Self-driving cars’ hurdles

Self-driving cars may be fine for Stanford in California and maybe eventually Boston’s Seaport District, but let’s put to bed any notion of having them on the streets of downtown Boston.

When Mayor Tom Menino declared the car was no longer king, he sealed the fate of any real innovation integrated into any part of the city where original roads were built in the 17th century.

Beacon Hill, the Financial District, Faneuil Hall and Downtown Crossing are overrun with speeding bike messengers, commuting cyclists who seemingly take an a la carte approach to the rules of the road and nervous tourists wobbling along on Hubway bikes.

The city has done nothing to enhance the driving or parking situation for motorists, but has rolled out the red carpet for just about anything without an internal combustion engine. Convoys of “Segways” meander along the waterfront as “pedicabs” and sevenpassenger “conference bikes” shoot up and down State Street.

Menino may have brought us the bikes, but our pedestrian habits are our own shame to bear.

For Boston natives, jay-walking is the rule, not the exception, leaving drivers to do whatever it takes to make up for the time lost waiting for the hordes to cross the street, even when that means speeding and breaking rules.

Add to this the fact that there is no rhyme or reason to our too-narrow streets and always a construction project mangling navigation, and you have an environment that even Elon Musk’s most brilliant algorithm cannot conquer.

And it snows a lot here, in case you missed today’s weather report, a challenge that no selfdriving car company even claims to have tackled so far.