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Comment by xnx | Hacker News Reader

> having a car would have been restrictive in any major city and a source of friction.

Would a Waymo that you don't have to store, park, fuel, or maintain have been restrictive?

Well to the extent it draws people from public transit, yes because traffic makes being a pedestrian more unpleasant and waymos still are traffic. And increased traffic adds friction to crossing streets and they park obnoxiously, among other things.

So yes, they would be obnoxious at any significant quantity and also not really help with getting across the city since transit is pretty good

Human driven vehicles are a menace: dangerous, loud, dirty. Self-driving vehicles are entirely different: safe, quiet, no tailpipe emissions.

I'd easily take extra self-driving vehicles if it reduced human driven ones.

Well yes if we’re arbitrary limiting our choice to car based transportation that makes sense for mild climate cities. But why are we insisting on cars being the backbone?

No limits. Each option should be evaluated on its merits.

My contention is that in US cities the high cost of existing rail makes it uncompetitive for most uses, and there is no justification for building new rail.

Maybe not a greenfield project, but rail lines like the NEC could benefit a lot from relatively cheap fixes: removing sharp curves, improving scheduling operations, etc. We just need to get the flywheel going on this in the US

I like Waymo a lot, but the USA desperately needs both transport modes. Don’t think it’s an either/or.

First, I assume that "NEC" means North East Corridor which has a "high speed" train on Boston-NYC-WashingtonDC. Second, "relatively cheap fixes: removing sharp curves": You lost me here. That train must be about 20 years old now. If this was so cheap and easy, why not already done?

Hell if I know why it hasn’t already been done. All I’m saying is that the route slows down because of some sharper turns in some areas, and fixing it would be easier than making completely new lines/stations. I’m sure it would be much more expensive than similar projects elsewhere in the world

id still like to have some human drivers around, to call 911 when i get stuck under the automated car

Cars driving at high speed over normal asphalt also generate a lot of tire noies and particulate pollution, even if they are electric cars. I found this video pretty interesting - some cities are experimenting with different road surfaces to reduce noise

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8

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