Reason #10 to Stop Subsidizing Transit Driverless Cars Will Soon Replace It There can be no doubt any longer that the self drive car will eliminate transit as we know it today outside of a few big cities, and there it will become an integrated part of the commute. More below. Like the shift from the rural horse drawn carriage/urban streetcar to the auto nearly everything will change with this single alteration in technology. Prior to 1850 cities had to be tightly compact because there was very little public transportation. After 1850, rail, streetcars, and other public transportation sprang up, allowing the city to spread out, and become less dense, and less dangerous.
This shift saw nearly everyone living in rural areas owning a horse, but nearly no one living in cities owning one. The problem is the horse has to eat every day, the stall must be cleaned, and the manure removed, regardless of whether ridden or not. Then there is the undesirable smell, and other problems. Today, the city is full of cars, where there once was highly limited access to personal transportation. The result has been the steady erosion of public transit as a way of moving people outside of New York. The Antiplanner leaves aside the fact that the current transition from the Industrial Age to the Technology Age will also cause dramatic changes to the way, and places we live and work. This is how all economic transition periods work. The transition from the Agriculture Age to the Industrial Age shifted us from an employment model where nearly everyone was an "independent contractor" mainly working for themselves as farmers, to a new system where a large portion of the population became (for the first time in history) wage earners. Cities sprung up to marry factories, with large pools of workers, this also allowed workers much greater access to a variety of employers, and better workers were able to command much greater wages than they ever could have as a farmer. These changes drove us to the economic situation we find ourselves in today. It also drove the need for ever increasing productivity, which just means the ability for workers to produce more in an hour than they could previously. This is where all of our wealth comes from. As the Antiplanner notes change is difficult, humans are highly resistant to change, and they are unwilling to accept that it is inevitable even when it is staring them in the face. So, we continue to have government bureaucrats lobbying for seriously misguided ideas long after they are obviously outdated. Transit has reached its sell by date, but the industry is not willing to understand this, and make sure that the transition is smooth, and beneficial, especially for the pensioned employees. This is a serious mistake, and in the case of the unions, probable a breach of the unions fiduciary duties to its members. Expect extensive litigation of this issue in the next decade as more, and more unions pension, and benefit plans enter bankruptcy. At the Antiplanner's site MSetty most represents this inability to accept, or understand change, MSetty says, "We’re supposed to take The Antiplanner’s religious beliefs seriously, and totally rearrange our cities and transportation policies in pursuit of utter fantasy?" What an odd thought, cities are an organic entity, or at least were until recently when planners like MSetty began attempting to drive the shape, size, and configuration of the city as a planned entity. This has worked so poorly that cities have stopped growing here in the US, and are beginning to contract, some quite seriously, and even the "good cities" like Portland, Oregon, are at, or near, zero population growth. All the growth is in the suburbs, and exurbs. And as I have discussed here, often, the Millennials are not interested in living in the cities, except for a few short years after college, and before family, and then only a relatively small cohort of Millennials want this. Just as cities changed after the advent of the auto, and went from no one owning a horse in the city, to nearly everyone owning an auto, so this new iteration of the gold standard in human transportation will alter our cities yet again. Combine this with the changes coming to employment, the gig economy, the independent contractor economy, and the fact that in the next one hundred years we will see our largest corporations lose +90% of their employees, and, yes, our cities will change, dramatically. Just as they did with the auto. The real shock would be if humans could undergo such a significant shift as the self drive car, and have no follow on changes in the socio-economic model. While I think the deeply conservative streak in humans helps us ensure that the changes we engage in are desirable, it is also clear that there is a period where it is destructive. We have reached that period with the progressive economic model. Our schools are now a force for impoverishment in the inner cities, it is impossible to believe this is a benefit. The same can be said for our policies on welfare, drugs, and many others. Our resistance to accepting, and undertaking real change in transportation/transit suffers the same problems. Many of the retired workers will be greatly impoverished because the agencies are unwilling to make the necessary changes, and shift monies today from expansion of the inane to full funding of pension, and benefit plans. It would appear the only way out is through the collapse, beware the collateral damage. If you have a pension from a public entity, no matter what the entity, you should take the time no matter how significant, to make sure all of the pension, and benefit programs are fully funded. This will be a desperate issue for many over the next 2 decades.
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