I love AVs, but It would do jack shit for traffic and the horrible use of space until they become autonomous buses on dedicated bus lanes, or trains. You still gotta have spaces for pedestrians, and cars still make cities ugly and unpleasant. Even electric autonomous ones. Tire friction still makes noise and pollutes the air with microplastics.
They gotta supplement mass transit for dense cities, not replace it.
> They gotta supplement mass transit for dense cities, not replace it.
Full agreement here. AVs are great for last-mile transit.
> horrible use of space until they become autonomous buses on dedicated bus lanes, or trains
This is where we disagree. The whole point of AV TaaS is that they can go where bus lanes and trains can't. Last mile transportation.
I also wouldn't say they do "jack shit" for traffic in the sense that they reduce the need for parking, and reduce accidents which are the source of a lot of unpredictable congestion.
Surely there are tradeoffs. They indirectly incentivize sprawl and taking more taxi rides overall. And I get the tire residue argument (especially since AV fleets are mostly electric with high torque generating more tire wear). But is tire noise really a fair complaint? They're just going where cars already go and tires are engineered pretty well to minimize noise...
Tire noise is still quite substantial - use the NIOSH noise meter app on your phone to compare the sound levels on a city block when an EV goes by compared to just bikes and people – and there’s a growing body of evidence that noise levels correlate with worse health and sleep for residents. EVs help, but it’s only partial.
I guess my question is - will Waymo really cause that much more tire noise vs today? Wherever car tires are making noise, I doubt Waymo is going to generate that much _additional_ noise.
They gotta supplement mass transit for dense cities, not replace it.