Tag Archives: parking

Driverless cars: “Finding a Better Word for ‘Autonomous Car'”

Finding a Better Word for ‘Autonomous Car’.

This article assumes that driverless cars will be here pretty soon, maybe a few years from now and is concerned with what to call them.

Hidden Obstacles for Google’s Self-Driving Cars

This one is much more realistic.  Google has made impressive progress, but apparently their cars can’t even handle rain.  The media hypes this as the solution to all transportation problems … and by media, I mean wide-eyed transportation bloggers.

Let’s assume that these things drove themselves as well as the average, barely trained US driver.  What then?  What problem do they solve?  Not GHG emissions since once they drop you off at your destination, they’ll drive around until they find a place to park, racking up vehicle-miles (but not passenger-miles!).  If they don’t reduce VMT then they don’t reduce congestion.  So what’s the upside?

Oh, and then there’s liability.  I don’t see the public being OK with not holding the vehicle owner responsible when their driverless car mows down a Brownie troop at a cross walk.  I’m also pretty sure the manufacturers won’t accept liability either so who is responsible?  Will states just exempt owners and manufacturers from any liability?  Yeah, I don’t see that.

CityLab: “One Woman’s Quest to Design Parking Lots People Don’t Hate”

It's like a tape library!

Article: One Woman’s Quest to Design Parking Lots People Don’t Hate – CityLab.

The garage in the pic is great — anything that reduces the amount of surface area devoted to car storage — but the article is really about the “Green Garage Certification Standard”. Lipstick on a pig, IMHO. There will be private automobiles and public parking for the foreseeable future but minimizing the demand by charging proper prices seems, to me, like a better way to go. As land prices go up, you’ll see more of the ramped monstrosities give way to more efficient storage units. And price will help that along.

 

“A Redesigned Parking Sign So Simple That You’ll Never Get Towed”

 

Article: A Redesigned Parking Sign So Simple That You’ll Never Get Towed | Design | WIRED.

Not the first designer to “fix” parking regulations signs and probably not the last.  This one really is simple.

It’s the exceptions that cause issues, though, like if it’s a loading zone for a few hours in the morning.  Do you add another color?  A different pattern?  An asterisk.  It gets complicated in many places.  But for the example above, the proposed solution is better.

I also like that they just stick these up in places without permission.  🙂