What about New York makes it so different that driving is an absolute necessity as opposed to say, London? And what creates the need for ownership as opposed to a fleet of automated cars handling the movement around the city? I can envision how a car might be important for occasional living errands, like groceries, etc., but car ownership as a need? Could not the majority of New Yorker needs be filled by either street services like Car2Go/Zipcar or by a fleet of summonable self-driving cars?
New York attracts workers from all over, many from places without trains etc.
London is also jam packed, I'm not sure it's any different.
There's no reason that the preparation can't start happening sooner, especially since an intermediary step towards self-driving cars exists and that's car share fleets.
The whole point of self-driving cars is less about the tech itself and more about the cultural shift that it permits. Parts of that shift can be happening now - the problems with parking, congestion, costs of road maintenance, car accidents, and everything can be addressed and affected now.
The proposed changes work just as well for a fleet of shared cars as they do for self-driving.
London's population density is far less than that of NYC, with London having nearly twice the total area and nearly half the population density. My reason in mentioning the density is that even though London does have a large car population, far more people take transit in a place that has a larger population and a larger area. NYC, which is smaller and more population dense, should see its citizens having easier access to essential stores and location just due to proximity, where as a London citizen may need to travel considerably further.
There is a very good reason. Without the actual cars the preparation makes things worse for everyone. So why do it? It's like saying "I'm going to get a bike to go to work, so I better stop driving now, even though I don't actually have a way to go there."
On top of that, despite all the excitement in the tech field it'll actually be many many decades before general purpose self driving cars exist. We don't need 30 years of preparation.
At first they will only be used on long distance highway trips, with specially prepared and marked roads, with the human taking over for city driving and for roads not prepared.
But these preparations are about city driving, which won't be automatic for a very very very long time. (How does a self driving car, without true AI, know what to do when there is an illegally parked car in the road? Or a stopped garbage truck, and the works are waving you to go around them?)
> NYC, which is smaller and more population dense
The greater NYC area is not smaller than London. People come from a hundred miles away, every day, to work there.
Are you focused excessively on people living in Manhattan? They already take public transportation.
It is in fact the case that if you take your child and toss them into the middle of the pool, you do force them to either sink or swim. But that isn't the same thing as actually getting them to swim.
So I was mocking the idea that making things harder for people who already have no choice about driving is a good idea.
It's not.
You want less cars? Then make the alternatives better, people will automatically drive less. To try to change things from the other end is just a way to torment your fellow man.