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by demallien
3848 days ago
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Firstly, you assert that everyone wants their own big car. This is not true. I don't want one, and I'm not alone in that amongst people living in cities with good public transport. I choose my mode of travel (including cars) as a function of the time it's going to take to get there, and how much stuff I'm lugging. If I am carrying a lot or travelling out of peak hour, I take a car. If I'm under time pressure, I'll probably take the metro. In Paris we have Autolib, which is a wonderful car service where you can reserve a car at one station and drop it off at another. There are over a thousand if these stations in the city, so there's normally one near you and your destination. But the brilliance of this is that I can go to work using public transport (because peak hour), gi to the gym after work and then drive home. Or catch public transport to a restaurant in a Saturday evening, and drive home, or whatever. Self driving cars will make this type of system even better because I can use one without having a station near me, I just call a car. At the moment city centres get clogged by cars because public transport in the suburbs is horrible. But if you can get a car to a transport hub and then commute into the centre, I think a lot of people would prefer that to being stuck in heavy traffic for hours. Maybe not you, but many people. |
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I’m trying to look at it from the american perspective, because I’ve long given up the hope that any non-american perspective is even considered relevant on here.
Actually, self-driving cars, while nice, won’t really improve your abilities inside the city – you’ll still use bus, metro, etc.
The "transport hub at edge of the city" is already a common concept over here, called "Park+Ride", with parking spots usually at places which have bus stations and train stations or metro stops.