Google’s Self-Driving Cars Are Going to Change Everything

Re:Google’s Self-Driving Cars Are Going to Change Everything by achal on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @02:13AM (#4384834)

> self-driving cars becoming a norm leads to more car-centered infrastructure over public transportation

Out of curiosity, why would this be? I can see that commuters who despise driving may switch to cars from public transport, but at least from personal experience, I don't see this as a major reason for people using public transport in the first place.

Is there another reason I'm missing? I'd imagine it would be more likely that self driving vehicles end up improving public transport (both in quality of service and popular usage).

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Re:Google’s Self-Driving Cars Are Going to Change Everything by DividesByZero on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @02:31AM (#4384874)

I think there would be a feedback loop in place where self-driving cars demand better infrastructure to support them, and as this infrastructure improves, self-driving cars become more convenient to use, leading more people to want to use them, leading to more such infrastructure. Since this infrastructure gets funded, it's not much of a stretch to think that most transport money would go there.

Some of the technology might make public transport more efficient (self driving buses seem like a good idea), but cars would probably dominate.

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