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Driverless cars were the future but now the truth is out: they’re on the road to nowhere
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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Funny how, if we had weight and trip class segregated traffic infrastructure, walkable cities, car-free areas, etc. Then we would probably already have several successful self-driving taxi companies. As indeed, a point A to point B exclusive use highway would definitely be cheaper for mid and low density traffic areas than trains. But since everyone insists travel to be from front door to front door, then the transport network is just too complex and dangerous for the machines to deal with.
When it is wet and cold outside and you have a week's groceries for the family, nobody wants to walk for awhile with all that crap in the cold, then get into a public transit system, then walk even further at the destination, again having to hold all their crap in the wet and cold. Is the transit system going to let one wheel a cart into it? Because I can't hold the week's groceries for my family with just my arms in a single trip.
There are millions of families in Tokyo (and other cities too) who don't own a car, and manage to get their groceries without one.
It can be done.
But yeah it usually involves getting groceries more than once a week.
If we could rethink everything from scratch we could probably easily solve that use case.
Of course the hard part is changing from what we have now to whatever better solutions exist.
Like, things would be better if suburbia wasn't just an ocean of houses with sparse islands or shops. If every house was in a community with most of the basics reachable by foot... But how tf do we get to that?
Strong Towns baybeeeee. As far as I know they recommend starting from the town center and working outwards.
You can't fix a suburb without demolishing it but you can revitalize areas that we're built pre-cars. Allow mixed use development in the town center with bike lanes and public transportation. Remove parking minimums and other unnecessary barriers to development. These types of development bring in much more higher revenue which can then be reinvested into further changes.
Iterative change is possible, don't give up!
You don't have to get a week's worth of groceries when you don't live in a car-first dystopia.
You walk five minutes to the store, spend 5-10 minutes grabbing stuff, then walk back with like a single bag. You shouldn't even need to get on public transit for basics like groceries, but even if you do a single bag isn't a problem.
How many people live a 5 minute walk from a grocery store? I think the closest one to me is about 5 miles away in a city of 250k+. That'd be like a 4 hour round trip walk on average.
That's part of what we want to change. I live a 3 min walk from the grocery store and it's fucking glorious. Better designed cities are better for everyone.
My main problem with this line of thinking is that our cities already exist as they are, and it would take Herculean effort from the government, citizens, and companies in order to raze and rebuild them in a more ideal way.
My city passed mixed use zoning to tackle exactly this years ago and nothing has changed.
Where do you live that has grocery so far apart? Are you actually in the city or like a suburb of it?
I'm in Brooklyn. I can't speak to all of Brooklyn but this neighborhood has a population of 100k from Wikipedia. Where my friend used to live wikipedia says is about 120k, and they had good walkable options.
I live on the west coast where cities aren't as dense as the boroughs of NYC or most eastern states.
Ah. Yeah, that's one of the reasons I don't want to live there. Too sprawled out.
That is an incredibly large amount of time over the week spent doing this task; literally hours per week if we are talking 5 min walk each way plus 10 min in store every day. This is much longer than condensing the 7 trips into 1 and buying in bulk. And it still doesn't solve the having to go outside in cold and wet weather. Not to mention any grocery store this close is going to be at bodega prices, so we are talking spending more money as well.
This isn't a solution. This is a way to spend even more time and even more money while one has to be outside hauling stuff in the cold and wet weather.
You don't have to go every day. You can also take a hand cart if you really want to stock up. It's also just much less of an ordeal to walk down the street and grab some things than it is to deal with the car, traffic, parking, gas.
You have to go outside in the cold weather when you drive, too. Plus you're more likely to get in an accident if it's very rainy or icy. Not a compelling argument.
Foot traffic is also better for the neighborhood in terms of economic and social health (see: Death & Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs).
I live within walking distance of several large supermarkets, in addition to bodegas and smaller groceries. I don't live in a fancy or expensive neighborhood. I don't know why you think that there would only be expensive places near where people live.
Also even if it was spending more money on food because you only live next to an expensive bodega, you're ignoring the huge externalized costs of car-first culture. Pollution, pedestrian deaths, opportunity cost from lack of walking, economic loss from lack of foot traffic, safety loss from lack of foot traffic, and so on.
Yeah, the solution to that is to have local groceries shops where you can go shopping on foot or just with a simply grocery cart walking less than 10 minutes. The idea that you have to haul several tonnes of food from 20+Km away is stupid.
Add: I find laughable how, whenever anyone makes this kind of comments, there comes out of the woodwork the whiny manbabys who assume that it argues for taking away their cars. Read again, never did I suggest to take anyone's car away, I'm making suggestions towards a better city, better living and better infrastructure. It says a lot that you're so openly willing to hurt and inconvenience others to defend against an entirely imaginary threat against your 2 ton toy. A car is a tool, not a personality. And if your personality is your car, I think you have a POS personality.
Nooo, 15 minute cities are a communism plot to smoother America with comfort, or something 🤦🏻♂️
I can walk to a grocery store. I'm not doing it when weather sucks and I have a bunch of stuff.
And public transit to get there would be worse.
Besides, empty busses and empty trains require as much fuel empty as with passengers. They're not as eco friendly as you may think.
And your assumptions about how other people live are stupid. Not everyone has the time to waste walking to get stuff.
This idea of planned cities is naive at the best. Cities grow organically, as things change. You act like cities are static entities that can predict where things will be tomorrow. Naive at best.
Just wait till you get older, where walking, even to the car, is uncomfortable or painful. And I'm not talking old - I was in this kind of pain in my 30's, and still am. Walking from the car into the store sucks, and I'm not as bad off as some people.
You can take my car from my cold, dead, no-longer- in-pain ass.
Ah yes, there's nothing more organic than demolishing black neighborhoods to build highways.
That's only feasible if you have a small family, once you have a couple kids and are buying $300 of groceries a week it's not at all feasible to transport that home by walking or using public transportation. Even less so if you're having to transport the kids at the same time. Just carrying in all the food from my driveway to my house takes 15+ minutes, and that's literally like 20 feet.
Bruh my family would make costco trips and absolutely pack the car with groceries, I'm talking trunk full to the ceiling. That shit takes 5 minutes tops to unload with everyone helping. You're making a mountain out of a molehill. If raising a family without a car is so difficult then why can so many people manage it fine in other countries?
Yes, everyone has nothing better to do than go shopping daily for anything they need. Nevermind having stores on hand in case you can't go to the store daily, like when we had a pandemic. Plus, we should all pay the maximum "bodega" price for everything, no buying in bulk for things to be cheaper, or just buying at a larger central location where things are cheaper.
This just seems asinine to me.
I suggest you do more research, it's far from asinine. It may seem very strange to someone who has lived their entire life in a car centric city but these ideas have been applied in many cities successfully. The results are a healthier and happier populace.