Mother Jones ran an interesting think-piece by Clive Thompson on how “robot cars” may fundamentally change cities, not just when they’re moving, but when they’re sitting. Cars are sitting idle for about 95% of the time, whether at home, at work, at shopping, or at play. Cars are designed to get us places, but once we’re there, their job is done. How can automated cars change this? How?
There are a number of ways that this may happen. First, there may be a reduction in personal ownership and an increasing use of transit, car-sharing, ride-sharing, or taxi services. These services are all benefiting from developments in social media, real-time tracking, and flexible scheduling.
Second, there may be a time (relatively) soon where some cars, trucks, and service vehicles are driving themselves (like our subways). This is not going to be an easy transition and there is already significant disruption from services like Uber and Lyft. Some studies suggest that a single, shared, self-driving car can replace 12 personal vehicles.
In the past, cities have developed with strict requirements for parking, resulting in the strip-malls and empty lots that dominate many of our cities and suburbs today. These have exacted a tremendous (hidden) financial cost on developers and a massive cost to the environment. For smaller cities such as mine (Fredericton, NB) a large proportion of land area is devoted to parking lots (about 15%), most of which are empty most of the time. This has obvious negative impacts on urban design and character of the city, but it also has a tremendous economic cost to the city in lost taxes, decreased space for business expansion, poor pedestrian flow, and decreased green space.
So where is the saving with self-driving cars? It’s likely not going to be in individual ownership, it’ll likely be in fleet deployment, including taxis, couriers, shipping, and service vehicles. This would get rid of “circling” that cars usually do, coupled with smart parking meters there are additional savings. All of these changes together would fundamentally alter the economic geography of our cities. Take a read of the article and see where else changes could come.