Everything from sidewalks and curbs to streets, building designs, urban layouts, and living patterns will change as computers take the wheel.
“We’re looking at the broader urban effects—and urban opportunities—of this technology,” says Illinois Tech architect Marshall Brown, one of the team members in the Chicago school’s Driverless Cities Project. “It’s in the news a lot, but nobody’s been discussing what it will actually do to cities.”
— wired.com
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Driverless car are likely to have an incredibly negative impact upon people. We build cities to create optimal human environments - or we should and need to. Part of what makes cities optimal environments is the opportunity to live cooperatively and that takes practice - we practice by dealing with uncertainty and potential conflict with each other. Cars with drivers have already detrimentally impacted on cities by segregating the public realm into operational zones and by controlling where we can and cannot cross the road - this already reduces decision making and opportunities for us to interact and negotiate. The infrastructure and control required to make driverless cars workable will massively amplify these problems. We must remember that we are not making a movie and cities are not stage sets - we have a wealth of psychological understanding already about the impact of the built environment on mental health and wellbeing - we need to use it.
If current "jaywalking" laws, as applied in many parts of the world, were to maintain segregation and a default vehicle priority over pedestrians - even for computer-controlled/driverless vehicles - then urban mixed-use streets would become increasingly soulless and congested.
However in the UK, where pedestrians have the prerogative of using human judgement and intelligent discretion to 'interact' in urban mixed use streets with vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists might assert priority over computer-controlled/driverless vehicles, and simply prevail over them. By crossing or occupying their paths, activating their safety features, pedestrians and human-controlled vehicles would cause automated ones to halt.
This is why we need to advocate for policies that put people first instead of cars. The primacy of automobility needs to come to an end.
The question is how prepared are lawyers and insurance companies for the many accidents that will occur.
basically jla-x first guy that get hit with a lawyer will make millions!
I hope it's me...nothing serious...but I'll take a few lumps for a few million.
I have used driverless public transport in London, it has worked well for many years. It operates on rails between stations shared by thousands of passengers, making it fairly efficient and cost effective to use. Staff are on board for safety and for human monitoring of the automated system. The city already works well around it.
"Energy-efficient driverless commuting" and "parent-free soccer practice delivery for teenagers" are the posited in the article as ideals: if these are not solved by public transit provision first, they are easily surpassed by the nineteenth century technology of walking and cycling, without further adaptation to current urban infrastructure. If cities provided for more walking and cycling - and prioritised these over vehicle-use (with or without drivers), they would be more efficient. Walking and cycling are far healthier for users, and infinitely more energy efficient within cities, than using 'autonomous driverless vehicles'.
Illinois Tech architects like Marshall Brown are missing the obvious - they are trying to create technology for technology's own sake. Architects ought to think more spatially and laterally about the city, and would do well to think beyond the screen - and to get out more, into the real world.
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