National Post (National Edition)
A BLEAK SCENE FROM THE FUTURE. CORCORAN,
A LOOK AT A FUTURE DRIVERLESS WORLD WHERE NOBODY CAN OWN THEIR OWN CAR
It’s 2041. As predicted by corporate executives and urban-planning activists, nobody needs to own a car. In fact, ownership is forbidden. Remember way back in 2017? That’s when Barrie Kirk of the Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence saw the future. “If you are looking (forward) 30 to 40 years, you’d notice all the vehicles will be electric self-driving taxis, you’d notice human drivers were generally banned, you’d notice far less parking, and hopefully, if city policies are in alignment, those parking spaces would be green spaces.”
What a genius! Over the decades since, millions of parking spots sprawled across suburban North America became redundant. For transport, as predicted, a driverless vehicle comes to your door — wherever and whenever you want. From home to office. Office to meeting. School to restaurant.
Home garages, condo parking spots and parking pads have been converted to living spaces, bike racks, exercise facilities, underground public spaces, multifamily dwellings, often to accommodate expanded digital media rooms from which families use the latest technologies to control their lives. Or vice versa.
And who can forget Toronto’s visionary chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, who said back in 2017 that “One of the most significant transformations we’ll see will be the end of car ownership — this is a no-brainer.”
And so it has been. All road transportation is carried out by driverless vehicles that are available on demand via wireless technology supplied by the Rogers-Bell Tele-Drive Dispatch Platform. Some rogue private vehicles still exist, but risk arrest and imprisonment if nabbed by police operating remote driverless squad cars.
How does it all work? We take you now into the daily lives of David and Aurora, two busy people who live in a Toronto area called Toryville (formerly Scarborough). It’s an aging community, one of the original suburbs that became the first target of the city’s 2025 plan to demolish single-family homes, remove all driver-operated vehicles from the roads, narrow the streets and increase density to 130 people per square hectare.
David and Aurora, in what is now considered an obsolete bungalow that should be demolished to increase density, were forced to get rid of their last car in 2032.
Autonomous vehicles are now available on demand via PTD — Personal Transport Devices — created by Global Apple in 2025, though a collaboration with Global Motors, an auto giant created during the forced merger of General Motors, Daimler and ChinaAuto.
As they go about their daily business, moving about the city to work and entertainment, taking the kids to school or shopping, David and Aurora use their PTDs to communicate with Toronto Driverless Authority’s instant communications facility, an artificial-intelligence system officially called the Human Autonomous Link.
Or, as it is known to all in Toronto, HAL.
David: Hello, HAL. How are you today? HAL: I’m fine, Dave. How are you?
David: Good. I need to get into downtown for a special emergency meeting and will require a PTD a little early this morning.
HAL: What time do you need to be there, Dave?
David: 7:45. HAL: That will be tight, Dave. We can do 8:30. We have no PTDs available before then.
David: Not again, HAL. This has been happening all the time.
HAL: Sorry, Dave, but the allocation of vehicles to your vehicle navigation territory has been reduced due to a shortage of electricity distribution brought on by price controls imposed by the provincial authority to curb demand. We can’t recharge vehicles fast enough.
David: Okay, okay. We can make it to my office by 8:15 maybe?
HAL: Not so sure about that, Dave. We might make it if you can pay the $400 Express Lane charge on the Kathleen Wynne Memorial Driverless Parkway. As you know, it was reduced to four lanes in 2028 to increase surrounding parklands.
David: I know. But … $400?!! HAL: Sorry about that, Dave.
David: Jeez. All right. What choice do I have?
HAL: None, Dave. That’ll be $400 plus a Peak Time Toll charge of $80 plus VAT of $90 to get you to meeting. Thank you, Dave.
David: (Sigh). Later David’s wife, Aurora, logs on to HAL. HAL: Hello, Aurora. Where do you want to go today.
Aurora: Working from home as usual, HAL, but I want to take the kids for lunch.
HAL: When? And where would you like to go?
Aurora: Noon. Just going to over to that McDonald’s on Lawrence.
HAL: Oh, McDonald’s? Our digital log shows you took the kids to McDonald’s on the weekend. Under Article 59 of the Canadian Fast Food Control Act, your children cannot be driven to a McDonald’s or any other restaurant where the total calorie intake is likely to exceed the levels mandated by
the Public Nutrition Control Office in the Greater Toronto Horseshoe Planning Zone…
Aurora: Oh, shut up, HAL. I just need a place for a quick lunch for the boys.
HAL: Our Personal Information Data Analytics on you and your family shows that the McDonald’s is only 13 blocks from your home. You should be biking.
Aurora: It’s 33 degrees outside! I can’t bike 13 blocks with two kids for a burger and fries.
HAL: McDonald’s doesn’t serve fries anymore, Aurora. You should know that. Under section 125 of the
Public Food Monitor and Control Regulation Act, McDonald’s had to drop fries in 2027.
Aurora: All I want is a car for maybe an hour or so for a quick run for some fast and easy food…
HAL: The Private Food Monitoring Data System in your home refrigeration unit says you have some leftover steamed fat-free chicken breast and boiled carrots. You could make chicken sandwiches for the boys...
Aurora: You idiot! (Raising her voice) I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANY MORE! You understand me, HAL?!
HAL: If I may offer a suggestion, Aurora. The central cause of your frustration is that you and David are still living in an obsolete low-density community. You should move closer to the city. There’s a nice 1,100-square-foot twobedroom rental right near Bloor and Sherbourne, in an old converted office building circa 1999, exactly the amount of space you need for your family as determined by the Greater Toronto Optimal Living Space Planning Commission…
Aurora: HAL, you are an idiot! Do you know what artificial intelligence means? Do you?? Know what the “art-ti-fi-cial” part means? Look it up in your big fat digital dictionary, HAL. It means simulated. Phoney. Fake. Sham. Bogus. NOT REAL! You’re like a big artificial flower, HAL. Synthetic. Plastic. Imitation.
That’s what you are, HAL. Fake Intelligence. And that means you are, put simply, stupid! GOODBYE!!!
HAL: Goodbye, Aurora. Good to be of help today. Talk to you next time.