Bloomberg recently interviewed the outgoing head of San Francisco's transportation agency -- Jeffrey Tumlin -- about the impact that self-driving cars have had on the city. Along with maybe Phoenix, San Francisco has the most direct experience. Robotaxis have already been operating in the city for four years.
It's an interesting interview. On the one hand, robotaxis have, according to Tumlin, gotten better than most humans at "seeing" and predicting the behaviours of pedestrians. They offer slow and steady law-abiding rides, which is arguably not how must humans drive. This is a safety improvement.
But on the other hand, robotaxis still represent a fundamentally inefficient use of roadway space. They take up just as much space as human-operated cars, but importantly, they offer a less frustrating driving experience. Meaning they tend to induce demand, much like ride-hailing platforms.
In a 2018 study by San Francisco County, they found that roughly 50% of the increase in vehicle miles traveled in the region was due to Uber and Lyft. So not surprisingly, there are important things that will need to be figured out as robotaxis continue to spread across our cities.
I also find the comparison in the interview between San Francisco and Phoenix to be particularly interesting. The former is walkable. The latter is not. And this seems to be creating a different experience with self-driving cars because robo or not, in Phoenix, traveling by car is pretty much the only option.
For the full interview, click here.
A few months ago, one of my old professors from architecture school -- Phu Hoang -- reached out to me through this blog. That's one of the benefits of writing publicly -- it becomes your calling card. In this case, it had been at least 16 years since I was in his design studio.
We connected over a call. He told me about his and Rachely's firm, MODU Architecture. And he let me know that he's no longer teaching at Penn. He is now the Head of Architecture of the Knowlton School at Ohio State University.
Then, following the call, he was kind enough to send me a copy of his new book, Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism:
A few days ago, Waymo announced (on X) that its robotaxis are now doing more than 50,000 paid trips every week across Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
This means that the company is getting an average of 300 bookings every hour or five bookings every minute. And if you add in Austin, where it's currently offering a limited number of rides, the company has completed a total of over one million rider-only trips.
In the announcement, Waymo also went on to say that "fully autonomous ride-hailing is a reality and a preferred mobility option for people navigating their cities every day." All of this is something.
But perhaps the most important takeaway, right now, is that the company continues to claim -- by way of a study from Swiss Re -- that its robotaxis are already significantly safer than human-driven vehicles.
I don't personally know if this is true, but it's not hard to believe. I mean, human drivers suck. And assuming it is true, we should all want more robotaxis on the road, because statistically, we would be significantly safer.
The problem, though, is that autonomous vehicles suffer from a perception bias. We're all looking for them to fail. If a robotaxi gets into an accident, it's news. But if a human driver gets into an accident, it's standard operating procedure. It'll be interesting to see how and when this flips.
Bloomberg recently interviewed the outgoing head of San Francisco's transportation agency -- Jeffrey Tumlin -- about the impact that self-driving cars have had on the city. Along with maybe Phoenix, San Francisco has the most direct experience. Robotaxis have already been operating in the city for four years.
It's an interesting interview. On the one hand, robotaxis have, according to Tumlin, gotten better than most humans at "seeing" and predicting the behaviours of pedestrians. They offer slow and steady law-abiding rides, which is arguably not how must humans drive. This is a safety improvement.
But on the other hand, robotaxis still represent a fundamentally inefficient use of roadway space. They take up just as much space as human-operated cars, but importantly, they offer a less frustrating driving experience. Meaning they tend to induce demand, much like ride-hailing platforms.
In a 2018 study by San Francisco County, they found that roughly 50% of the increase in vehicle miles traveled in the region was due to Uber and Lyft. So not surprisingly, there are important things that will need to be figured out as robotaxis continue to spread across our cities.
I also find the comparison in the interview between San Francisco and Phoenix to be particularly interesting. The former is walkable. The latter is not. And this seems to be creating a different experience with self-driving cars because robo or not, in Phoenix, traveling by car is pretty much the only option.
For the full interview, click here.
A few months ago, one of my old professors from architecture school -- Phu Hoang -- reached out to me through this blog. That's one of the benefits of writing publicly -- it becomes your calling card. In this case, it had been at least 16 years since I was in his design studio.
We connected over a call. He told me about his and Rachely's firm, MODU Architecture. And he let me know that he's no longer teaching at Penn. He is now the Head of Architecture of the Knowlton School at Ohio State University.
