Skip to main content

Expert voices chime in on how will autonomous cars change cities

autonomous vehicles urban changes google self driving car
The mandate for self-driving cars seemingly falls short of only death and taxes. What isn’t so sure is how cities full of autonomous vehicles will be different from today.  Wired recently polled urban planners and futurists on their views of cities with driverless cars.

No one is questioning that autonomous vehicles are coming, though the timing isn’t set. Despite Tesla’s recent announcement that as of October 10 all its vehicles have the hardware needed for full self-driving, sufficiently developed and tested software and regulatory approval are at least a few years off. All involved assure that fully self-driving cars will cut vehicle accident rates but 90 percent or more — the portion attributed to human error. Areas where futurists and urban planners differ include what cities and suburbs will look like, what types of vehicles will be automated, and what will happen to structures and spaces now used for car storage and traffic.

Related Videos

City spaces

Most predict cities will be less congested. Carlo Ratti, Director of MIT Senseable City Lab said, “Vast areas of urban land currently occupied by parking lots and roads could be reinvented for a whole new spectrum of social functions.” Ratti said. However, he warns if self-driving becomes less expensive than choices like buses or subways, “our cities could easily become gridlocked.”

Audi Urban Futures Initiative’s Lisa Futing says, “The biggest change to the urban fabric will be to parking infrastructure. Parking will be moved indoors and outside of city centers, freeing up outdoor lots and spaces for development and public space. ”

The burbs

Driverless cars will likely impact urban and suburban areas differently. Eric Guerra of the University of Pennsylvania thinks urban centers will be affected positively, but he’s not so sure about suburbs. “If you’re living in a low-density suburban community, they’re finding it will increase travel when you use existing travel models.”

Suburban lifestyles could change in desirable ways, says Kinder Baumgardner of SWA: “The one inconvenience, driving, goes away. There’s going to be more demand to live in those places.”

It’s not just cars

Anthony Townsend, author of Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, thinks more attention should be paid to autonomous vehicles other than cars. ”It’s actually trash trucks, trailers, delivery vans, taxis and other vehicles that take up much of the space in cities. They will be completely transformed by automated technologies.” Townsend argues that those changes plus autonomous mass transit will make cities more efficient and liveable.

David Ory of the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Commission agrees with Townsend. Ory says land use for all types of transportation will be a positive result of driverless and other forms of automated transportation including subways, buses, and bicycles.

Garages, driveways, and parking spaces

Kinder Baumgardner of SWA focuses on space gain in urban centers and in suburbs. He foresees that fewer cars in urban core areas will allow parking lots, parking spaces, and garages in the city all repurposed for housing, retail, and public spaces. In the ‘burbs, common spaces and walking paths will proliferate as garages, driveways, and cul-de-sacs are no longer needed. “You’ll get to know your neighbors better,” Baumgardner says.

Audi’s Lisa Futing concurs, noting that even in-door parking lots in cities will need less land. “Lots them will be able to accommodate 60 percent more cars thanks to smaller driving lanes, greater maneuverability, and a lack of need for stairs and elevators.”

Editors' Recommendations

Officers confused as they pull over an empty self-driving car
Cruise

In what appears to be the first incident of its kind, police officers recently pulled over a self-driving car with no one inside it.

The incident, which took place on a street in San Francisco earlier this month, was caught on video by a passing pedestrian. It shows several traffic cops pondering about how to handle the incident after stopping the vehicle for failing to have its front lights on while driving at night.

Read more
How a big blue van from 1986 paved the way for self-driving cars
Lineup of all 5 Navlab autonomous vehicles.

In 1986, a blue Chevy van often cruised around the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania near Carnegie Mellon University. To the casual observer, nothing about it appeared out of the ordinary. Most people would pass by it without noticing the camcorder peeking out from its roof, or the fact that there were no hands on the steering wheel.

But if any passerby had stopped to inspect the van and peer into its interior, they would have realized it was no ordinary car. This was the world's first self-driving automobile: A pioneering work of computer science and engineering somehow built in a world where fax machines were still the predominant way to send documents, and most phones still had cords. But despite being stuck in an era where technology hadn't caught up to humanity's imagination quite yet, the van -- and the researchers crammed into it -- helped to lay the groundwork for all the Teslas, Waymos, and self-driving Uber prototypes cruising around our streets in 2022.

Read more
CES is hosting a high-speed autonomous car race today. Watch it here
autonomous race car

Over the past few years, CES has slowly become more and more of a car show, but here in 2022, things are kicking up a notch. In addition to the usual slate of automotive tech exhibitors, this year's CES is set to feature a fully autonomous car race.

The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC), as it's called, is today, January 7, at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and will feature competing university teams from all around the world. Much like Formula E was meant to boost the development of electric car technologies, the IAC is designed to advance autonomous vehicle tech and usher in a world where autonomous vehicles are both ubiquitous and safe.

Read more