DENVER | Transportation Thread

[EngiNerd]

Yup, I heard the same about the light rail because RTD's ticket kiosks couldn't handle the volume, so they just eventually let people on without bothering with a ticket. They didn't even have extra RTD staff out there to help out from what my buddy said.

[bunt_q]

Can somebody please explain to David Sachs that E470 is not part of CDOT? There is truly nothing worse than somebody who marches in from the east coast with their canned bullshit, who can't even bother to learn a little about the place he moved to. Of course, why would he, he already knows all of the answers, there's nothing of value to be found in the opinions of lowly Coloradans. Except that he sounds like an uneducated idiot, not some wise voice urging us toward better outcomes.

[RyanD]

So the picture he used for this:

The Denver Post Cheers for a Car-Choked Future:


Caption: Oh, the possibilities of highway widenings.

... was a picture of Hurricane Rita evacuations ...

I mean come on!!!

[bunt_q]

If I remember my Hurricane Katrina history correctly, the people who didn't have cars as a means out of the city were many of the ones who died. How many of us, I wonder, would trust RTD with our lives? Ha. If only New Orleans had better bike infrastructure, catastrophe might have been averted.

[Denver Dweller]

http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_2...driving-cars-just-might-untangle-denvers

[transistor]

Originally Posted by Denver Dweller

http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_2...driving-cars-just-might-untangle-denvers

Great, in the future, instead of mindlessly slogging through traffic, I would now have to baby a computer and make sure it doesn't decide to swerve into another lane if the markers are poorly painted.

How will this work outside of the bay area where we have snow and ice? They cant even make a cellphone that works when its below freezing outside let alone a fully autonomous car.

What I am saying is that this is technocratic garbage, much like every other half-ass idea that comes out of Silicon Valley.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

If only New Orleans had better bike infrastructure, catastrophe might have been averted.

You laugh, but a lot of government evacuation docs say walking and biking are going to be the best ways out of DC if there's ever a major terrorist attack. The Potomac River bridges won't be open to cars for long.

'Course, that sort of evacuation is different from a hurricane. In any event, we shouldn't be designing our cities around evacuation needs.

[lumos]

Originally Posted by transistor

Great, in the future, instead of mindlessly slogging through traffic, I would now have to baby a computer and make sure it doesn't decide to swerve into another lane if the markers are poorly painted.

How will this work outside of the bay area where we have snow and ice? They cant even make a cellphone that works when its below freezing outside let alone a fully autonomous car.

What I am saying is that this is technocratic garbage, much like every other half-ass idea that comes out of Silicon Valley.

That is a surprisingly harsh reaction to self-driving cars. My only frame of references are flying aircraft with autopilots and, er, driving a self-drive car. The evidence shows that autopilots are much safer than most pilots. Look at the depressing accident reports of fully serviceable aircraft being stalled at 35 000 ft and being held in a fully stalled position all the way to the sea by pilots fighting every safety measure telling them that they are wrong. I assume that you do not ask each pilot when you board your plane to hand fly the whole sector as you are concerned about the automation systems. These are systems that are engaged after take off that can fly the whole route and the land in fog with zero visibility and taxi the plane off the runway at the other end. When you take off into the clag with a complex departure procedure the autopilot reduces the workload enormously.

And I find the same thing with self-drive cars. It just reduces the risk that I am going to drift out of my lane or drive into the car in front. There have been a couple of times when I have just looked away for a second and something has happened in front of me and the car has noticed that my eyes are no longer looking forwards and it invokes what I call 'monkey in trouble mode'. Cars now use 360 degree cameras, radar, GPS another techniques to keep you in lane and safe. What it does highlight is that mixing driving between self-drive and human drive can cause confusion; I have often wondered when my car is going to decide to start braking for the traffic in front then realise that I am in my wife's car and it will not self-drive. The evidence from the self drive cars in the US last year showed that the hybrid approach of having a steering wheel with self-drive is not a great combination and that it is far safer to go fully automated.

It is no surprise that companies such as Uber have for self-driving cars; it is the logical extension of the existing model. I often consider if I could sell my car in Denver and just use Uber. I think that this would accelerate the shift for people like me. It certainly could be a low cost way of doubling Denver's road capacity.

I also know that the biggest problem driving in Denver after a snowfall is that traffic jams caused by someone stuffing it up on I25, I do not think it safe to assume that self-drive cars will be worse than the majority of drivers in poor conditions.

