@ErickaSimone writing this while waiting for a train. True self-driving cars — which don’t exist yet— can be a “last mile” solution for people with mobility difficulties, in rural areas, etc. But as part of transit, not instead of.

@ErickaSimone amen

I'm with you. The best argument I've heard recently against electric cars is that they're still cars.

@ErickaSimone Same!!! We have no public transportation here at all!! Not even bus service anymore.

@ErickaSimone I'd like to see the Futurama air-transport tubes.

@ErickaSimone Self driving cars is a taxi situation. It does nothing to reduce the drawbacks of manned taxis (one could make an argument it makes it worse)

@ErickaSimone can't stress this enough.
mobility discussions should first and foremost tackle urban infrastructure.
human kind must rethink cities from the ground up, electrification of the fleet should be a by-product

@ErickaSimone I used to want this until people stopped wearing masks to protect each other. I’ll want it again if that changes.

@ErickaSimone I so agree. The key to more efficient transport with lower carbon is not self driving cars, not even electric cars. It is superb public transport. That means buses and trains that are frequent, cheap (preferably free), and easily tracked by a mobile phone or similar so you know when it is arriving. It means safe, comfortable stations to wait in. It means vehicles that are accessible to disabled folk. We'll still need cars for rural etc, but far fewer.

@ErickaSimone also, if you’re going less than 5 miles, consider a bike (or ebike). If the roads around you feel dangerous, scream at public officials to make them safe.

@ErickaSimone +9001%

@ErickaSimone - living in a large city with a pretty-okay (if underfunded, too small, and outdated) transit system means that I take transit 95% of the time, and only drive for long out-of-town trips or the occasional hauling-large-objects situation. If the transit network was extended to include nearby cities & to run 24 hours, my partner and I wouldn't even need to own a car (they need it for work since they often have to travel out of the core at very early/late hours when transit isn't running). A carshare service would be plenty to serve our needs. And I genuinely wish everyone could have those sorts of options in their life. I love driving -- it's fun! But not *having* to do it.

@ErickaSimone functional transit requires bike-friendly neighborhoods where kids can bike themselves to school and people bike to the grocery store, transit hubs. Not a free-for-all where you have to elbow your way through a wall of cars to get anywhere. #eBikes will take us over the gap from our sprawling density to there, if we let them.

@ErickaSimone This is the way

@ErickaSimone hear hear

@ErickaSimone Totally agree and public transit should be fare-free as well. It’s a public good.

@ErickaSimone Oh I am with you!

@ErickaSimone @phoccer I want teleportation

@ErickaSimone absolutely. The problems happen in places like Arizona (or maybe most places) where it's too expensive to live in the city (I'd personally LOVE to live in downtown Phoenix) but people have to live further out, 30, 40 minutes, an hour or more & then commute with jammed roadways. It's nuts. The drive, cars, it's all awful. And then you have companies so against wfh. My wife has to drive over an hour every day to work in downtown Phoenix from where we live. I always think about all the pollution from all the cars, sometimes it's like LA. We get LA smog drifting over too. I'd love an electric car but they're beyond unaffordable for most people.

@ErickaSimone I want all cars to be taxis, just as a basic privacy and safety thing, but since I'm not rich enough to afford a personal chauffeur, a car is the second best option. Mixing with other humans have put me at risk and actual receipt of assault more than once. Buses and trains are the worst possible option for me. It isn't infrastructure we'd need to change, it is the basis of human behaviour itself that would need to be changed first. That is less realistic than self driving cars.

@ErickaSimone
"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation." (A quote variously attributed to Meik Wiking, Enrique Peñalosa...and Gustavo Petro.)

@ErickaSimone extra points for a “no-fare” public transportation system (mass transit, e-bikes, trains, buses, etc).

@ErickaSimone When I was in Budapest, I compared the Korut tram to a moving sidewalk. It was 70 ft long and came every 2 minutes. More of that please.

@ErickaSimone One of the world's best transit cities - Tokyo - is about to get Waymo, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes. Tokyo is also one of the best cities for hailing a taxi, and bikes are everywhere.