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by whopa 3253 days ago
My point about Tejon Pass is that it's a steep grade mountain pass with heavy traffic including lots of trucks. There's no equivalent in PA.

Highway trucking will be the first significant deployment of autonomous vehicles. One of the big challenges is Mountain West interstates.

I do agree that the NE US is a proper testbed for bad weather city driving, since no West Coast cities have really that bad winter weather, I'm just objecting to the claim that somehow Pittsburgh captures all the challenging road conditions that autonomous vehicles will encounter.

2 comments

Have you ever driven on 70 or 80 through PA? Because "steep grade mountain pass with heavy traffic, including lots of trucks" is an apt description of either route.
I'm also thinking of the Virgin River Gorge on I-15 in Southern Utah, which isn't just steep and winding, but also extremely narrow and windy, and yet supports interstate speeds. I don't know of anything similar in the Eastern U.S; upstate NY and Appalachia have plenty of gorges, but most are local roads and aren't the main interstate thoroughfare between them.