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monsoon

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^Because doors are for people, not cars. Wherever sidewalks are full of people, transit can remain productive and efficient, especially when the transit alternative has space exclusive of the car-clogged streets to reliably transport you between active pedestrian-oriented places.

This article makes the argument that traffic gridlock would be non existent. So even as a pedestrian on the street, anything not within walking distance would be immediately accessible by simply hailing an UBER (or whatever brand) automated car that stops right away via your phone, that picks you up and whisks you to your destination. No waiting for a train or bus, and at a quicker rate.

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So this is a little big picture, but I work in the auto insurance industry and as such, pay close attention to the rapidly developing autonomous car industry.

This article made the hair on my neck stand up: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/how-ubers-autonomous-cars-will-destroy-10-million-jobs-and-reshape-the-economy-by-2025-lyft-google-zack-kanter/

It highlights UBER and their development of an autonomous car network. Beyond the fact that they have recently purchased Carnegie Mellon's entire robotics division for the use of SDC's and have a valuation of $41billion (whoa), the article highlights the race underway between all the major automakers and the desire not to be the next Kodak or Blockbuster.

Needless to say, some of the statistics really are staggering. The almost complete reduction in traffic, the idea of not owning a car but having a "subscription" to UBER and sharing autonomous vehicles, the fact that parking lots and spots would essentially become obsolete.

The time frame does seem a little short, as I think 10-15 years is brief for this type of shift. That said, this technology is coming, quickly. The recent developments in driverless tech have been substantial, driven by the fact that everyone from UBER and Google to Audi and GMC are working on the tech. And I really think it is going to completey reshape the way we think about a city, urban design and mass transportation. This is all assuming the machines don't become our overlords first.

Does Charlotte have any long term plans to incorporate this emerging technology? The implications on logistics and traffic flow are staggering. Are the changes and substantial capital investments the city is making right now going to be obsolete in less than 2 decades?

In 2035, why own a monthly CATS pass for $100 as opposed to an UBER subscription for $100 that brings your from door to door?

Randall O'Toole likes the way you think.

 

These predictions are so overstated, its laughable that they are even published.  For starters, the author of the article has zero background in engineering or economics...the disciplines whose denizen's opinions might be somewhat insightful in formulating predictions for this market.  Here is a breakdown of how I see it:

 

From an economics perspective-

 

The most obvious problem to overcome is consumer preferences.  There should be zero doubt, given the recent downturn in gas prices and subsequent rise in SUV sales, that the 'Murican mammoth mobile is still a top pick for consumers across this great land.  As such, people, especially those not living near the center of a city, are still going to want to own their own car or SUV.  Since American metro areas are typically much more sprawled out than other cities around the world, and since owning a car in America is seen as a birthright, I highly doubt that car ownership is going to decline to the extent the author predicts.  Look at NYC; due to the widespread transit system, one can feasibly live in NYC for their entire life, not own a car, and get virtually everywhere they would need or want to go, yet many people in and around the city still own cars.  This speaks to the idea that car ownership is an ideal etched onto the American Psyche, and its not likely to disappear with the advent of autonomous vehicles only slightly larger than the toy cars we used to enjoy as kids (or at least I played with Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars).

 

From an engineering perspective-

 

1.  The Laws of Physics still hold- Contrary to the opinions of the "autonomous automobile, string theory, matter exists in an infinite number of dimensions and parallel universes therefore the autonomous vehicle can teleport you from door to door through wormholes" boosters, the need for space on freeways and roads will not magically disappear with the addition of the electric autonomous vehicle.  In other words, only a finite amount of these cars will be able to occupy the roads before the roads become congested.  Assuming these Uber cars are approximately 10 feet long, only 528 of them can fit bumper-to-bumper on a mile of asphalt, and unless the cars are composed of particles not subject to the Pauli Exclusion Principle this would be the maximum amount of cars one would see in a literal bumper-to-bumper setting where v=0 or v=constant with no changes in acceleration or lateral movement such as lane changes.  Since this does not represent a realistic scenario, spacing must be factored into the equation.  This leads me to my second point...

