7 ms·

Public transit doesn't really go that far, when you talk about the last mile it's pretty limited. But I do like what you're going with that and maybe we could

Public transit doesn't really go that far, when you talk about the last mile it's pretty limited. But I do like what you're going with that and maybe we could have public autonomous car infrastructure that we all share. And just one large global team working on awesome autonomous vehicles. That could be little pod type vehicles for one person and bigger ones as needed. Cuz the road system is pretty broad and amazing right now.

marssaxman 7d ago
Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. I use transit a great deal more than I would if I had to walk so much on either end of the trip.
- EA-3167 7d ago
  Let me guess… you live somewhere warm and mostly dry? Probably on the younger side and don’t have any kids.
  - marssaxman 7d ago
    Seattle, late middle age. Kid just started high school. My wife has a large e-bike with a passenger seat, but replaced it with a cargo basket a couple years ago after the kiddo outgrew it. I didn't say that scooters were a solution for everyone, you may note. I don't think there ought to be one solution for everyone, but given the option of micromobility, I really have no use for autonomous vehicles.
  - toasty228 7d ago
    I'm in a 200 inhabitants village in eastern Europe, we have 3 bus stops in the village (so at most you're 10min away from a stop), the bus goes to the closest city every hour from 4:30 to 22:30 except on Sunday (every two hours from 6 to 21), from there you can take a train to every major city in the country, my neighbor is a 76 year old widow who goes to the city by bus regularly and who bikes around a lot. Half of the kids go to school via this bus, many people go to work with it. It's free for kids and retired people too. When public transportation is designed properly it works fine for the extreme vast majority of people, and taking a taxi for the last mile if you're disabled, obese, lazy, etc. will cost you less than owning and maintaining a car. I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co and now we're all collectively stuck in this dumb system in which every household need to own two 2500kg hunks of steel and plastic to transport 70kg of meat 1% of the time and use public space the other 99%
    - PorciiVorbesc 7d ago
      >I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co When the bus (in your example) runs on a hourly schedule, while your car is always there when you spontaneously need it, then that freedom is real and not just propaganda. I did this type of commute before where I had to catch the bus to work, which was also once every hour, and the anxiety during my early morning routine to not miss the bus was crazy since missing it meant one more hour of wait, compared to the freedom of jumping in my car without a fixed schedule while also saving 1h/day of time compared to the public transit, the difference was night and day, not propaganda. Now if I had a train/subway to work, where I could sit down, and it ran every 15 minutes or less, then yeah, fuck driving and public transport all the way, but nobody sits in traffic for fun, but because of all options for their commute, driving is the better option.
      - toasty228 7d ago
        Then let's keep on fucking the planet, and let's keep on moving 70kg of meat over 30km per day on average with 2500kg of steal, 400kg of battery, etc. super efficient and sustainable!
        PorciiVorbesc 6d ago
        YES, unless you wanna build me public transport from your tax money, let's! If you want people to stop fucking the planet with driving, then you need to stop fucking their lives with hellish public transport commutes and improve it till it's bearable. I have only one life on this planet, and it's much shorter than the planet's life, therefore I need to make it a good and comfortable one while it lasts not sacrifice it for nothing, while China and India keep lighting the planet on fire and my boss is chauffeured in luxury cars and has 3 vacation homes. You need to (have the wealthy) lead by example and sacrifice themselves too before you ask the same from the working class! If you wanna save the planet, then first talk to China and India, talk to politicians and corporate billionaires with private jets and yachts making a killing from forcing everyone into office 5 days/week and dodging taxes so that cities lack funds for infrastructure, not to the working class keeping the world running and feeding their families.
  - sensanaty 7d ago
    The famously warm and dry countries of Norway[1] and Finland[2]! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
    - EA-3167 7d ago
      The famously small conurbations and the reality that Finns and Norwegians only are able to bike part of the year. They have cars and public transit for the rest. I'd add that these discussions tend to handwave the reality of safety when you're on an open platform movie at high speeds, the reality that not all people are physically able, and a lot of others issues that the vocal "cars are the devil" folks don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, and it increasingly feels like trying to reason with the "kill all pitbulls" crowd.
      - Fricken 7d ago
