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Why Driverless Cars Will Increase Tensions in Cities and Suburbs Alike
I think there's a whole list of reasons why "automated highways" is exactly the wrong tree to be barking up. Although like the author, the algorithm geek in me digs the problem in and of itself.
Driverless cars sound less and less like science fiction with each passing month, and that's prompted widespread discussion about how they might change society. They will bring many changes, but when it comes to the car's role in the city, they may just intensify current tensions.
The Atlantic Cities' own Emily Badger interviewed a research team of computer scientists at the University of Texas at Austin, who are studying how to make intersections move far more cars than they can today. They devised algorithms that let driverless cars flow through the intersection without need for lights that only let one direction of traffic move at a time.
...
But you can't optimize people so easily. Already, cities host ongoing and raucous debates over the role of cars versus people on their streets. For over 50 years, traffic engineers with the same dreams about optimizing whizzing cars have designed and redesigned intersections to move more and more vehicles.
These changes frequently pushed other users aside with longer waits for crosswalks, the need to push buttons to get a walk signal, awkward bridges over wider and wider arterials, or simply omitting bike or pedestrian facilities entirely and then blaming those users when careless drivers hit and kill them.
Some pro-automotive advocacy groups like to push the theme of a "war on cars," but bicyclists and pedestrians feel like there's been a war against them since the early 20th century. This Texas team's video just perpetuates that impression.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2012/03/why-driverless-cars-would-be-bad-cities-and-suburbs-alike/1393/
The Atlantic Cities' own Emily Badger interviewed a research team of computer scientists at the University of Texas at Austin, who are studying how to make intersections move far more cars than they can today. They devised algorithms that let driverless cars flow through the intersection without need for lights that only let one direction of traffic move at a time.
...
But you can't optimize people so easily. Already, cities host ongoing and raucous debates over the role of cars versus people on their streets. For over 50 years, traffic engineers with the same dreams about optimizing whizzing cars have designed and redesigned intersections to move more and more vehicles.
These changes frequently pushed other users aside with longer waits for crosswalks, the need to push buttons to get a walk signal, awkward bridges over wider and wider arterials, or simply omitting bike or pedestrian facilities entirely and then blaming those users when careless drivers hit and kill them.
Some pro-automotive advocacy groups like to push the theme of a "war on cars," but bicyclists and pedestrians feel like there's been a war against them since the early 20th century. This Texas team's video just perpetuates that impression.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2012/03/why-driverless-cars-would-be-bad-cities-and-suburbs-alike/1393/