Thread by @fawfulfan

I'm just going to come out and say it:

Autonomous, self-driving cars, as they are being pitched to us, would be an environmental disaster.

One of the main benefits of the self-driving era, supposedly, is that it will drastically cut the need for parking, or even ownership of a car. You can just send away a car and summon it at will.

Think about what that actually means.

Imagine millions of cars that, instead of being parked somewhere, are all on the streets, constantly driving, whether or not there's someone in them.

That would make every problem cars currently cause worse.

"But what if they were all electric?"

Well, assuming we've fully decarbonized the electric grid by then (which is unlikely), cars cause way more environmental problems than just carbon emissions, from tire and road salt pollution to congestion. m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a…

"But wait! There would be *fewer* cars on the road because not everyone would need one, they could just pay to use someone else's while they're not using it!"

So basically, like a car version of Airbnb. You know, that thing that's destroying cities. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Look, I'm not saying there won't be any benefits to self-driving vehicles. They could make roads safer. They could make transportation more accessible for people with disabilities. Those are good things.

But any techbro who tells you that self-driving cars are going to make cities more livable or transportation more efficient is absolutely full of BS.

We already know how to make cities more livable and efficient: reduce car usage. Not increase it. Reduce it.

And increasingly, we are seeing corporate lobbyists and astroturfers use the bromide of "self-driving cars are almost here" as an excuse for NOT investing in car-reducing upgrades cities actually need, like high-density housing and light rail.

Look at Nashville. The city came up with a model 21st-century light rail design. Then the Koch network spent millions successfully persuading voters to kill it, keeping people in their cars and buying Koch oil.

The rationale? "Self-driving cars!" nytimes.com/2018/06/19/cli…

Our nationwide infrastructure system is completely f'd up by the canonization of the automobile. We wrecked our cities, wrecked our environment, and made inequality worse by building our whole culture around needing a car.

We are not going to get out of this with better cars.