        Scandanavians have been getting around without cars for millenia. Nobody had even heard of a car until just over a century ago. Car dependent infrastructure is definitely not helpful for the physically disabled, as well as those too young, too old, and too poor to drive a car. This and a lot of other issues that the vocal and active "cars aren't the devil" crowd don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, and increasingly feels like trying to reason with the "Pitbulls make great family dogs" crowd.
        EA-3167 7d ago
        "People have been giving birth since the first humans existed, why go to a hospital?" "People have been living with viruses for all of history and beyond, why use vaccines?" "People have been walking for millions of years, why use a bike or a scooter?"
        Fricken 7d ago
        Hospitals at the dawn of the 19th century in Europe were generally places only poor people in desperate situations went to give birth because they were hives of disease transmission. The notion that doctors should wash their hands between treating one patient and the next was met with ridicule. Doctors were insulted by the suggestion that their hands might be unclean, so mortality rates for childbirth in hospitals were horrendous. The idea of handwashing emerged and died many times before it finally caught on, and then only at the behest of vigorous campaigning over a generation. There is a long list of hidden costs and negative externalities associated with car dependent sprawl as well, they are well studied, but nobody want to hear that their hands are unclean. This idea one should be washing their hands a dozens times per shift is patently absurd. Physicians would be wasting hours a day just washing their hands! How would we be able to treat all these patients?
- vrosas 7d ago
  Americans would rather die than give up their air conditioned bubbles on wheels. I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries.
  - alightsoul 7d ago
    They are very popular in china, such as the Wuling ev. In America, they are afraid of them because they are small. They want big cars to have a large crumple area in a crash.
    - Zambyte 7d ago
      And ideally enough mass to violently crush their neighbors.
  - marssaxman 7d ago
    Regulation kills the value proposition. You are basically describing a "neighborhood electric vehicle", but US law limits them to 25 mph, and it is not legal to drive them on many arterials, so they are only really useful inside communities which were designed for them.
  - efavdb 7d ago
    That’s the smart car
  - radarsat1 7d ago
    > I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries. I see these all the time here in the Netherlands. Very small cars. Some on the road and even smaller ones people drive on the bike paths. Small motorized vehicles, ebikes and scooters share the paths with regular bikes which works because they have usually at least two lanes, so they are more like tiny roads. Very handy.
  - warkdarrior 7d ago
    > I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries. Because they are completely unsafe against a twice-the-height, multi-ton Ford pickup truck.
- edgarvaldes 7d ago
  >Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. Not so great for family trips, shopping around, etc.
  - ricardobeat 7d ago
    Those (rare) occasions are when you rent a car. You can do it many times per year before it becomes a financially worse option.
    - daedrdev 7d ago
      It’s currently 95 degrees. No thanks
      - deleted 7d ago
        [deleted]
    - nonethewiser 7d ago
      Someone does not have kids.
      - deleted 6d ago
        [deleted]
embedding-shape 7d ago
> the last mile it's pretty limited. Where is that last mile exactly? In many metropolitan areas, you typically have available a broad selection of trains, subways, trams and/or buses of different sizes that takes you last mile. Some places even have special buses, like the "Neighbourhood Bus" we have here (https://www.barcelona.cat/mobilitat/sites/default/files/bcn-pagina-interior/busito_2.jpg https://www.barcelona.cat/mobilitat/sites/default/files/bcn-...) for narrow and steep neighborhoods up on mountains. It's certainly doable, if you wanted to have last mile public transport.
- iwontberude 7d ago
  Every time you make someone switch modes of transportation to complete their commute, the suffering increases exponentially in my personal experience. I much prefer going door to door and getting the benefit of resting my mind and body.
- bretthoerner 7d ago
  You said both "tram" and "neighbourhood" so I'm assuming you aren't in the US. I truly mean no offense, but it's hard to express how spread out even the most metropolitan areas are in the US. Sure, NYC is one thing. But check out the ~10th largest city, Austin, where Waymo and other autonomous vehicles are (I think) in their largest deployment. Just on a map, or by density numbers, or whatever metric you want. I'm in Austin, and Waymos rule. I walk most places, bike others, and rarely drive. I very, very rarely get a rideshare (and often get Waymo by way of Uber lottery). Autonomous vehicles exist, are real, and serve an actual need in this very low density city that most people on HN have heard of. I have 3 kids and if I could snap my fingers and swap them for Tesla Robotaxis (Waymos are better and safer!) I would in a second. I would even pay for that to happen. If you're arguing about some idealistic society, that's one thing. In reality these things are way better than our public transit, and fixing public transit in a place this (not) dense is not as easy as you might think. The last mile is real, and people are coming from every direction and going every other direction and not willing to wait and transfers when these autonomous vehicles already solve the problems door to door so inexpensively.
