We can’t forget about mass transit when we talk about the ‘future of transportation’

"It can’t just be flying cars and jetpacks"

Interesting read at the Verge.

...Maybe it has to do with the obstacles that stand in the way of making public transportation better. Typically, public transportation involves citywide systems that are complex and require a lot of money to be operated. They’re already deeply embedded — literally, in the case of New York’s subway system — in the infrastructure of cities, which makes optimization and electrification and disruption and all of the other buzzy “-tion” words that Silicon Valley and the tech industry love more difficult. Fixing public transportation requires cooperation, planning, and the acceptance of the community. Ideas are voted on. Careers are wagered. That sometimes makes it hard to separate the ideas from the politics.

Meanwhile, flashy “future of transportation” ideas enjoy the freedom of being removed from those burdens. They’re usually proposed with the caveat that mundane problems like “regulation” or “funding” will naturally be solved along the way if the idea is good enough. But most of these companies are incentivized to frame it this way. It’s solving the technology that’s the real problem, the technology companies tell us. Of course the regulators will work with our ingenious idea, the engineers say. And if not, we’ll just show up anyway and force their hand...

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/12/17346014/future-of-transportation-public-buses-pedestrians-jetpack