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U.S. Transportation Secretary Foxx on the future of transportation: "We had to do something different."

2016-10-28T13:49:00-04:00

Car and Driver caught up with Foxx in Pittsburgh. The DOT chief, previously mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, reflected on the promise of autonomous and connected cars, the recent Smart City Challenge, the massive increase in traffic deaths, the potential of the shared vehicles unfolding right outside the window, and more. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for grammar and brevity.

A look at the history and future of the American commute

2016-05-02T17:34:00-04:00

"The idea that you can replace the 10 trips with one autonomous car and travel less distance, that’s the biggest misconception," says Fagnant. "You can get rid of vehicles, but not vehicle miles traveled. Without ridesharing, there's an 8 to 10 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled based on simulations we've run in Austin. You’re not replacing trips [..] the vehicle has to bounce between locations, and relocate to where it’s needed. Those in-between miles will create a lot of extra travel."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Foxx on the troubled relationship between infrastructure and race: "We ought to do it better than we did it the last time"

2016-04-28T13:53:00-04:00

As a child, Anthony Foxx knew he couldn’t ride his bike far from home without being blocked by a freeway. By the time he became U.S. transportation secretary he understood why. “We now know — overwhelmingly — that our urban freeways were almost always routed through low-income and minority neighborhoods, creating disconnections from opportunity that exist to this day,” [...] “I really believe that this is an issue that has been on the shelf collecting dust for a long time,” Foxx said.

The U.S. just got $4 billion to spend on self-driving cars

2016-01-15T12:47:00-05:00

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the government would remove hurdles to developing autonomous vehicles and set further guidelines for them within six months. [...] The government’s new support includes a request in President Obama’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year for $4 billion, to be spent over 10 years, to finance research projects and infrastructure improvements tied to driverless cars.

This is the first time the federal government has actively engaged in the regulation and implementation of driverless vehicles. State governments had previously been putting forth their own standards – see this handy wiki from Gabriel Weiner and Bryant Walker Smith at Stanford University, "Automated Driving: Legislative and Regulatory Action".

More on the road (ahem) to driverless vehicles: