I Plus D Magazine - March April 2018

Driving Forces

General Motors, Ford, and BMW are among the major automakers that have announced plans to release autonomous cars within the next few years; GM is expected to be the first out of the gate with the electric Cruise AV, scheduled for 2019. Meanwhile, self-driving car startup Waymo has been testing its minivans in Phoenix and is about to launch a driverless ride-hailing service for the public. However, the general consensus is that it will take a few decades for AVs to be widely adopted. “The good news is that our cities have some time to prepare for this,” says Joshua Karlin-Resnick, senior associate at transportation consultancy Nelson/Nygaard. Already, design thinkers of varying backgrounds are collaborating on the most effective concepts for these future cities, from the re-designation of roadways to the re-appropriation of parking garages.

Transportation wonks are sounding the alarm now, warning that our societal dependency on automobiles and attendant environmental problems could worsen with the arrival of AVs. “If everyone has their own autonomous vehicle and commutes from the wilds of suburbia, then sends their car off to do errands all day, we’re looking at an autonomous but very congested future,” explains Gerry Tierney, associate principal at Perkins+Will and co-director of the Perkins+Will Mobility Lab. “We’re at a fork in the road, where we can end up with the selfish, hands-free version of the future, or one where we share AVs through a subscription-based model and use them to reclaim the public realm. As designers, we need to put that vision in front of people.” Ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft have jump-started the public policy discussion, and have already made a significant dent in parking demand at airports and downtown garages. The hope is that they reduce the need for car ownership and help solve the “last mile issue”—the gap between mass transit and final destination. However, a recent survey of 4,000 users by researchers at UC Davis found a 6 percent reduction in public transportation among those who used the services, and that a significant number of trips would have not happened at all without them. The authors of the study concluded that Uber and Lyft were likely adding to—not reducing—the amount of traffic in the city.

The looming disruption may help urban planners make the case for “complete streets” and alternative forms of transportation. “We’ve been arguing for decades that we should reduce the parking requirements for developers, develop more public transit, and implement road pricing,” states David King, assistant professor of urban planning at Arizona State University. “None of these policies are unique to automated vehicles, but they can be a catalyst to drive these changes.” In particular, King argues that on-site parking is outdated. “We don’t have to outlaw parking, but we should divorce it from the building itself. New parking should be built to standards that will let it be converted to some other use in the future,” he says. In the meantime, Seattle and San Francisco have created statements of principle to help guide future policy decisions; and Los Angeles and Vancouver, British Columbia, have set up innovation centers within their transit departments to conduct their own experiments.