Kontextmaschine

16th June 2023

Post reblogged from or what's a heaven for? with 95,935 notes

kontextmaschine:
jiskblr:
teaboot:
teaboot:
please god above can someone explain to me why we’re still working on self driving cars when trains exist
“we’re training them to interpret road signs!” Train goes same place every day. No road signs.
“when forced to choose between old lady and child, which is more ethical for the car to hit?” Fence around train track. Nobody on the road.
“people with disabilities preventing them from driving themselves can be independent” Yes but also. Train.
“reduces the dangers of fatigue with long distance trucking” Train.
“the technology is not yet price effective for the average driver” Train.
Seriously come on choo choo bitches let’s goooooooooo
The minute you can have a train deliver things to a dozen buildings in a single neighborhood, then you might start to have something resembling a point.
The last mile is the hard part. Trains will never, ever solve it. Short of wild plans to use abundant energy from nuclear to dig massive underground tunnel networks, at which point ‘automatic underground small train’ and ‘automatic underground self-driving cars’ become the same thing - that would probably work if we could get there from here, but we can’t because people are stupid about both tunneling and nuclear power.
From historical experience of the decline of the LA streetcar system in the automotive age, “I can switch to the next lane when someone’s blocking this one”, “I can take an 82-block route along arterial streets but then at the end a 7-block final leg somewhat uphill” and “if this street is too crowded and slow I can use the next parallel major street over” were all critically important things cars but not rail transit can do
Cargo service further requires either space-consuming dedicated sidings or a willingness to have a train just sit in the street unloading for a while (streetcar-era cities sometimes resupplied outlying stores from central-city or dockside warehouses with overnight trams)
The cargo part doesn’t feel strong to me, given that many cities have the same policy with cars - freight only at night, during the day either it’s passengers-only or no cars at all. Usually in old European cities where the streets just can’t handle it.

Well with cars unless it’s a crazy tight street (which in Europe or Japan it might be!) or it’s Manhattan-style double parking, at least you can pass by an unloading truck, for streetcars it’s stopped in the street blocking all other uses along that line