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No More Rails

There was a good segment on NPR yesterday on how self driving cars will reinvent parking lots.  Speculators should be buying city center parking lots now, as they will become very valuable real estate soon.  Two things strike me, in general, about the self driving car discussions:

  1. We have still not internalized that advances in the software are exponential, not linear.  With new cars being closer to "software with wheels" and the ability to download updates on demand, that exponential progress will now become apparent.  Of course, regulators will be slower, but I feel like the 10-15 years before adoption is pessimistic.
  2. Perhaps more interestingly, where is the discussion of self driving public transit?  And, in particular light-rail systems and/or subways.
What if we used a bit of imagination, and thought about the combination of self driving technology and no more rails?  Think about how restrictive, and expensive, rails are.  What purpose do they serve in a modern city?  
  • Light rail transit cars, with wheels, could be routed to where they are needed (of course, many light rail systems are electric...so the cars need to have enough battery to go "off grid" when necessary).  Cross-over tracks?  What a quaint idea.  Huge re-engineering efforts to route trains to a new area?  How about just updating the software?
  • Automated city buses could use the same right of ways as light rail.  Some cities do this already, but many have duplicate infrastructure.
  • Then, automated cars could use the same right of ways, and tuck in behind the trains.  (In a related idea, what if HOV lanes where switched over to support automated cars only?)
  • Then, ultimately, we don't need the trains at all.  Convoys of self-driving cars, available on demand, will arrange themselves into trains, and make effective use of the right of ways.  The NPR segment referenced that 30% of Uber rides in San Francisco begin or end at train stops.  It would be naive to assume that should drive more investment in light rail.
This seems like a straightforward vision.  Yet, cities are continuing to invest huge amounts in laying down rails.  Stranded investment.


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