For a technology that may hold the key to reduced congestion, less parking requirements and fewer accidents I for one will not dismiss it out of hand. I do hear that the NRA is spearheading the 'right to drive' campaign so you are clearly not alone in your views.

[transistor]

Originally Posted by lumos

That is a surprisingly harsh reaction to self-driving cars. My only frame of references are flying aircraft with autopilots and, er, driving a self-drive car. The evidence shows that autopilots are much safer than most pilots. Look at the depressing accident reports of fully serviceable aircraft being stalled at 35 000 ft and being held in a fully stalled position all the way to the sea by pilots fighting every safety measure telling them that they are wrong. I assume that you do not ask each pilot when you board your plane to hand fly the whole sector as you are concerned about the automation systems. These are systems that are engaged after take off that can fly the whole route and the land in fog with zero visibility and taxi the plane off the runway at the other end. When you take off into the clag with a complex departure procedure the autopilot reduces the workload enormously.

And I find the same thing with self-drive cars. It just reduces the risk that I am going to drift out of my lane or drive into the car in front. There have been a couple of times when I have just looked away for a second and something has happened in front of me and the car has noticed that my eyes are no longer looking forwards and it invokes what I call 'monkey in trouble mode'. Cars now use 360 degree cameras, radar, GPS another techniques to keep you in lane and safe. What it does highlight is that mixing driving between self-drive and human drive can cause confusion; I have often wondered when my car is going to decide to start braking for the traffic in front then realise that I am in my wife's car and it will not self-drive. The evidence from the self drive cars in the US last year showed that the hybrid approach of having a steering wheel with self-drive is not a great combination and that it is far safer to go fully automated.

It is no surprise that companies such as Uber have for self-driving cars; it is the logical extension of the existing model. I often consider if I could sell my car in Denver and just use Uber. I think that this would accelerate the shift for people like me. It certainly could be a low cost way of doubling Denver's road capacity.

I also know that the biggest problem driving in Denver after a snowfall is that traffic jams caused by someone stuffing it up on I25, I do not think it safe to assume that self-drive cars will be worse than the majority of drivers in poor conditions.

For a technology that may hold the key to reduced congestion, less parking requirements and fewer accidents I for one will not dismiss it out of hand. I do hear that the NRA is spearheading the 'right to drive' campaign so you are clearly not alone in your views.

I think its incredibly safe to assume that they will be worse. Notice how all of the self-driving car videos they post are on the sunny streets of California, when I see a single video of a self-driving car in a snowstorm, or heavy rain we can discuss its performance.

I don't want to drive, I want a robust public transportation network. I also don't want the endless propagation n of a highway highway system that exists primarily to segregate the wealthy from the poor neighborhoods and enable endless sprawl.

[wong21fr]

Well, it's sell-serving and isn't a gas-tax hike, but someone in Colorado finally said "f**k it" on waiting for the legislature to propose a transportation funding solution:

Colorado road builders to seek sales-tax hike for transportation upgrades

Cue the GOP opposing a business-sponsored ballot measure to fix a problem that the politicians are too spineless to fix.

[lumos]

Originally Posted by transistor

I think its incredibly safe to assume that they will be worse. Notice how all of the self-driving car videos they post are on the sunny streets of California, when I see a single video of a self-driving car in a snowstorm, or heavy rain we can discuss its performance.
.

Here you go, Courtesy of Wired on 11 Jan 2016 http://www.wired.com/2016/01/the-clever-way-fords-self-driving-cars-navigate-in-snow/



To gauge current activity here are the autonomous car jobs open in Google at the beginning of this week:

Mechanical Global Supply Chain Manager
Mechanical Manufacturing Development Engineer
Manufacturing Process Engineer
Manufacturing Supplier Quality Engineer
PCBA and Final Assembly Global Supply Manager
Automotive NVH (Noise, Vibration, Harshnees), Lead
Manufacturing Test Engineer
Reliability Engineer, Vehicle Test Lead
Reliability Engineer
Product Manager, Vehicle
Global Commmodity Manager
Industrial Designer
Marketing Manager
Technical Program Manager, Vehicle Safety
Operations Program Manager
Policy Analyst
Head of Real Estate and Workplace Services
Product Manager, Robotics
User Experience Researcher
Mechatronics Engineer
Electrical Engineer
Mechanical Engineer, Lead
Systems Engineer, Motion Control
Systems Engineer, Compute and Display
Reliability Engineer, Lead
Vehicle Systems Engineer
Perception Sensing Systems Engineer
Embedded Software Engineer
Electrical Validation Engineer
Systems Engineer
Radio-Frequency Test Engineer
Researcher/ Robotics Software Engineer
Radio Frequency/High Speed Digital Hardward Design Engineer
Camera Hardware Engineer
Mechanical Engineer, Laser
HMI Displays Hardware Engineering Lead

