Planner says self-driving cars won’t fix problems
His fear is more congestion and urban sprawl
Peter Calthorpe says Silicon Valley has it all wrong. He rejects the ideas of tech industry visionaries who say personal autonomous vehicles will soon be the solution to urban problems such as traffic congestion.
Calthorpe is an urban planner based in Berkeley, Calif., and one of the creators of New Urbanism, which promotes mixeduse, walkable neighborhoods. His designs emphasize the proximity of housing, shopping and public space.
He is not opposed to autonomous vehicles. Calthorpe’s quarrel is with the idea that the widespread adoption of personally owned self-driving cars will solve transportation problems. He worries it will lead to more urban congestion and suburban sprawl.
“One thing is certain: Zeroor single-occupant vehicles,” even ones that can drive themselves, “are a bad thing,” he and transportation planner Jerry Walters wrote in an article last year in Urban Land, an urban planning journal. “They cause congestion, eat up energy, exacerbate sprawl and emit more carbon per passenger-mile.”
Calthorpe says that in trying to solve a hard technical problem, Silicon Valley is ignoring an easier application for autonomous technology that has the potential to quickly change mass transit and help solve the Valley’s housing crisis. It starts with backing away from solo car trips.
A popular claim by the advocates of self-driving cars is that they will not only be safer than human-driven cars but will also lead to fewer cars, faster commutes and a radical rethinking of cities where finding a place to park is no longer a priority.
But Calthorpe, citing a range of transportation studies, has simulated through computer models the effects of self-driving vehicles in urban settings. He argues that if they are used the way today’s vehicles are — carrying a single individual in most cases — they will lead to more congestion.