 

2.  Factors of Safety- In engineering, there is often an ideal scenario, a reasonable scenario, and a worst-case reasonable scenario.  Calculations are usually based on worst-case scenario, but then factors of safety are added to ensure that, for plausible scenarios of pandemonium, the structure, machine, circuit, etc. in question will still be able to operate.  In civil engineering this means that the buildings you live and work in are often over-designed by a significant safety margin.  How would this apply to electric cars driving down a freeway?  Well, the 100% idealized scenario of  528 10ft cars cruising bumper-to-bumper down the freeway is completely unrealistic, so its useless to even evaluate it.  A highly idealized, but slightly more realistic scenario would be one in which all cars are exactly the same- same mass, same sensor package, same everything and are traveling with some spacing between them.  However, even under such a scenario, Newtonian laws can not be ignored.  Since these cars would still have mass, they would still require room to accelerate, decelerate, and change lanes; they can not perform these functions instantaneously and would require some spacing.  Assuming the cars maintain a mere half second spacing between themselves, at 60 mph this would reduce the capacity of a lane-mile of roadway by 80% to approximately 100 cars per lane-mile at any given time.  In the worst-case, reasonable scenario, engineers would have to plan for mixed traffic in which driver and driverless vehicles would share the road along with vehicles ranging in size from the Uber car to a 80,000 lb semi.  Since people are erratic and unpredictable, ever larger factors of safety would have to be applied here for vehicle spacing to ensure the safety of all involved.  As such, the safe spacing between cars would still likely be 2-3 seconds, perhaps even more since the quicker reaction times of the driverless car could cause problems with motorists who may not be so quick to react to the driverless cars themselves.  Now, we have a scenario in which only 20 to 30 vehicles of all types can occupy one lane-mile of freeway at 60 mph at any given time.  Since the driverless cars would be more prone to rigidly adhere to speed limits, spacing requirements, etc., they may actually reduce roadway capacity, not add to it.  Of course, this is under idealized conditions of free flowing traffic.  You can only imagine the challenges that come with traffic signals, at grade intersections, railroad crossings, and the like.

 

3.  Network and infrastructure-  In order to have a completely autonomous automotive utopia,  the network on which it would operate would be extremely expensive.  We are not just talking about iCloud where your iPhone, iPad, and iMac sync your pictures and music.  The network would have to have the capacity to share copious amounts of data amongst millions upon millions of cars which are constantly communicating with each other and with the cloud itself.  In order to get  to the no-traffic, no-parking, no-problem scenario which boosters such as Randall O'Toole and company promote, cars would, at a minimum, need to share data such as location, route, onboard diagnostics, traffic info, and a host of other things.  All this would have to take place real time and would have to be instantaneously self-optimizing.  This is a major engineering issue; the calculus that goes into even simple optimization problems can sometimes make a ones head spin.  Now multiply that complication by millions of cars at millions of different locations communicating billions of independent data points such as location, and require the cloud servers to instantaneously distribute the optimum solution to every car involved such that traffic remains free-flowing.

 

4.  Network security- Imagine a scenario in which a sinister but savvy hacker broke into the traffic network and disrupted it.  The nightmare of thousands of cars crashing into each other and the complete shutdown of commerce would be unfathomable.  Each one of the millions of cars would represent a potential network vulnerability to be exploited by those who wish ill.  One might say just build a secure network, but this is easier said than done.  There is a reason that super secure networks are not hacked all the time, and that reason is that very few have access to them.  However this would not be the case for a driverless car network built for the masses.

 

This is just a small sample list of the problems of building a driverless car network.  As such, the 10-15 year scenario in which driverless cars would completely upend the American economy is extremely rosy to say the least.  It seems as if people such as Randall O'Toole, the author, et al. who have never once picked up an engineering text, feel this need to make bold predictions about engineering phenomena.  The problem is that they tend to equate limited success in a testing environment with widespread feasibility and market-altering production possibilities.  I will conclude with this.  If building driverless systems was as easy as the author suggests, then why do airplanes still need pilots and trains still need operators?  In each case, the automation technology is much more well developed than driverless car technology and is a lot less complicated.  Indeed the technology for automated trains and planes, in some cases, has existed for decades, and has even been successful in an operational environment as opposed to a testing environment like the Uber car and Google car.  However the overwhelming majority of planes still have pilots and the overwhelming majority of trains still have operators. 

Edited by cltbwimob
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^No matter the technology, there is only so much curb space. Hence, density will continue to support mass transit. In areas where travel is frequent yet driving difficult, transit will remain economically appealing. As transit evolves to provide real-time data accessible to customers and more demand-responsive scheduling, the only remaining difference between car-sharing and transit is the sharing of a larger vehicle by multiple private parties. If those private parties want to travel anywhere popular (or dense), then there is an economic scale at which splitting the cost between strangers becomes a sensible trade-off for lower fare. Small vehicles carrying individual parties will expect higher fare, if going somewhere with more congestion or higher parking costs (including loading and valet restrictions). If anything, it's not that transit will become obsolete, but rather, that the public monopoly will be challenged by private providers offering transit-like ride-sharing, or Mass-Uber if you will.