Here is a link to a study http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811059.PDF

This US study of 5000 accidents found that human errors were the most critical factor in more than 93% of the accidents. In less severe accidents human error probably plays an even bigger, but certainly not smaller role. Other factors were: Technical failures: 2.0%, road conditions: 1.8%, atmospheric conditions (including glare): 0.6%. Interestingly, Volvo announced in October 2015 that it would assume all liability for accidents caused by its autonomous vehicles thus removing the liability issue. The industry is expecting a ten fold decrease in accident rates.

The safety issues are noted and are foremost in the minds of the law makers. Anthony Foxx, Secretary of Transportation visited the Frankfurt Auto Show and gave an interview to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he stated that he is very optimistic with respect to driverless cars and expects to see them in use everywhere in the world within 10 years. He wants to accelerate the process for the introduction of new technologies such as self-driving cars and avoid the current legislative delays of five or six years.

Also last month President Barack Obama proposed a $4 billion investment over 10 years in developing and adopting vehicle automation. In the same announcement Foxx also announced that the DOT has committed to work with industry leaders to establish a "common multistate framework for connected and autonomous vehicles," the agency said.

This is a huge deal because it could seriously help speed up how fast self-driving cars come to market.

Currently, companies making self-driving cars have had to deal with regulations on a state-by-state level to conduct testing. This is usually a major headache because many states haven't even addressed implementing regulations for the testing of self-driving vehicles. So automakers are kind of left in the dark about what is actually legal with their autonomous vehicles.

In most cases, it's not that states don't want to establish some sort of rules; it's just the first time ever having to think about self-driving cars and they simply don't have the expertise to know what kind of testing, safety features, and other requirements should be put in place.

But, now the federal government will help clear up some rules and establish a national framework so states are all on the same page when it comes to self-driving cars.

Finally a quick list of some of the players in this space, in case that there is any doubt that autonomous cars are coming, not that the majority are not in Silicon Valley.

Tesla plan to have a fully autonomous car ready by 2017 but recognises that type approval might take a further 2 or three years.

Baidu in China is working with BMW who said that all of their normal car fleet will feature autonomous driving by 2020.

Nissan also says that it will have fully autonomous vehicles by the end of the decade and has been working with researchers at Oxford, Stanford, the University of Tokyo, MIT and Carnegie Mellon

Ford says that they hope have self-driving vehicles available by 2020 and for all cars and not just luxury market

GM states on its website, "we expect semi-autonomous vehicles to be available to customers before the end of this decade and the technology for fully autonomous vehicles capable of navigating the roadways ready during the next decade."

Apple's self-driving car project — known as Project Titan — is said to have a target ship date of 2019, but this has not been officially confirmed by Apple

Daimler, the maker of the Mercedes-Benz, plans to be the first to release self-driving cars in 2020.

The Audi A7 drove 550 miles by itself in 2015 and it was the first company to receive an autonomous driving permit in Nevada in 2012 and California in 2014.

The Renault-Nissan Alliance will launch more than 10 vehicles with autonomous drive technology in the next four years. They confirmed in January 2016 that it will launch a range of vehicles with autonomous capabilities in the United States, Europe, Japan, and China through 2020.
In 2016, the Alliance will debut vehicles with "single-lane control," a feature that allows cars to drive autonomously on highways, including in heavy, stop-and-go traffic; In 2018, Renault-Nissan will launch vehicles with "multiple-lane control," which can autonomously negotiate hazards and change lanes during highway driving; finally, the Alliance will launch "intersection autonomy," which can navigate city intersections and heavy urban traffic without driver intervention, in 2020.

So I don't know what the future holds, we still aren't flying around in jetpacks so what do I know. If there is a technology that might allow us to get to 2035 with no additional road capacity then I think it wrong to dismiss it out of hand. This is more than an extension of an iPhone.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Well, it's sell-serving and isn't a gas-tax hike, but someone in Colorado finally said "f**k it" on waiting for the legislature to propose a transportation funding solution:

Colorado road builders to seek sales-tax hike for transportation upgrades

Cue the GOP opposing a business-sponsored ballot measure to fix a problem that the politicians are too spineless to fix.