  - 7d ago
SrslyJosh 7d ago
I think you need to re-read the parent comment, specifically this part: > I'd much rather all of the resources that are going into autonomous cars was instead going into proper public transit infrastructure. You're almost certainly an American, and you probably have no idea what public transit is like in countries that have been investing in it for decades instead of focusing 95% of their resources on infrastructure for cars.
Clamchop 7d ago
This is where I've always assumed things were going. People talk about one day owning a self-driving car but I look forward to the promise of not owning a car, never needing to buy, maintain, register, insure, or drive one. Not having to buy into a depreciating compromise, do I prioritize economy or seating or cargo or...? Gas, hybrid, electric? Not having to hunt or pay for parking. Private cars are costly and spend most of their time just taking up space. We'll see if it ever works out that way but a boy can dream.
- nonethewiser 7d ago
  Sure just ping Tesla Connect. You dont even need to use the app or scan a QR code. It just reads your neuralink.
amelius 7d ago
> when you talk about the last mile it's pretty limited. That's like a 15 minute walk. And with sufficient infrastructure investments this can be 5 minutes.
- deleted 7d ago
  [deleted]
- infecto 7d ago
  And when folks are given that option or driving they will always take driving.
  - speedstyle 7d ago
    Obviously that's not true, but moreover it's meaningless – what counts as an option?
    - infecto 7d ago
      But it is. In America if you tell someone they are going to need to walk home for 15 minutes they will in the base case opt to take their car. This type of convo has come up in a number of different ways on HN and folks just hand wave away the problems in the US all the time. Americans don’t want to walk outside for an extended amount of time and the last mile(s) problem is quite hard. In most US cities you cannot economically solve the last mile problem efficiently with public transit and similarly most folks will already opt to take their car even if the public transit is great. You will likely be left with at least a few miles for someone to get home. So now are people transferring to other modes of transport because they are not taking a bicycle? So what are you trying to say?
bakies 7d ago
I can walk a mile. Rarely have to in the city.
jokteur 7d ago
I live in Switzerland. Public transit goes _everywhere_, even remote villages and mountains. This is by design, such that one can only use public transit to go almost everywhere in the country. Is public transit always more convenient than the individual car ? No, but you can make the conscious choice of not owning a car, even if you need to raise a family. Switzerland has a high rate of car ownership, because we have a lot of money to spend. But many people, even if they own a car, will sometimes use public transit, because it is convenient, safe and comfortable. There are places in Switzerland where if you need to take a taxi or an Uber, you will have to wait more than 30 minutes before one gets there. At this point, it is more convenient to take the regional bus that goes every 30 minutes. Even if the public transit frequency is every hour, I can plan my journey to arrive on the correct time (also, public transit is synchronised in the whole country to avoid waiting times). I can see autonomous rideshares displacing taxi service and such. I think automonous rideshares still need density to be profitable. So if you need to subsidise rideshare to cover the whole country, why not properly invest in public transit?
- infecto 7d ago
  Good for your country but also your country is quite small. I think a better analog is taking a trip from Zurich to Madrid. You could do it via train but it is probably going to be filled with lots of transfers and take 20 hours or you could take a 2 hour flight.
  - jokteur 7d ago
    Fun fact: you can do Zürich Madrid with 3 transfers and 14 hours. The car will take 16 hours. Obviously, nobody is going to do that, and the plane is a better alternative. Your example does not get solved by autonomous cars, I am quite certain nobody is going to do this in a rideshare either. Most people commute to the nearest city, move within a city, or go see friends in a neighboring city. Yes, US is much bigger, but I am quite certain that most people don't do more than 75km on a daily basis. The US still has plenty of medium and high density, where good public transit would make a lot of sense, but it is seriously lacking. It is a political decision, not a inevitable fact of life that the US has poor transit compared to other countries. The correct question to answer would be: how do you move people efficiently in a 75km radius? Are there trips that could be solved with a good train, tram or bus? Do you provide streets with bike lanes such that people feel safe riding the bike? What about pedestrians? Are autonomous cars really solving the congestion problem? Most of these cars still need to be parked during the night when demand is lower, exactly like a railyard. However, the space taken by one person in one car is much higher than any other forms of transit. My point here is: autonomous rideshares may displace taxi services and Uber. But most importantly, good street and city design, which is hard but not impossible, matters much more than solving the autonomous car problem.

