Clashing Visions of Mass Transit’s Future
said Frank Chen, a partner with the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. “We don’t understand the economics of self- driving cars because we haven’t experienced them yet. Let’s see how it plays out.”
Theoretically, when companies like Uber and Lyft no longer have to pay drivers, rides could be as cheap as bus fare. And when autonomous vehicles platoon, they could squeeze more capacity and speed out of roadways, eroding the timesaving advantages of railways.
Technologists also draw an analogy to the internet, infrastructure that was conceived to be simple and uniform, compatible with any application. The intelligence lay in what was built on the internet, not the internet itself. For cities, Mr. Templeton suggests this means “smart cars and stupid roads.” Just lay concrete and let innovators design what rides on top of it. By definition, he said, rail precludes all possibilities other than the train.
Inherent in this idea is the fear that cities will lock in the wrong future, or that they’ll prevent better ideas from arriving. They’ll bet, for example, on docked bike- sharing systems, and then be caught off-guard when dockless scooters arrive.
“I expect by 2030, most transit agencies are going to be zombie agencies that exist mainly to collect taxes from people to pay down their debt,” said Randal O’Toole, a fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute who blogs, provocatively, as “The Antiplanner.” For now, he argues, cities should put no new money into infrastructure.
Many potential benefits of driverless cars won’t kick in until there is mass adoption. Even in that future, said Tina Quigley, a manager of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, there won’t be enough space in the busiest corridors for everyone to ride in an autonomous vehicle.
Highways in America today can carry about 2,000 cars per lane per hour. Autonomous vehicles might quadruple that. The best rail systems can carry more than 50,000 passengers per lane per hour. They move the most people, using the least space
Jarrett Walker, a transportation consultant, said: “The problem of the city is a problem of sharing space. In 2100, the problem of the city will still be a problem of sharing space,” he said.
By that logic, cities should invest even more in high- capacity rail and dedicated bus lanes in key corridors.
No system of autonomous cars could be more efficient than the New York subway, said Andrew Salzberg, Uber’s head of transportation policy and research. Uber needs that transit, just as it will need electric scooters and bikes and the congestion pricing it also supports in New York to ensure that cheaper transportation doesn’t simply lead to more traffic. The efficiency that autonomous vehicles promise is more likely if people share them — and don’t use them for every trip.
Cities fixated on that future, however, could be making another risky bet. New forms of transportation like Uber and Lyft are heavily subsidized by venture capital today, and so cities that expect private services to replace public transit are counting on those subsidies, too.
They’re betting that driverless cars will get here, changing the economics of transportation, before the venture capitalists lose patience.