Leisesturm

My new GPS has a feature where you can input three or more different addresses or points of interest and it will plot a route that will hit all three with minimal gasoline use. You wouldn't use it would you. Few Americans would. Instead of sharing a ride you would have the driverless car make three seperate out and backs... I left this forum for more than a year because when I was last here all I ever saw were threads about how great cars are and how much living car free sucks. Some of you think that driverless cars are going to make it safe for you to get back in a car again. I don't know. I suspect someone will still have to be a fully licensed and trained driver in order to own a driverless car. I don't know... if you are on I-5 heading north... isn't everyone else around you going the same way??? The ONLY thing wrong with mass transit systems is that American municipal systems treat their mass transit customers like 2nd class citizens. They provide scant to non-existent supervision and security and decent people (rightly) view using mass transit with suspicion. Using 4,000lbs of various metal alloys and other materials to move ~200lb. of humanbeing around town is INSANITY. Whether the vehicle is self-guided or not. It is still INSANITY. It is not sustainable. It will be our ultimate undoing.

Roody

Have you ever read the history of the implementation of bike infrastructure in the Netherlands? They were built in response to so many people being killed in car crashes, and the desire to come up with a safer alternative. IOW, Holland in the 1960s was a lot like the US, until the people decided to change a situation they found unacceptable. We have been more complacent here in the US. But I do see signs that that is starting to change.

DreamRider85

I am now starting to think that everyone who's able should be a cyclist. Everyone should be riding a bike to work or to wherever they want to go locally. Cars should only be for real long distances and on freeways. Unfortunately, the world is dumb and won't do this. But in a perfect and correct world, there would be far more cyclists.

Roody

I totally agree. You can't improve something that makes no sense in the world we live in today. Driverless cars are being developed becaue they will increase the road capacities. IOW, to cram more cars onto the same old roads. I don't see how this can be a good thing for cyclists, pedestrians, or other living things.

Machka 

1) What defines "able" ... everyone who is able ...

2) Cars should only be for long distances ... and yet you just said that everyone should be riding a bike to work or wherever they want to go locally. What's a long distance? What's locally?

mozad655

Who decides what is equal and what is not? It goes down to politics. Separated for me means when there is a physical barrier of any size between the bike lane and main road. Whether bike lanes are build with this separation or not is a political issue, as it is more expensive than just paiting a white line and some bicycle logos on the asphalt. With separation and as cycling gets more popoular, you will not have to worry about any of the things that you would normally worry about in non separated road.

mozad655

The driving culture is cycle-friendly precisely because cycling is so popular and cycling is so popular BECAUSE of the bike lanes. So even if you disagree with the obvious added safety of bike lanes, they still have huge long term benifits for cycling as a whole because they at the very least make people FEEL safe which makes cycling more main stream, which itself creates the optimal driving culture. Its all starts with bike lanes.

Walter S

Seems to me that the best use of driverless cars is NOT as personal vehicles but rather as an automated carpool. As a commuter, you sign up for your regular commute ride at the carpool web site. The web site maintains a fleet of driverless cars that run commuting or other trips. Software on the web site organizes optimal schedules, so the same car picks up riders whose starting and ending destinations are on similar routes.

Looigi

How much you wanna bet?

Walter S

My iPhone tomtom app plots routes with multiple destinations. For me the goal is to minimize distance not gasoline (not my preferred fuel, I like oatmeal better).

Why not? I'd rather focus on other things and let the phone think about the mundane.

That might be an interesting poll. Are there really many LCF members that don't drive mainly as a safety issue? I personally have lots of other reasons. Cars go fast and they're dangerous. But I still suspect life as a pedestrian and cyclist is probably not improving your odds at all and probably more dangerous. At least where there's many cars, like in the city.

I agree. Self driving cars could perhaps be little vans or some other efficient size and used like a on-demand bus system. You ask for a ride and say where you're going and a van picks you up and you probably ride with a few other people on a similar route as yours. The more your route overlaps, the more you save. So for example, you might have the van drop you on a highway, where you have to walk a half mile to get home. You're motivated because the price of sending the van a mile out of the way just for your personal needs is much higher than the price you pay based on roads that are common with the rest of the passengers and you all split cost evenly. This works out to be encouraging fuel efficiency by encouraging people to keep the van full. They do it to keep their ride cost down.

Mobile 155

Walter, one of the advantages so often mentioned about cycling is the freedom of movement. It was one of the main points that people sang praises of in the early days and still is today. They took you from your home to work or for entertainment or even exploration.

mass transit from the beginning was slower and dependent on the level of service they wanted or could afford to provide. You walked to or from a collection point no matter what the weather and waited to be picked up with other people who you may or may not know or care to know.

One of the things that made cars so popular is they had the same independence of movement for the individual as the bicycle did but with less physical effort. Because of that among other reasons private ownership became the norm.

All vans like you have described would do is return people to some of the same negitive a mass transit has. If a transportation system is going to make it they will have to offer point to point 24/7 access. So vehicles much smaller than a van would have to be available for those that wanted point to point or the ones willing to pay for it would cause those in the van would have to spend more time getting to where they wanted to go. Small two passenger self driving vehicles wouldn't take up much more or any more room than a six passenger van.

Both systems will have to be programmed to make cycling safe if cycling would even hope to be part of our future transportation.