I suspect this is partially intended to put pressure on the legislature to deal with the hospital provider fee.

[Cirrus]

Oh I think self-driving cars are definitely coming. It may still be decades before they're widespread, but once they are they're going to have a lot of good effects. With widespread self-driving cars:

1. Parking will go away as an important political issue. You'll pull up to wherever you're going, and the self-driving car will go park itself. 100% valet cities.

2. The taxi, carsharing, ride-hailing, and rental car industries will all merge, and boom like never before. They'll all become vastly cheaper to use. Take out the cost of the driver and eliminate expensive special-purpose insurance, and use will skyrocket.

3. After #1 and #2 happen, people will start to wonder why they're paying extra to store and insure their own private self-driving car, when it's just as easy and ultimately less expensive to hail one using an app. This will be a self-perpetuating cycle, as the more robot taxis are out there, the less necessary a private car will become. Private car ownership will plummet even as car use remains high, further reducing parking needs.

4. The same dynamics that make taxis cheaper in #2 will also make transit cheaper. The bus driver is the biggest operating cost for transit. Eliminate that and we'll be able to run buses and trains much more frequently. This is already true on driverless train systems like Vancouver's SkyTrain, which has 5 minute headways even at off-peak times.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I suspect this is partially intended to put pressure on the legislature to deal with the hospital provider fee.

I could see that. But since no GOPer worth their party card is going to touch that fee this year (and their bullshit solution is getting no traction since it slashes maintenance funding for a short-term new construction burst), I can see the transportation interests pulling the trigger on this.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I suspect this is partially intended to put pressure on the legislature to deal with the hospital provider fee.

Colorado needs some serious infrastructure investment. Hell, even Colorado Springs voters eventually approved some additional taxes to pay for badly needed infrastructure improvements.

Maybe the voter route is the best way to go since our political institutions seem so gridlocked. The Denver area in particular has learned over the years that the best way to fund a lot of big projects is to have very specific plans for targeted expenditures that are popular with voters and get them approved with a dedicated funding source that politicians can't screw with later.

[Denver Dweller]

http://www.denverpost.com/news/local/ci_...-to-take-charge-of-needed-sidewalk-fixes

[Scottk]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Oh I think self-driving cars are definitely coming. It may still be decades before they're widespread, but once they are they're going to have a lot of good effects. With widespread self-driving cars:

1. Parking will go away as an important political issue. You'll pull up to wherever you're going, and the self-driving car will go park itself. 100% valet cities.

2. The taxi, carsharing, ride-hailing, and rental car industries will all merge, and boom like never before. They'll all become vastly cheaper to use. Take out the cost of the driver and eliminate expensive special-purpose insurance, and use will skyrocket.

3. After #1 and #2 happen, people will start to wonder why they're paying extra to store and insure their own private self-driving car, when it's just as easy and ultimately less expensive to hail one using an app. This will be a self-perpetuating cycle, as the more robot taxis are out there, the less necessary a private car will become. Private car ownership will plummet even as car use remains high, further reducing parking needs.

4. The same dynamics that make taxis cheaper in #2 will also make transit cheaper. The bus driver is the biggest operating cost for transit. Eliminate that and we'll be able to run buses and trains much more frequently. This is already true on driverless train systems like Vancouver's SkyTrain, which has 5 minute headways even at off-peak times.

5. The loss of tens of millions of blue collar middle class jobs. No more truckers, no more bus drivers, no more taxicab drivers, no delivery drivers.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by Scottk

5. The loss of tens of millions of blue collar middle class jobs. No more truckers, no more bus drivers, no more taxicab drivers, no delivery drivers.

Yep, and we should also be making millions of middle-class semi-professional and professional jobs redundant as well due to automation advancements at the same time. Telemarkers, accountants, auditors, lawyers, technical writers, real estate agents, etc.

We be screwed.

[Denver Dweller]

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/e...BElKTwGoSbqOBYu5F%2FO7W7Amf&t=1455927233

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Scottk

5. The loss of tens of millions of blue collar middle class jobs. No more truckers, no more bus drivers, no more taxicab drivers, no delivery drivers.

Yes. And just like with travel agents, pocket pager salesmen, and video store employees, it's going to happen anyway.