Edited by southslider
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 but rather, that the public monopoly will be challenged by private providers offering transit-like ride-sharing, or Mass-Uber if you will.

 

like this: http://www.bridj.com/

 

EDIT: Just as most suburbanities are in complete denial of the existence of suburban poverty,  I think many (but not all) urbanists have knee-jerk skeptical reactions to self-driving cars. I say this merely as an observer of the debate here, not as a believer in the technology. Personally, I don't think fully autonomous vehicles are realistic in any of our lifetimes. But I do have to wonder to what degree our opinions (on both sides of the debate) about autonomous vehicles are a result of confirmation bias and inflexible existential beliefs rather than reason.  

Edited by kermit
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First things first, I'd like to say; I'm merely initiating debate and do not think on either side of the coin. I just find the article and the industry very intriguing.

That said, here is my complete Devils advocate rebuttal to cltbwimob, who had a completely awesome, well thought out post!

1. Assuming the cars are powered by some variance of a near future (2 decades) super computer, wouldn't it be safe to assume they could operate on near bumper to bumper interaction?

2. Safety. We are in 2015 and these vehicles are already statistically the safest vehicles on the road. In all the mileage they've logged (over a million miles) the only incidences they've encountered are the result of other human powered vehicles interacting with them. And that's with current day tech, not 2030 or 2035 tech. (Like comparing your cellphone right now with the one Zach Morris carried around in 1990!)

3. Moore's Law would argue that in 20 years, the exponential growth of our computing power should be able to handle a super infrastructure network to operate a system like this, wouldn't it?

4. Network security? You already entrust your entire financial livelihood to network security via computers and people. In 20 years, you don't believe you'll be comfortable entrusting that to transportation? I'd rather entrust my life to a trained engineer and super computer than some guy i met 10 seconds ago when I hopped in the cab.

I agree that the tech is farther away then the 10-15 years they state. But I also believe it'll be in our lifetime. With any technology shift there are always a ton of skeptics and laggards.

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^^^

 

1.  Just because cars could theoretically all travel in a steady state "formation" of bumper to bumper traffic does not mean that it will be safe.    Hypothetically, if you placed these cars at very small intervals from each other, if one had a malfunction that required it to decelerate quickly, virtually every car behind the malfunctioning car would crash.  It takes approximately 150 ft to stop a car going 60 mph under ideal conditions; if cars are bumper to bumper at highway speeds, they are destined to crash with each other if one has a malfunction that results in rapid deceleration. No amount of super-computing in the world will be able to overcome the laws of physics.

 

2.  I am not so sure how you can say autonomous cars are statistically the safest cars on the road, when there are virtually no data points from which to derive these statistics.  Perhaps you mean driver-assist type vehicles?  Even if you do mean driver-assist vehicles, having  sensors on cars for collision avoidance only reduces the reaction time to respond to a developing incident.  It does little more than help alleviate the problems associated with distraction.  Once again, it still takes several hundred feet to stop a car moving at highway speeds in perfect conditions.  This means that cars still need to maintain a safe distance between themselves and the vehicles around them.  You are right to say that these vehicles would likely have problems interacting with real drivers.  That is why I said in my earlier post that mixed driver and driverless traffic would likely be the worst case scenario for which engineers have to plan. 

 

With respect to safety in autonomous vehicles, there is another aspect which I think is often overlooked-crash survivability.  Judging by the looks of the Uber car, one would probably have a better chance of surviving a crash if they were in a golf cart.  The vehicle has absolutely zero crumple-zones.  My brother recently had a head-on collision and walked away from it.  His survival was due, in large part, to the front crumple-zone of his vehicle.  Since most of these vehicles lack said crumple zones, much of the energy incurred in a collision would simply be transferred to the driver of the vehicle. 

 

3.  Maybe there will be the computer power to handle something like this in the future, but it will not come without a very hefty price tag.  This is also part of the economics equation.  The cost of this technology and all the infrastructure involved in making it feasible for wide-scale use is something I think people often underestimate.  My guess is that even if every engineering kink was solved today it would be several decades before it would come online purely based on the cost of implementation.

 

4.  Yes network security.  A hacked transportation system is more than just a threat to ones credit...it is an existential threat to national security.  Unlike financial data breaches, which primarily have implications for consumer credit and financial stability, a transportation breach could potentially cause thousands of life-ending wrecks and shut down commerce throughout- all with a few lines of code. 

