And even if your driverless cars work (they won't in my lifetime), they won't be cheap and they won't solve congestion and they won't magically get rid of the peak commuting problem. Of course we'll all be telecommuting our 4 hour work days by then. That's been promised for decades, too.
“If they put a $27 billion tax on the table to be the most modern city in the world with driverless cars, and GPS data plotting for trips, and still have bus rapid transit and things that make sense — I would vote for that,” Dori said. “That is a tax I would vote for if we would embrace the future.”
“The future is driverless cars … and electric vehicles that are far more efficient than anything we can conceive of,” Dori said. “If we embrace modern technology we could improve the gridlock around here.”
Very wealthy interests who both hate and don't understand mass transit agree!
Using public records laws, the Guardian obtained dozens of emails and documents submitted to Challenge cities by Sidewalk Labs, detailing many technologies and proposals that have not previously been made public.
Some will be controversial, including spending transport subsidies for low-income residents on ride-sharing services such as Uber, requiring cities to upgrade to Sidewalk’s mobile payments system, and modernizing public parking to boost city revenues.
Sidewalk Labs was spun out from Google last June with a mission to “improve city life for everyone”. Since then, it was part of a consortium that deployed several hundred free Wi-Fi kiosks in New York and is rumoured to be designing a city from the ground up for self-driving cars. Now, it’s offering Columbus a three-year demonstration project consisting of 100 Wi-Fi kiosks and free access to Flow.
The future looks so bright I gotta wear shades.
Weird how there will be surge pricing on Uber every day during rush hour! Those bus subsidies were just too expensive, but those uber subsidies will be affordable for everyone!