<story><title>The self-driving car is a red herring</title><url>http://nautil.us/issue/92/frontiers/the-self_driving-car-is-a-red-herring</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AnthonyMouse</author><text>The fundamental prerequisite for functional mass transit is a high population density. That&amp;#x27;s why it works in NYC and doesn&amp;#x27;t work in Los Angeles.&lt;p&gt;But that means it&amp;#x27;s not just a matter of building mass transit. First you have to build taller buildings.&lt;p&gt;And even then there are going to be places where it&amp;#x27;s just not happening. It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter how you change the zoning, nobody is going to build skyscrapers in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming.</text></item><item><author>Kaze404</author><text>I have a feeling I&amp;#x27;ll be down voted to hell for this, but self driving cars always felt like going the complete wrong direction for me. Aside from small personal satisfaction to the few that will be able to afford them, how is revolving our infrastructure and culture around them any better than simply investing in public transportation by making it a more feasible option for people?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not in the US, and while the public transportation system here is far from perfect, I&amp;#x27;ve managed to get by this far without a car and don&amp;#x27;t plan on buying one anytime soon. I much prefer a future where this is improved compared to one I have to fork tens of thousands of USD for a chromatic death machine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sirsar</author><text>LA has an order of magnitude more population than is required for functioning public transit. But you&amp;#x27;re right they don&amp;#x27;t have the density.&lt;p&gt;The key is to realize &lt;i&gt;the cars themselves killed density&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Parking lots, parking spaces, and extra lanes all conspire to push humans and human spaces further apart. This then makes walking less feasible, cars more required, and more space required to accommodate those cars in a feedback loop.&lt;p&gt;Taller buildings are not required for density, far from it. Look at Somerville, MA, where just about nothing is higher than 3 stories, yet they fit almost 20,000 people into a square mile -- and they like it. What they &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; fit is 20,000 parking spaces, and that makes all the difference.</text></comment>
<story><title>The self-driving car is a red herring</title><url>http://nautil.us/issue/92/frontiers/the-self_driving-car-is-a-red-herring</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AnthonyMouse</author><text>The fundamental prerequisite for functional mass transit is a high population density. That&amp;#x27;s why it works in NYC and doesn&amp;#x27;t work in Los Angeles.&lt;p&gt;But that means it&amp;#x27;s not just a matter of building mass transit. First you have to build taller buildings.&lt;p&gt;And even then there are going to be places where it&amp;#x27;s just not happening. It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter how you change the zoning, nobody is going to build skyscrapers in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming.</text></item><item><author>Kaze404</author><text>I have a feeling I&amp;#x27;ll be down voted to hell for this, but self driving cars always felt like going the complete wrong direction for me. Aside from small personal satisfaction to the few that will be able to afford them, how is revolving our infrastructure and culture around them any better than simply investing in public transportation by making it a more feasible option for people?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not in the US, and while the public transportation system here is far from perfect, I&amp;#x27;ve managed to get by this far without a car and don&amp;#x27;t plan on buying one anytime soon. I much prefer a future where this is improved compared to one I have to fork tens of thousands of USD for a chromatic death machine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>atharris</author><text>The rest of the world is rife with small, rural towns that nevertheless have great public transit systems, or at least ones that are more effective than what we see in the US. The major difference is that these places are willing to invest in the public sphere, and they&amp;#x27;re by and large willing to permit construction that is not car-centric (i.e., no parking minima to subsidize drivers).</text></comment>