first-world" examples of public mass transit.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#519

Post by llbbdd »

sensanaty wrote: post #493
llbbdd wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those places are comfortable with subpar transit conditions. There's nothing actually individually desirable about taking the train compared to having a private car take you directly between points A and B, people just seem to shy away from admitting that in favor of pro-social signaling in support of public transit.

I guess you've never ridden on the Shinkansen or anywhere in Switzerland. I'd much rather take those trains than do the equivalent drives, especially if I'm the one behind the wheel.

In this thread I'm assuming I'm not behind the wheel. I don't own a car and I don't like driving, I take taxis and rideshare everywhere that a plane can't.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#520

Post by throwaway2037 »

bradleybuda wrote: post #317
array_key_first wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an implementation problem, not a problem with the underlying concept. Public transit like buses and lightrail are significantly more efficient per person than personal vehicles. This is because they can transport many more people for the same amount of space and energy. They also typically run on set tracks, which yields more efficiency gains. The US is really, really bad at doing public transit. It doesn't h…

> This is an implementation problem, not a problem with the underlying concept. I agree. The question remains - why do U.S. municipalities universally and repeatedly fail to successfully implement rapid transit at an efficient price point? Buses, trains, and subways in America have ever-growing budgets (both in absolute and per customer mile terms) with ever-declining quality of service. Just asking for more tax reve…

You raise a good point. My guess: It is not possible to provide what people need/want at a reasonable price point, especially in low density cities. As a result, it requires a lot of subsidies. I assume that cities create bus services primarily for people below middle class who may not be able to afford a car.

Re-read your same response, but replace "mass transit" with "private automobiles". The economic case is equally weak/negative. For a moment, imagine there is a small RaspberryPi-like device in your car that records every mile driven within city limits, then sends you a monthly bill for the true cost to maintain and police those roads. The cost would shock most users. Without a doubt, private automobiles are massively subsidised by tax payers. However, it is a democracy, and the voters are OK with it, so it continues.

To go further, there are very few mass transit systems in the world that do not require large gov't subsidies to operate. (I guess less than ten.) In all such cases, the gov't funds nearly 100% of the construction cost of railways.

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