Comment by nihilocrat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nihilocrat | Hacker News Reader

2. Children could own cars. Don’t feel like schlepping your kid to soccer practice? Just buy them a car
6. ... Make my car driverless (freeing me up to watch TV, read a book, catch up on emails, etc.) and able to travel at twice the speed, and spend the entire trip at top speed (rather than slowing down and speeding up on the highway) and I could feasibly live as far as 100 mph away.

7. Urbanization will reverse. Why pay $3,000/month for a flat in Manhattan when you can get from 100 miles upstate to work in 30 minutes?

This is bascially an apocalyptic scenario in my mind. I hate what the automobile has done to US cities, making everything the same vanilla spread and causing the car to become necessary to participate in modern life. I'm sad this blogger doesn't even think twice about the advantages of public transit (see: 6.) or more clever urban planning to reduce travel distances.

I like his basic thesis but I'm horrified by this example he puts forth. We should be moving away from the car, not towards it.

Why should we be moving away from the car? You seem to take this as an a priori fact. I see no advantages to public transit aside from less energy waste, unless you just occasionally long for the scent of hobos.

And urban planning is not a solution. It's shutting the barn doors after horses got out. Most urban areas have already been not only planned but fully executed and there isn't public will to tear the whole thing down and start over.

Assuming we would have driverless cars, you don't have to worry about a gigantic shell of metal that is expensive, will break down at inopportune times, requires constant maintenance, copious parking space at any destination of your choosing, insurance, contributes to crappy air quality (thankfully reduced/solved by using electric power), and for which you have to spend hours shoveling snow if you are in a colder climate. There are tons of other problems if you focus on human-driven cars: drunk drivers, the need for designated drivers, comparatively high risk of being killed or maimed, having your kids nag you or someone else if they want to experience the world outside of their neighborhood, driving course costs (oh wait, in America we don't have to pay... in Europe, well, I hope you have several thousand euros). There are so many issues that they greatly outweigh the ones in a properly-made public transit system. I see cars as being useful for out-of-city excursions (but not inter-city, just take the train) or for hauling things, but these situations are not common enough that every single adult needs to own a car.

We don't actually have to tear down and start over, and I think you underestimate the North American will to destroy old buildings. We just need to use existing buildings more intelligently, turn asphalt seas into courtyards, allocate green spaces and keep residental and commercial buildings close together. I don't expect people to actually do any of this, particularly in the US where it would be seen as a communist plot, but I'm happy there are many places in the world where there is no need for urban replanning/reorganization on a grand scale.

With regards to public transportation, all I know is, after five years trying to make do with it, I am never going back to that hell. It's only barely cheaper than owning a car, and the trips took 2–10 times as long. (The city where I work has property very close to the businesses, but that property is ridiculously expensive.)

Most US public transit is abysmal, particularly if it's bus-only. Spend some time in Europe.

I think this is an extremely intelligent concern, and I agree with you that we should be moving away from cars.

I'm not sure what the repercussions of the self driving car will be though. SDC's, along with robotics, will eliminate the need to drive to the grocery store, or any store at all. And telecommunications surely will be pushing back against the need for central offices.

My hope is that SDCs will allow us to form more human-scale communities outside of the city, where we can live largely on foot, with local necessities (restaurants, bars, parks) within walking distance. All the crap that clogs up our cities and forces us to drive (stores, mostly) will be distributed to a network of warehouses that we will never visit.

We may take cabs more often from place to place, but I think overall SDCs could help us drive less.

It's all wild speculation at this point, but I think it's very interesting to see what will happen.

But isn't most public transport essentially big cars? (i.e. busses)

As for 'clever urban planning', that's not possible without getting people used to living in smaller houses or on top of each other.

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