[Mawr]

If speed is your only concern, why not hire a helicopter? Oh, because cost is also a concern so we can't just look at what's "faster"? Rats.

[defrost]

Why hire a helicopter when one can just be bought outright?

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mining...

Permitting can be a bitch though: https://www.afr.com/property/residential/rinehart-s-loses-bi...

so there's a reason not to.

[rangestransform]

this is the west, we can afford to spend more marginally on transportation to:

- have a financial and physical barrier between the riffraff and paying customers

- spend less total money (for real, the cost of second ave subway alone is about 1/3 the market cap of waymo)

- sit down in comfort with door-to-door air conditioning

- go faster

wheverever the density justifies, autonomy will make "dollar van"-style minibuses financially viable too, since unionized drivers have made full-sized buses a money pit