But the bottom line has to be the future transportation has to offer all the benefits private transportation offers today or the populace will not accept it over the long run.

Walter S

Mobile 155: People may need to make some changes in the interest of sustainability. I certainly don't think shared van rides are the only use of cars I expect could occur.

Mobile 155

You could have a point Walter. But I have never seen human society give up something as ingrained as point to point transportation.

I can't remember any great society sacrificing what they have for something they willingly gravitated to in the first place. I for one know I would find van pools only slightly less depressing than current mass transit. Having to walk to a collection point at a time determined to be best for the collector would be every bit as depressing.

The only good thing I see in a bus is it would increase the desire for some people to cycle so they could maintain their own schedule and time.

Mobile 155

We are not the only ones talking about the future of transportation we may be one of the very few trying to find a place for cycling or walking. But still here are two other outlooks:

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/11/...tually-happen/

The Future of Transportation | Future For All

chewybrian 

There is a classic "Mission Impossible" T.V. episode where the team convinces a gangster he has been in deep freeze for 20 years. When he 'wakes up', they tell him it's 1988, and he does not believe them. He opens the window, and, staged for his benefit, it's all bubble cars and jet packs.

rm -rf

I agree on your "independence of movement" idea. In busy cities, you can drive where you want to, but parking is a big problem. A tiny on-demand self driving car service could take you where you want to go, and won't need to be parked. It'll continue to it's next passenger pickup. It would be an improvement over your own car.

I have a nice road bike, but I use the local bike share bikes when I want to go somewhere downtown. They are terrible, heavy and slow, but work great in the city. I can ride where I want to go, return the bike to any locking rack, and I'm done. It's interesting to be able to easily go where car parking is just about impossible.

The only thing missing from using a service is that you can't keep your "stuff" in the car all the time. And there could be delays during busy periods.

Self driving cars should be much safer for bikes. Check out this google car video, watching cyclists signal left turns, and waiting for bikes passing from rear in the bike lane.

Mobile 155

Rm -rf I saw that video and read about the problem they had with Fixies and track stands. I do believe these cars will be safer and greener than a monster bus with a surely driver.

And if they follow your example of dropping you off and picking you up I can see a decrease in the need for a private vehicle. It could be the first big step in uniting urban and suburban lifestyles.

The idea that they will really "see" a cyclist could give cycling a brighter future.

B. Carfree

I'll leap into prediction mode. Assuming autonomous cars are as close to market as has been indicated by several companies (two years, I believe), then we live in a great time. As they get accepted by the uber-wealthy, partly as a status symbol and partly because they offer a service that otherwise requires employing a driver, the folks at the 90th percentile income bracket will covet them. The companies making them will oblige with cheaper versions that likely have more features than the early-adopters got because everything in computers works that way. Next up is the middle class, who will copy their bosses. Soon, maybe a decade out, most of the cars on the road will be self-driving. At some point, this may even lead to a decrease in personal ownership of them as people simply lease time/distance from fleets.

Now it gets fun. Of course the self-driving cars are far safer than the ones operated by humans. In short order, the wealthier folks who have autonomous cars will successfully push to ban humans from driving because of their inferior safety. This might be done by a simple one-strike rule (get a ticket or wreck and you're done). No matter what, the roads get much safer for all users. It's a big win for walking and cycling.

Sadly, at the same time human-powered cycling will likely be relegated to cranks like me and athletic contests. Electric powered bikes are going to take over the cycling world. This is a good thing: electric bikes don't kill people either. However, it will be sad to not see other people happily grinding up the big hill between home and work.

Dahon.Steve

Good point

If there's any vehicle that can be made driverless, it is the streetcar, tram or lightrail that rides on a fixed route with it's own right of way. We have a couple Kennedy and Newark Airport, a diverless train that takes you to each terminal. In fact, they already have subways around the world that are driverless but the unions are fighting them.

I would even say a bus would be easier than a car to make driverless because the routes are fixed and don't have to change. Unlike a car where the routes change each day with highways that are under constant repair and continue to change.

Dahon.Steve

I was reading an article the other day the president of Urber believes the future of his company is the driverless car! LOL. Millions of new ride sharing cars on the road with no one driving! That's rich.

Someone can use my car with APP and have full access. Would you feel great knowing your car is driving by itself?

Mobile 155

Still Steve a bus or street car doesn't pick you up where you live or drop you off where you want to go. It doesn't allow you your space to get away from people going to or coming from those places either. They both take wide roads as well and neither tend to serve outside of urban centers.

JACECOS

hi bikers! A question, which is better to buy? Giant escape 2 2016 or fuji absolute 1.7 2014? The two for similar price thanks

Mobile 155

Jacecos:
If it were me I would get the Giant. Newer model, better warrantee. But the Fuji isn't a bad bike.

Roody

How would that be different from an on-demand shuttle bus? Trips would be slow if you had to stop and pick up people at their homes along the way. Also, a lot of people don't like sharing the vehicle with others. I don't think people are going to prefer this to either cars or bicycles.

Roody

Do you have any thoughts on improved carfree transportation? So far, all you do is sing the praises of cars, which seems rather ironic on a carfree forum. It would be neat if posters on this forum could spend a little time thinking about alternatives to cars that might be better than what currently exists.