marssaxman 7d ago

Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. I use transit a great deal more than I would if I had to walk so much on either end of the trip.

EA-3167 7d ago
Let me guess… you live somewhere warm and mostly dry? Probably on the younger side and don’t have any kids.
- marssaxman 7d ago
  Seattle, late middle age. Kid just started high school. My wife has a large e-bike with a passenger seat, but replaced it with a cargo basket a couple years ago after the kiddo outgrew it. I didn't say that scooters were a solution for everyone, you may note. I don't think there ought to be one solution for everyone, but given the option of micromobility, I really have no use for autonomous vehicles.
- toasty228 7d ago
  I'm in a 200 inhabitants village in eastern Europe, we have 3 bus stops in the village (so at most you're 10min away from a stop), the bus goes to the closest city every hour from 4:30 to 22:30 except on Sunday (every two hours from 6 to 21), from there you can take a train to every major city in the country, my neighbor is a 76 year old widow who goes to the city by bus regularly and who bikes around a lot. Half of the kids go to school via this bus, many people go to work with it. It's free for kids and retired people too. When public transportation is designed properly it works fine for the extreme vast majority of people, and taking a taxi for the last mile if you're disabled, obese, lazy, etc. will cost you less than owning and maintaining a car. I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co and now we're all collectively stuck in this dumb system in which every household need to own two 2500kg hunks of steel and plastic to transport 70kg of meat 1% of the time and use public space the other 99%
  - PorciiVorbesc 7d ago
    >I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co When the bus (in your example) runs on a hourly schedule, while your car is always there when you spontaneously need it, then that freedom is real and not just propaganda. I did this type of commute before where I had to catch the bus to work, which was also once every hour, and the anxiety during my early morning routine to not miss the bus was crazy since missing it meant one more hour of wait, compared to the freedom of jumping in my car without a fixed schedule while also saving 1h/day of time compared to the public transit, the difference was night and day, not propaganda. Now if I had a train/subway to work, where I could sit down, and it ran every 15 minutes or less, then yeah, fuck driving and public transport all the way, but nobody sits in traffic for fun, but because of all options for their commute, driving is the better option.
    - toasty228 7d ago
      Then let's keep on fucking the planet, and let's keep on moving 70kg of meat over 30km per day on average with 2500kg of steal, 400kg of battery, etc. super efficient and sustainable!
      - PorciiVorbesc 6d ago
        YES, unless you wanna build me public transport from your tax money, let's! If you want people to stop fucking the planet with driving, then you need to stop fucking their lives with hellish public transport commutes and improve it till it's bearable. I have only one life on this planet, and it's much shorter than the planet's life, therefore I need to make it a good and comfortable one while it lasts not sacrifice it for nothing, while China and India keep lighting the planet on fire and my boss is chauffeured in luxury cars and has 3 vacation homes. You need to (have the wealthy) lead by example and sacrifice themselves too before you ask the same from the working class! If you wanna save the planet, then first talk to China and India, talk to politicians and corporate billionaires with private jets and yachts making a killing from forcing everyone into office 5 days/week and dodging taxes so that cities lack funds for infrastructure, not to the working class keeping the world running and feeding their families.
- sensanaty 7d ago
  The famously warm and dry countries of Norway[1] and Finland[2]! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
  - EA-3167 7d ago
    The famously small conurbations and the reality that Finns and Norwegians only are able to bike part of the year. They have cars and public transit for the rest. I'd add that these discussions tend to handwave the reality of safety when you're on an open platform movie at high speeds, the reality that not all people are physically able, and a lot of others issues that the vocal "cars are the devil" folks don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, and it increasingly feels like trying to reason with the "kill all pitbulls" crowd.
    - Fricken 7d ago
      Scandanavians have been getting around without cars for millenia. Nobody had even heard of a car until just over a century ago. Car dependent infrastructure is definitely not helpful for the physically disabled, as well as those too young, too old, and too poor to drive a car. This and a lot of other issues that the vocal and active "cars aren't the devil" crowd don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, and increasingly feels like trying to reason with the "Pitbulls make great family dogs" crowd.
      - EA-3167 7d ago
        "People have been giving birth since the first humans existed, why go to a hospital?" "People have been living with viruses for all of history and beyond, why use vaccines?" "People have been walking for millions of years, why use a bike or a scooter?"
        Fricken 7d ago
        Hospitals at the dawn of the 19th century in Europe were generally places only poor people in desperate situations went to give birth because they were hives of disease transmission. The notion that doctors should wash their hands between treating one patient and the next was met with ridicule. Doctors were insulted by the suggestion that their hands might be unclean, so mortality rates for childbirth in hospitals were horrendous. The idea of handwashing emerged and died many times before it finally caught on, and then only at the behest of vigorous campaigning over a generation. There is a long list of hidden costs and negative externalities associated with car dependent sprawl as well, they are well studied, but nobody want to hear that their hands are unclean. This idea one should be washing their hands a dozens times per shift is patently absurd. Physicians would be wasting hours a day just washing their hands! How would we be able to treat all these patients?
vrosas 7d ago
Americans would rather die than give up their air conditioned bubbles on wheels. I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries.
- alightsoul 7d ago
  They are very popular in china, such as the Wuling ev. In America, they are afraid of them because they are small. They want big cars to have a large crumple area in a crash.
  - Zambyte 7d ago
    And ideally enough mass to violently crush their neighbors.
- marssaxman 7d ago
  Regulation kills the value proposition. You are basically describing a "neighborhood electric vehicle", but US law limits them to 25 mph, and it is not legal to drive them on many arterials, so they are only really useful inside communities which were designed for them.
- efavdb 7d ago
  That’s the smart car
- radarsat1 7d ago
  > I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries. I see these all the time here in the Netherlands. Very small cars. Some on the road and even smaller ones people drive on the bike paths. Small motorized vehicles, ebikes and scooters share the paths with regular bikes which works because they have usually at least two lanes, so they are more like tiny roads. Very handy.
- warkdarrior 7d ago
  > I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries. Because they are completely unsafe against a twice-the-height, multi-ton Ford pickup truck.
edgarvaldes 7d ago
>Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. Not so great for family trips, shopping around, etc.
- ricardobeat 7d ago
  Those (rare) occasions are when you rent a car. You can do it many times per year before it becomes a financially worse option.
  - daedrdev 7d ago
    It’s currently 95 degrees. No thanks
    - deleted 7d ago
      [deleted]
  - nonethewiser 7d ago
    Someone does not have kids.
    - deleted 6d ago
      [deleted]

