As a disabled dude, let's have both. I can't make the short trip to my nearby bus stop, this would be taxes that I would never benefit from. But personal cars or services like these, I can make it down my driveway.
It blows my mind how many people, when talking about transportation, just completely forget that not totally-capable people exist. I guess we are all supposed to stay in one place and never go anywhere due to a physical disability.
I'll happily vote for taxes to enhance public transport, if everyone votes to keep services like these also improving and growing, especially in areas where municipal services are lacking or completely unavailable. Uber and Lyft were my only access to restaurants and groceries for a time. Shit gets expensive, but it's better than literally having to beg friends to get my groceries every week.
Just don't forget about those who can't enjoy the infrastructure.
Does your city not have a service where a small bus goes to your door? Here in Seattle you book a ride to where you need to go the day before and they come and pick you up. Heck, the small town I grew up in (2500 people) in the middle of nowhere had a similar service.
During COVID lockdowns, when lots of people had to work from home, people who couldn't work from home were all talking about how much faster it was to get to work and there was hardly any traffic on the roads.
Even if public transport doesn't benefit someone directly, getting a bunch of other people off the road still will.
I understand you can't access it as it is now, but ideally we'd have systemic change that would allow you to access public transport. I don't know what your handicap is, but (other than immune system issues) I don't see what could be wrong that is impossible for public transport to be built to allow for. Sure, you have to get to it, but that could be made a lot easier if we weren't in a system designed for cars where everything is a million miles away.
I could be totally wrong. I have no idea of anything about you. I just would prefer a system that helps everyone, which these cars won't. In particular, impoverished people are going to be even more fucked if we start accepting this as an option for handling disabilities. It doesn't seem like a good idea.
Yes, this is an underappreciated angle. Ridesharing bridges the gap for many people excluded by other forms of transit. My mom has limited mobility and ridesharing has really helped her.
It cost nearly $350 million to install a 2-mile-long rapid bus lane on Van Ness
Maybe future expansions will be cheaper based on lessons learned, but it's clear that any infrastructure in SF is tremendously complicated and expensive. Doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing!
Creating new public infrastructure in the US can be extremely expensive, but it’s definitely still worth pursuing.
Nearly every in-depth study shows that for every $1 invested, the economic return is somewhere around $4-$5. And on top of that, failing to have adequate public infrastructure can cause serious economic consequences, which are compounded in areas with a lack of affordable housing.
Even though this article is a little old and sponsored by a party with a vested interest on the topic, I think it’s worth a read:
In my opinion, the problem for the US is convincing people/businesses that it’s worth it. Shifting away from cars and increasing investments in public infrastructure are two fairly unpopular measures right now, despite the actual economic evidence being overwhelming positive.
To me, it’s a solid example of where great leaders are needed to do something temporarily unpopular for the long term benefit of the constituents.
Yeah public engineering projects are crazy expensive. Roads included. I’m not saying this stuff will be cheap, just that not doing it is causing pretty awful problems
I was stoked for them to get here. My entire life between my house and my kid's school is inundated in self driving cars. I live it. I fucking hate them. And elderly people in Teslas.
I was in SF recently and got stuck behind a self driving car that was trying to turn down a closed street. The street had a police barrier up and it just sat there with its blinker on waiting for the street to open up. Meanwhile, everyone behind it is stuck there waiting for it to make a turn that it would never be able to make.
Eventually, after sitting in traffic for ten minutes, not knowing what was up, cars in front of me started to move around it and then I realized what was going on. I understand why people hate these things.
To be fair, I had a similar thing happen a human driver the other day. Except there was no barricade...they just wouldn't turn. They finally made the left turn on the fourth yellow lol.
I keep looking but can't find it. I keep just finding people saying the pedestrian was hit by a vehicle with a driver and thrown under a driverless car which spokepeople are saying tried to stop as fast as possible to minimize damages.
I live in the Bay Area and mostly ignored these developments because I primarily stick to East Bay. But as my new job has me going to SF on a semi-regular basis, I can’t help but be mildly afraid of getting taken out by an AV. Gdi.
Yesterday I saw a couple, including a Waymo that passed a few feet away as I got in my car. It proceeded without incident but I couldn't help feeling nervous to trust that its lidar saw me and it interpreted me as a human.