 

With respect to financial networks, how many times have mega firms experienced financial data breaches in the past few years?  I submit the point offered in your post actually proves my original argument that network vulnerabilities pose quite a significant threat.  Like I said before, the most secure networks are those with access provided only to a select few people, but such would not be the case for a mass-produced technology like driverless cars.  Would you want virtually any individual with an app on their phone to be able to tap into DoE or DoD computer systems?  Given the threat to national security, I suspect the answer is no and I expect you would not want virtually anyone to have access to the computers that run the driverless car system of the nation since that is also an imminent national security threat.  However, as sophisticated as hackers are, that is exactly the access they would be provided with the widespread use of autonomous vehicles.

 

There may indeed come a day when the technology is viable, but the limits to it are often incredibly understated and its abilities often incredibly overstated.  To say that mass transit will be rendered obsolete in the next 10-20 years (such as the author of the cited article) as a result of this nascent technology is quite the claim.  I know you may be ambivalent, but there are others, such as Randall O'Toole, who use this kind of argument to convince the people to whom the speak that mass transit is a waste of money and will be rendered obsolete in just a few years time.  They have little formal training to speak of in these areas yet they continue to get invited to peddle this rubbish to city leaders nationwide without a fundamental understanding of engineering or its limits.  I interject in these debates to prevent people from getting sucked into the bloviated ideas of the O'Toole's of the world.

 

Yes there will always be skeptics, but not all ground-breaking technology is destined for commercial success.  For every bag phone to iPhone success story of technology, there is a corresponding failure.  Will driverless cars be a success or a failure?  Its anyone's guess.

 

Edit:  I hope you have not taken my posts as some sort of swipe at you personally.  Rest assured, I am merely debating; I have no intention of attacking.

Edited by cltbwimob
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^^^

1. Just because cars could theoretically all travel in a steady state "formation" of bumper to bumper traffic does not mean that it will be safe. Hypothetically, if you placed these cars at very small intervals from each other, if one had a malfunction that required it to decelerate quickly, virtually every car behind the malfunctioning car would crash. It takes approximately 150 ft to stop a car going 60 mph under ideal conditions; if cars are bumper to bumper at highway speeds, they are destined to crash with each other if one has a malfunction that results in rapid deceleration. No amount of super-computing in the world will be able to overcome the laws of physics.

2. I am not so sure how you can say autonomous cars are statistically the safest cars on the road, when there are virtually no data points from which to derive these statistics. Perhaps you mean driver-assist type vehicles? Even if you do mean driver-assist vehicles, having sensors on cars for collision avoidance only reduces the reaction time to respond to a developing incident. It does little more than help alleviate the problems associated with distraction. Once again, it still takes several hundred feet to stop a car moving at highway speeds in perfect conditions. This means that cars still need to maintain a safe distance between themselves and the vehicles around them. You are right to say that these vehicles would likely have problems interacting with real drivers. That is why I said in my earlier post that mixed driver and driverless traffic would likely be the worst case scenario for which engineers have to plan.

With respect to safety in autonomous vehicles, there is another aspect which I think is often overlooked-crash survivability. Judging by the looks of the Uber car, one would probably have a better chance of surviving a crash if they were in a golf cart. The vehicle has absolutely zero crumple-zones. My brother recently had a head-on collision and walked away from it. His survival was due, in large part, to the front crumple-zone of his vehicle. Since most of these vehicles lack said crumple zones, much of the energy incurred in a collision would simply be transferred to the driver of the vehicle.

3. Maybe there will be the computer power to handle something like this in the future, but it will not come without a very hefty price tag. This is also part of the economics equation. The cost of this technology and all the infrastructure involved in making it feasible for wide-scale use is something I think people often underestimate. My guess is that even if every engineering kink was solved today it would be several decades before it would come online purely based on the cost of implementation.

4. Yes network security. A hacked transportation system is more than just a threat to ones credit...it is an existential threat to national security. Unlike financial data breaches, which primarily have implications for consumer credit and financial stability, a transportation breach could potentially cause thousands of life-ending wrecks and shut down commerce throughout- all with a few lines of code.

With respect to financial networks, how many times have mega firms experienced financial data breaches in the past few years? I submit the point offered in your post actually proves my original argument that network vulnerabilities pose quite a significant threat. Like I said before, the most secure networks are those with access provided only to a select few people, but such would not be the case for a mass-produced technology like driverless cars. Would you want virtually any individual with an app on their phone to be able to tap into DoE or DoD computer systems? Given the threat to national security, I suspect the answer is no and I expect you would not want virtually anyone to have access to the computers that run the driverless car system of the nation since that is also an imminent national security threat. However, as sophisticated as hackers are, that is exactly the access they would be provided with the widespread use of autonomous vehicles.