embedding-shape 7d ago

> the last mile it's pretty limited. Where is that last mile exactly? In many metropolitan areas, you typically have available a broad selection of trains, subways, trams and/or buses of different sizes that takes you last mile. Some places even have special buses, like the "Neighbourhood Bus" we have here (https://www.barcelona.cat/mobilitat/sites/default/files/bcn-pagina-interior/busito_2.jpg https://www.barcelona.cat/mobilitat/sites/default/files/bcn-...) for narrow and steep neighborhoods up on mountains. It's certainly doable, if you wanted to have last mile public transport.

iwontberude 7d ago
Every time you make someone switch modes of transportation to complete their commute, the suffering increases exponentially in my personal experience. I much prefer going door to door and getting the benefit of resting my mind and body.
bretthoerner 7d ago
You said both "tram" and "neighbourhood" so I'm assuming you aren't in the US. I truly mean no offense, but it's hard to express how spread out even the most metropolitan areas are in the US. Sure, NYC is one thing. But check out the ~10th largest city, Austin, where Waymo and other autonomous vehicles are (I think) in their largest deployment. Just on a map, or by density numbers, or whatever metric you want. I'm in Austin, and Waymos rule. I walk most places, bike others, and rarely drive. I very, very rarely get a rideshare (and often get Waymo by way of Uber lottery). Autonomous vehicles exist, are real, and serve an actual need in this very low density city that most people on HN have heard of. I have 3 kids and if I could snap my fingers and swap them for Tesla Robotaxis (Waymos are better and safer!) I would in a second. I would even pay for that to happen. If you're arguing about some idealistic society, that's one thing. In reality these things are way better than our public transit, and fixing public transit in a place this (not) dense is not as easy as you might think. The last mile is real, and people are coming from every direction and going every other direction and not willing to wait and transfers when these autonomous vehicles already solve the problems door to door so inexpensively.
- 7d ago

SrslyJosh 7d ago

I think you need to re-read the parent comment, specifically this part: > I'd much rather all of the resources that are going into autonomous cars was instead going into proper public transit infrastructure. You're almost certainly an American, and you probably have no idea what public transit is like in countries that have been investing in it for decades instead of focusing 95% of their resources on infrastructure for cars.

