Driverless City and Future of Streets.
It is obvious to me that the future of driverless city is promising and perhaps dreamlike. What is bad in the ability to get from point A to B faster, safer, and cheaper? I can imagine a city with fewer traffic lines and no parking lots, better still a city with no ground level traffic where a car from a personal commodity becomes no more than a horizontal people mover that gets you from one part of city to another; where roads and endless parking lots are transformed into grand public avenues and parks, saturated with human activity and devoid of conflict between slow human and fast vehicular traffic. There is no noise, no intersections, no visual noise of traffic lights and signs. In this city the streets are green, air is clean and fresh, with all the asphalt and “the heat island effect” removed. Endless hours spent in traffic jams are spent productively or leisurely. This is going to be an incentive for densification of cities, as more people would prefer to live in these new cities with no traffic chaos.
This future is far removed, who knows, 50 perhaps or even 100 years into the future, as policy, economics and infrastructure develop. Also, I believe that the future effects of driverless transport (public or individual) are going to be culturally and geographically biased. Is the city going to expand or densify is largely a question of social structure, culture and geography among other issues such as economy and politics. It is sure not going to happen everywhere and equally. Also, I am sure, as jobs get more location independent and automation driven, many would prefer suburbia’s low density to the agoraphobic megapolis. Yet it is going to be a preference not a necessity to move away from the current high-density chaos of an urban core. After my recent trip to Tokyo, I believe that Japanese cities with its effective transport system that merges metro, local and long distance into one system and its social collectivism will turn driverless much faster than American cities. Moreover, the four time denser Japan has far less territory for expansion than “infinite suburbia” of the U.S. as Alan Berger puts it.
To conclude, whatever path the city takes densification, suburbanization, or both, the quality of life on the future streets is going to be much better. Removing chaotic and inefficient human brain and senses from the city equation is going to benefit everybody. Whether a driverless car is private, shared or public, it is going to be better than today’s human operated machine of chaos and self-expression.
