News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by mikepurvis on Sunday September 30, 2018 @05:21PM (#18108484)
That assumes a typical daily usage pattern, though, for which yeah owning, fuelling, maintaining, and insuring your own vehicle will probably always make the most sense.

However, for people who do (or plan to) use bicycles or mass transit a significant proportion of the time, being able to fall back on an hailed autonomous car in case of rain, haste, whatever is very appealing. It just depends on being able to look at a monthly bill of $200 (or whatever) in on-demand rides and see it as a huge step forward from what you used to pay in all the fixed costs of car ownership whether you used it or not.

The real trick will be having a workable solution for families with kids— that's an area where current taxis/rideshare have a gap, since they're not willing to supply their own carseats for liability reasons.

Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by joe_the_user on Sunday September 30, 2018 @06:51PM (#18108890)
Sure, switching to an autonomous taxi would be an easy call for some people and would not appeal for others.

But when you have that, you double or multiply by N, the road usage. Which is going to produce multiple problems for everyone.

People imagine that once autonomous vehicles reach a certain level, they'll just morph to provide all the benefits of a well-planned public transit system. But I'm doubting common good can just fall out of more chaos.

And hey, the private automobile itself was thrown onto society with effectively no consideration of externalities and brought us to our current heaven/hell of urbanism. So it's quite possible that, despite some talk of planning, autonomous vehicles will just appear, make a hash of things and all the clean-up will happen later, if at all.

Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by twblalock on Sunday September 30, 2018 @06:11PM (#18108708)
The carseat thing is a big deal. So is going to Costco and buying a ton of stuff for the family. I don't think very many people do that in an Uber.
Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by mikepurvis on Sunday September 30, 2018 @06:41PM (#18108844)
Monthly Costco run can be covered by a carshare or just planning on a rental one weekend a month and planning certain chores around it.

The carseat thing is a real missing piece in the puzzle though.

Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by derefr on Sunday September 30, 2018 @07:50PM (#18109103)
But Costco offers free delivery above a $75 purchase, which is generally around the same point where the goods wouldn't fit in an Uber.
Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by notatcomputer68 on Monday October 01, 2018 @04:22AM (#18110850)
As a non-owner of a car thanks for this information
Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by ryanwaggoner on Sunday September 30, 2018 @09:29PM (#18109405)
I just checked here in NYC and both Uber and Lyft have carseat options. And every car I’ve ever rented had the option too.
Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by m0ngr31 on Monday October 01, 2018 @02:43AM (#18110470)
The problem then becomes: what do you do with the carseat[s] when you are shopping, at a venue, etc...

If I own/rent the car, I can just leave them in while I'm doing whatever. If I'm doing Lyft, I'm stuck carrying around baby seats between rides. Which is not appealing.

Re:Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parkin... by ryanwaggoner on Tuesday October 02, 2018 @12:32PM (#18123210)
That's not how it works...the Lyft has a carseat, you use it, then you get out and leave the carseat behind. It's not a loaner for the day.