On January 23, a Waymo autonomous vehicle hit a child in Santa Monica, California. The age and identity of the child are not public, but "minor injuries" were reported. Waymo responded with this blog post where they essentially argued that "if this had been a human driver, the accident would have been worse."
The event occurred when the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph [~9.7 km/h] before contact was made.
To put this in perspective, our peer-reviewed model shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph. This significant reduction in impact speed and severity is a demonstration of the material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver.
All car accidents causing human injury are unfortunate, but car accidents involving AVs are obviously more noteworthy right now. In my mind, it makes sense that a Waymo should be more responsive than a human driver in the face of a pedestrian jumping out into a roadway.
But being "less bad" is not going to win everyone over. The accident is being investigated to ensure "the Waymo AV exercised appropriate caution given, among other things, its proximity to the elementary school during drop off hours, and the presence of young pedestrians and other potential vulnerable road users.”
The headline is suboptimal for AVs, but it's very possible the Waymo did everything it could, and did it better than any one of us could ever do. We shall see.
Cover photo by Andri Aeschlimann on Unsplash
I was surprised to learn this week (I should have already been aware) that France operates seven urban cable cars (or gondolas). Its first was built in Grenoble, at the foot of the Alps, in 1934, and its latest opened in December 2025 in the country's capital region.
Called Câble 1 (or C1), this latest line is 4.5 kilometres long, carries 11,000 passengers per day in 105 gondolas, and connects Villeneuve-Saint-Georges to the Métro Line 8 in Créteil (a southeastern suburb of Paris). The total trip takes 18 minutes, compared to an estimated time of 40 minutes by bus or car.
Importantly, the project only cost €138 million, or about €30.6 million per km, which is about 10-15% of what a subway might have cost based on data from the Grand Paris Express. Estimates for the latter were over €1 billion, meaning it would have likely been a non-starter.
Gondolas are most commonly used to navigate mountainous terrain, but they're increasingly being used in urban settings to stitch together isolated communities. Forty minutes to eighteen minutes is a significant quality-of-life upgrade. I think more cities should be considering cable cars as a possible mobility solution.
Cover photo via Région Île-de-France / Aymeric Guillonneau
Yesterday morning, I took the train from Toronto to Montréal. I'm here for one night for a few meetings. I love trains. You can show up right before departure, the seats are more spacious, and they go downtown to downtown. Plus, there's something romantic to me about whizzing through the landscape. But currently, this trip takes just over 5 hours once you factor in the above stops (see cover photo). That's too long in this day and age, so Canada is, as I understand it, working on a new high-speed rail solution called
On January 23, a Waymo autonomous vehicle hit a child in Santa Monica, California. The age and identity of the child are not public, but "minor injuries" were reported. Waymo responded with this blog post where they essentially argued that "if this had been a human driver, the accident would have been worse."
The event occurred when the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph [~9.7 km/h] before contact was made.
To put this in perspective, our peer-reviewed model shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph. This significant reduction in impact speed and severity is a demonstration of the material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver.
All car accidents causing human injury are unfortunate, but car accidents involving AVs are obviously more noteworthy right now. In my mind, it makes sense that a Waymo should be more responsive than a human driver in the face of a pedestrian jumping out into a roadway.
But being "less bad" is not going to win everyone over. The accident is being investigated to ensure "the Waymo AV exercised appropriate caution given, among other things, its proximity to the elementary school during drop off hours, and the presence of young pedestrians and other potential vulnerable road users.”
The headline is suboptimal for AVs, but it's very possible the Waymo did everything it could, and did it better than any one of us could ever do. We shall see.
Cover photo by Andri Aeschlimann on Unsplash
I was surprised to learn this week (I should have already been aware) that France operates seven urban cable cars (or gondolas). Its first was built in Grenoble, at the foot of the Alps, in 1934, and its latest opened in December 2025 in the country's capital region.
Called Câble 1 (or C1), this latest line is 4.5 kilometres long, carries 11,000 passengers per day in 105 gondolas, and connects Villeneuve-Saint-Georges to the Métro Line 8 in Créteil (a southeastern suburb of Paris). The total trip takes 18 minutes, compared to an estimated time of 40 minutes by bus or car.
Importantly, the project only cost €138 million, or about €30.6 million per km, which is about 10-15% of what a subway might have cost based on data from the Grand Paris Express. Estimates for the latter were over €1 billion, meaning it would have likely been a non-starter.
Gondolas are most commonly used to navigate mountainous terrain, but they're increasingly being used in urban settings to stitch together isolated communities. Forty minutes to eighteen minutes is a significant quality-of-life upgrade. I think more cities should be considering cable cars as a possible mobility solution.
Cover photo via Région Île-de-France / Aymeric Guillonneau
Yesterday morning, I took the train from Toronto to Montréal. I'm here for one night for a few meetings. I love trains. You can show up right before departure, the seats are more spacious, and they go downtown to downtown. Plus, there's something romantic to me about whizzing through the landscape. But currently, this trip takes just over 5 hours once you factor in the above stops (see cover photo). That's too long in this day and age, so Canada is, as I understand it, working on a new high-speed rail solution called
The first phase will connect Ottawa to Montréal (construction is expected to start in 2029), and a subsequent phase will connect Ottawa to Toronto. The top speed will be around 300 km/h, which I'm guessing will result in an effective speed closer to 200 km/h when you factor in stops and any speed limits required near urban centers. With this, the goal is to bring the journey from Toronto to Montréal down to around 3 hours.
One thing to keep in mind is that Ottawa does not lie on the fastest route between Toronto and Montréal; it adds about 70 km. But it's of course necessary. In theory, an express route with no stops running TGV or Shinkansen-like trains could bring the journey time down closer to 2 hours. But that's not what is being planned from what I have read. Regardless, 3 hours is still a big deal and a meaningful improvement. It makes the trip faster than flying, and certainly faster than driving.
Could current drive times ultimately change with autonomous vehicles? Maybe, but it's unlikely to be by this much. I hate long road trips and the same would be true even if a robot were driving me. So I look forward to one day — in my 50s? — doing this journey in 3 hours. If we could get it down to 2 hours and change, that much better. That's a trip worth taking for a night out or just to stock up on bagels.
The first phase will connect Ottawa to Montréal (construction is expected to start in 2029), and a subsequent phase will connect Ottawa to Toronto. The top speed will be around 300 km/h, which I'm guessing will result in an effective speed closer to 200 km/h when you factor in stops and any speed limits required near urban centers. With this, the goal is to bring the journey from Toronto to Montréal down to around 3 hours.
One thing to keep in mind is that Ottawa does not lie on the fastest route between Toronto and Montréal; it adds about 70 km. But it's of course necessary. In theory, an express route with no stops running TGV or Shinkansen-like trains could bring the journey time down closer to 2 hours. But that's not what is being planned from what I have read. Regardless, 3 hours is still a big deal and a meaningful improvement. It makes the trip faster than flying, and certainly faster than driving.
Could current drive times ultimately change with autonomous vehicles? Maybe, but it's unlikely to be by this much. I hate long road trips and the same would be true even if a robot were driving me. So I look forward to one day — in my 50s? — doing this journey in 3 hours. If we could get it down to 2 hours and change, that much better. That's a trip worth taking for a night out or just to stock up on bagels.
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