The future is here! Soon our cities will be free of congestion, free of rush hour frustration and so much more affordable! Oh, and they will be free of this obsolete, early XX-century invention, called public transportation.
At least that's what Tom Keane seems to think in his Boston Globe article "Why self-driving cars will kill the T". (If you're not from Boston and don't know what T is - it's our public transportation network: subway, streetcars, buses, even ferries). Apparently, according to Tom, all these will soon be gone - replaced by masses of much cheaper autonomous vehicles (AVs). He claims that T is wasteful, inefficient and simply not needed in the future. Because in the nearest future, we all be moving by these electric vehicles that we don't need to own. We just call them, Uber-like, on demand.
Autonomous vehicle, according to Google.
I can't tell what future will bring upon us but something tells me that public transportation will be difficult to replace by AVs in the next 10 years. But first, I'm going to address multiple claims the article makes:
"Environmentalists and planners love public transit. Those who ride it? Not so much."
Maybe, but have you asked yourself why? Compare quality of service (arrival/departure on time, interruptions, breakdowns, etc.) with other commuter rail system in the world and see how poorly maintained and underfunded MBTA is. I can compare MBTA to Berlin's U- and S-Bahn since I lived in Germany prior my arrival in Boston. That was years ago, but I still remember my surprise that buses and trains in Boston run so infrequently, like the timetable was something MBTA has never heard of. Punctuality, efficiency and density of Berlin's public transport system puts Boston to shame. They are like two different worlds. Still, far from what they have in Japan where companies need to apologize if train leaves the station 20 seconds too late.
"Check out the grim faces of your fellow passengers the next time you’re on the subway."
Or you can check out even grimmer faces of other drivers next time you're stuck in traffic on I-93.
"While driving, you can talk on the phone."
Maybe you can but it doesn't mean you should. Distracted driving is illegal and talking on the phone counts as such.
"Bostonians suffer through 409 million trips on the T annually. Why? Because owning a car is expensive — almost $8,500 a year. And, of course, the congestion."
Thank God it's expensive. Can you imagine if owning a car was as cheap as $1/month? People would drive even more and congestion would be even worse. How do you think Boston would look like if we put everyone from those 400 million T trips into own AVs?
"Autonomous vehicles’ most profound near-term impact would be in reducing congestion and pollution."
Very unlikely. If AVs are more affordable and accessible than regular cars and even the T, induced demand will drive numbers of AVs on streets to higher numbers than cars right now. Not only those who drive regularly will use AVs but also those who now take T or don't travel into the city at all. Furthermore, pollution is not only exhaust gases. It's also generation of particles due to wear of tires and brakes and contamination due to dust raised up into air by moving vehicles. The more vehicles on roads, the worse it will be.
"Once we’re dropped at our destination, our AV won’t need to find parking; it’ll simply move on to the next customer."
AVs may need less parking but it's a myth the don't need it at all. Demand on AVs will be highest early morning and later afternoon (rush hours) and nearly non-existent at night. If AVs are going to be as affordable and accessible as this article pictures it, we will need thousands of them and these vehicles have to park somewhere. Ideally, not too far from places they're going to be needed soon, which means likely suburbs in the morning and city centers in the afternoon. While it may be easier to find space for large parking lots in the suburbs, building more garages for AVs in the centerof Boston is going to be a costly development.
"AVs will be electric."
Sounds nice but this means thousands of new electricity consumers that require high energy infrastructure. Those fast-charge stations will be needed everywhere, including city center. That's a serious challenge for our electricity grid.
"Consider that if AVs no longer need to park, an additional lane or two now given over to street-side parking could be available for travel, opening up roads."
As I wrote above - they will need to park (at very least to recharge). But I would rather give that extra space to pedestrians and cyclists than more AVs.
AVs will be cheap because "nationally, an average automobile costs $0.56 per mile to drive, says the American Automobile Association."
Don't ask AAA how cheap driving is. Ask someone less biased, please. AVs will be cheap if we keep subsidizing driving. If we put the same money into public transportation, we would also have cheap and efficient light rail, bus and streetcar systems.
"But public transit users are heavily subsidized."
It is, but far less than driving in U.S. If you had to pay real market value for 1hr of parking in downtown Boston you would see how subsidized it is now. The fact that we are still stuck with gas tax rate from the 70's and it covers only a fraction of road maintenance costs, shows how much we actually have to subsidize driving in this country. If driving could pay for itself, we all would have to pay much, much more for parking, tolls and gasoline.
"Since we’ll use AVs in an Uber-like fashion, we’ll pay only when we need a ride — without the cost of a driver."
No. You will also pay a fee for parking of "your" AV when it's waiting for you and charging its batteries.
"Insurance will be cheaper (or perhaps unneeded)."
Insurance per passenger may be cheaper but you will pay a fee to cover insurance costs of companies operating a fleet of these AVs.
Also, the article doesn't mention what would happen to all standard cars - those that still require drivers. If AVs could somehow replace 100% of them, then there is some chance for improvement. But unfortunately, it seems right now that AVs will just allow more people to move (such as elderly who can't drive anymore) but won't reduce car ownership. I can't even imagine that - it so non-American not to own your car but to share it with some strangers. That's communism, right?
And finally the last and most important question - will AVs be allowed to save parking spaces with trash bins and folding chairs in winter?
Essentially, it all boils down to travel efficiency as measured by number of people moved in time. In countryside, where distances are significant and space is available, cars on highways, high-speed trains and finally airplanes work quite well. In cities, where distances are shorter and road space is scarce and expensive, placing one person per vehicle makes simply no sense. It doesn't matter if this vehicle has a driver, is electric, or autonomous. It still occupies too much space on road. That's why high-density transport systems such as T still work best (which doesn't mean we need to stick to these ugly, old green train cars). Single-user AVs won't help here, which is why public transport will
remain.
So no, AVs won't replace public transport but they may help to solve some current problems. At very least, here is what we could do:
- Introduce as many dedicated bus lanes as possible and give signal priority to buses over AVs.
- Introduce congestion charging - the most effective way to keep many cars and AVs off streets in the mad morning or evening rush. You want to take AV to work at 8:00AM? That may cost you $50. But if you drive the same distance at 11:00AM it may be only 10$.
- In general we want less cars, not more, in the city so let's increase efficiency of AVs by prioritizing those with many passengers. How about autonomous vans and minibuses? I'm going to quote myself here:
The future is bright. It just won't rely solely on single-user autonomous vehicles in highly urban areas. There is no space for that.