There may indeed come a day when the technology is viable, but the limits to it are often incredibly understated and its abilities often incredibly overstated. To say that mass transit will be rendered obsolete in the next 10-20 years (such as the author of the cited article) as a result of this nascent technology is quite the claim. I know you may be ambivalent, but there are others, such as Randall O'Toole, who use this kind of argument to convince the people to whom the speak that mass transit is a waste of money and will be rendered obsolete in just a few years time. They have little formal training to speak of in these areas yet they continue to get invited to peddle this rubbish to city leaders nationwide without a fundamental understanding of engineering or its limits. I interject in these debates to prevent people from getting sucked into the bloviated ideas of the O'Toole's of the world.

Yes there will always be skeptics, but not all ground-breaking technology is destined for commercial success. For every bag phone to iPhone success story of technology, there is a corresponding failure. Will driverless cars be a success or a failure? Its anyone's guess.

Edit: I hope you have not taken my posts as some sort of swipe at you personally. Rest assured, I am merely debating; I have no intention of attacking.

Not taken personally at all. I threw it in here to rustle up some debate and get some different perspectives. Awesome and informative post, thanks!

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Man, what a disappointment. Saw projections of 7-10" of snow for us last night, only to walk out to about 1/2" this morning.

Charlotte's meteorologists are notoriously bad about predicting snow, but I can't say I've ever seen them miss it by half of a foot. Craziness.

 

Brad Panovich is usually pretty spot on with his predictions compared to a lot of other meterologists I've seen over the years. But yea, this was one everybody missed. To be honest, I'm not too upset about it... After my kid missed school most all of last week and some of this week, I'm ready for this mess to be gone. #WorkingFromHomeProblems

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There was more to the north and west for sure, even locally. Living in Stanley we got about 4 or 5", more if you figure in melting overnight from temps hovering. I've always scoffed at forecasts, drawn my own conclusions where I'm rarely less accurate and don't have to stand before a green screen in a bow tie, hah.

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The snow was much deeper in north Charlotte.  In Highland Creek we had about six inches left yesterday morning.  The night before was some of the worst driving conditions in snow I've experienced as far back as I can remember.  That slush was insane on the roads.  Threaded a needle between a car that slammed on their brakes and a light pole.  Be sure I let them know my dissatisfaction in their inability to operate a motor vehicle.

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Though not related to Charlotte, I heard a story this morning on NPR that piqued my interest, about a new downtown grocery store in Cleveland in an the old Cleveland Trust building. I had to look it up when I got into work this morning. What a wonderful re-purposing of a beautiful historical building. Check out the videos and pictures in these two articles. It's just stunning! 

 

Well, now that I think about it, maybe it is related to Charlotte...as in related to what we never do, unfortunately.

 

http://www.news-herald.com/general-news/20150301/new-heinens-in-downtown-cleveland-embraces-buildings-architecture

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2015/02/will_the_affection_for_heinens.html

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I love the re-purposing and hope to check it out when I go home for the championship parade when the Cavs win it all this summer ;)

 

If you like this, you'll love a Walgreens I stumbled upon in Wicker Park, Chicago last time I was there.

 

http://chicago.racked.com/2012/11/21/7702159/walgreenswicker-park-bucktown-six-corners#4539474

Edited by SouthEndCLT811
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One empty lot that is going to annoy me on Caldwell is the parking lot to the west of the transit center and south of TWC arena.

In a couple years with Embassy Suites & Crescent, the western portion of Caldwell will nearly be filled with development except for that one glaring lot.

And I wonder if a developer would have an appetite to build next to the CTC. At least on the trade street portion.

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One empty lot that is going to annoy me on Caldwell is the parking lot to the west of the transit center and south of TWC arena.

In a couple years with Embassy Suites & Crescent, the western portion of Caldwell will nearly be filled with development except for that one glaring lot.

And I wonder if a developer would have an appetite to build next to the CTC. At least on the trade street portion.

CTC will eventually be gone, and developed, with or without the Bus station.

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^I spent some time in the Hyatt House on Sunday looking out over the Second Ward -- I got really depressed. The sea of at grade parking, parking decks (mostly the city) and other low intensity uses (church and the HOF) really makes this entire quadrant feel like a wasted, ignored and neglected district.

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^I spent some time in the Hyatt House on Sunday looking out over the Second Ward -- I got really depressed. The sea of at grade parking, parking decks (mostly the city) and other low intensity uses (church and the HOF) really makes this entire quadrant feel like a wasted, ignored and neglected district.

I really think Brooklyn Village will happen in the next wave of development. I am okay with it waiting for a while. As Stonewall starts to fill up with high density development, the rest of Second Ward will follow suit. 

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