Then, following the call, he was kind enough to send me a copy of his new book, Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism:
A few days ago, Waymo announced (on X) that its robotaxis are now doing more than 50,000 paid trips every week across Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
This means that the company is getting an average of 300 bookings every hour or five bookings every minute. And if you add in Austin, where it's currently offering a limited number of rides, the company has completed a total of over one million rider-only trips.
In the announcement, Waymo also went on to say that "fully autonomous ride-hailing is a reality and a preferred mobility option for people navigating their cities every day." All of this is something.
But perhaps the most important takeaway, right now, is that the company continues to claim -- by way of a study from Swiss Re -- that its robotaxis are already significantly safer than human-driven vehicles.
I don't personally know if this is true, but it's not hard to believe. I mean, human drivers suck. And assuming it is true, we should all want more robotaxis on the road, because statistically, we would be significantly safer.
The problem, though, is that autonomous vehicles suffer from a perception bias. We're all looking for them to fail. If a robotaxi gets into an accident, it's news. But if a human driver gets into an accident, it's standard operating procedure. It'll be interesting to see how and when this flips.
The typical approach to modern building design is to have clearly defined boundaries between interior and exterior spaces. The outside is the outside. And the inside is a climate-controlled space that is, for the most part, sealed to the outside.
Most of us spend the vast majority of our lives in these latter spaces. In fact, since the advent of modernism and the International Style over a century ago, the general idea has been that these spaces can and should be mostly the same.
HVAC systems make it so that you don't really need to worry about context or the environment. What works in Toronto can work in Phoenix. You just need to dial up your cooling loads.
This is so much the case that whenever I'm in a city with a fairly benign climate, such as somewhere in California, I always find myself fascinated by the fluidity between interior and exterior spaces. It's such a foreign concept to me that it stands out: "Wait, how is this not sealed?
Indoor urbanism, on the other hand, makes the argument that this binary approach is the wrong way to think about spaces. Here's an excerpt from a recent Metropolis article about MODU:
They call this approach “indoor urbanism,” which privileges the blurred boundary between what has traditionally been considered interior space and exterior space. This in-between space–straddling open and closed, artificial and natural–deserves architects’ keen attention, especially as the planet warms. “Indoor urbanism recognizes that architecture and cities are situated on an environmental continuum, as a matter of degrees rather than absolutes,” write Hoang and Rotem in Field Guide.
Examples of this thinking can be found throughout their work. This project in Jackson, Wyoming is one of my favorites both because I love Jackson and because it's a cold and snowy place. And yet, even in this climate zone, their design includes for several "semi-exterior areas" that serve to connect you to nature.
This is a decidedly different way to think about architecture and urbanism. But as our climate crisis intensifies, it's only going to become more relevant.
The typical approach to modern building design is to have clearly defined boundaries between interior and exterior spaces. The outside is the outside. And the inside is a climate-controlled space that is, for the most part, sealed to the outside.
Most of us spend the vast majority of our lives in these latter spaces. In fact, since the advent of modernism and the International Style over a century ago, the general idea has been that these spaces can and should be mostly the same.
HVAC systems make it so that you don't really need to worry about context or the environment. What works in Toronto can work in Phoenix. You just need to dial up your cooling loads.
This is so much the case that whenever I'm in a city with a fairly benign climate, such as somewhere in California, I always find myself fascinated by the fluidity between interior and exterior spaces. It's such a foreign concept to me that it stands out: "Wait, how is this not sealed?
Indoor urbanism, on the other hand, makes the argument that this binary approach is the wrong way to think about spaces. Here's an excerpt from a recent Metropolis article about MODU:
They call this approach “indoor urbanism,” which privileges the blurred boundary between what has traditionally been considered interior space and exterior space. This in-between space–straddling open and closed, artificial and natural–deserves architects’ keen attention, especially as the planet warms. “Indoor urbanism recognizes that architecture and cities are situated on an environmental continuum, as a matter of degrees rather than absolutes,” write Hoang and Rotem in Field Guide.
Examples of this thinking can be found throughout their work. This project in Jackson, Wyoming is one of my favorites both because I love Jackson and because it's a cold and snowy place. And yet, even in this climate zone, their design includes for several "semi-exterior areas" that serve to connect you to nature.
This is a decidedly different way to think about architecture and urbanism. But as our climate crisis intensifies, it's only going to become more relevant.
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