Clamchop 7d ago

This is where I've always assumed things were going. People talk about one day owning a self-driving car but I look forward to the promise of not owning a car, never needing to buy, maintain, register, insure, or drive one. Not having to buy into a depreciating compromise, do I prioritize economy or seating or cargo or...? Gas, hybrid, electric? Not having to hunt or pay for parking. Private cars are costly and spend most of their time just taking up space. We'll see if it ever works out that way but a boy can dream.

nonethewiser 7d ago
Sure just ping Tesla Connect. You dont even need to use the app or scan a QR code. It just reads your neuralink.

amelius 7d ago

> when you talk about the last mile it's pretty limited. That's like a 15 minute walk. And with sufficient infrastructure investments this can be 5 minutes.

deleted 7d ago
[deleted]
infecto 7d ago
And when folks are given that option or driving they will always take driving.
- speedstyle 7d ago
  Obviously that's not true, but moreover it's meaningless – what counts as an option?
  - infecto 7d ago
    But it is. In America if you tell someone they are going to need to walk home for 15 minutes they will in the base case opt to take their car. This type of convo has come up in a number of different ways on HN and folks just hand wave away the problems in the US all the time. Americans don’t want to walk outside for an extended amount of time and the last mile(s) problem is quite hard. In most US cities you cannot economically solve the last mile problem efficiently with public transit and similarly most folks will already opt to take their car even if the public transit is great. You will likely be left with at least a few miles for someone to get home. So now are people transferring to other modes of transport because they are not taking a bicycle? So what are you trying to say?

bakies 7d ago

I can walk a mile. Rarely have to in the city.

jokteur 7d ago

I live in Switzerland. Public transit goes _everywhere_, even remote villages and mountains. This is by design, such that one can only use public transit to go almost everywhere in the country. Is public transit always more convenient than the individual car ? No, but you can make the conscious choice of not owning a car, even if you need to raise a family. Switzerland has a high rate of car ownership, because we have a lot of money to spend. But many people, even if they own a car, will sometimes use public transit, because it is convenient, safe and comfortable. There are places in Switzerland where if you need to take a taxi or an Uber, you will have to wait more than 30 minutes before one gets there. At this point, it is more convenient to take the regional bus that goes every 30 minutes. Even if the public transit frequency is every hour, I can plan my journey to arrive on the correct time (also, public transit is synchronised in the whole country to avoid waiting times). I can see autonomous rideshares displacing taxi service and such. I think automonous rideshares still need density to be profitable. So if you need to subsidise rideshare to cover the whole country, why not properly invest in public transit?

infecto 7d ago
Good for your country but also your country is quite small. I think a better analog is taking a trip from Zurich to Madrid. You could do it via train but it is probably going to be filled with lots of transfers and take 20 hours or you could take a 2 hour flight.
- jokteur 7d ago
  Fun fact: you can do Zürich Madrid with 3 transfers and 14 hours. The car will take 16 hours. Obviously, nobody is going to do that, and the plane is a better alternative. Your example does not get solved by autonomous cars, I am quite certain nobody is going to do this in a rideshare either. Most people commute to the nearest city, move within a city, or go see friends in a neighboring city. Yes, US is much bigger, but I am quite certain that most people don't do more than 75km on a daily basis. The US still has plenty of medium and high density, where good public transit would make a lot of sense, but it is seriously lacking. It is a political decision, not a inevitable fact of life that the US has poor transit compared to other countries. The correct question to answer would be: how do you move people efficiently in a 75km radius? Are there trips that could be solved with a good train, tram or bus? Do you provide streets with bike lanes such that people feel safe riding the bike? What about pedestrians? Are autonomous cars really solving the congestion problem? Most of these cars still need to be parked during the night when demand is lower, exactly like a railyard. However, the space taken by one person in one car is much higher than any other forms of transit. My point here is: autonomous rideshares may displace taxi services and Uber. But most importantly, good street and city design, which is hard but not impossible, matters much more than solving the autonomous car problem.