Yeah I think scribbling out the 30% with a 100% and saying “roundabouts” would make for a pretty good punchline. I figured I’d get complaints about AI being quick and low cost compared to road construction, which is why I ended up going with the “bikes” punchline instead.

Additionally (I still love roundabouts) there can be a max-wait-time problem when there is heavy traffic in one direction.

If a basketball game ends there can be 20,000 cars bumper-to-bumper trying to leave. Let’s say (looking at a map) they’re going left-to-right through an intersection.

If there’s 1 car trying to go top-to-bottom…

• If the intersection is a stoplight it doesn’t matter. Even if there were 20 million left-to-right cars; it’s still a 5 or 10min wait for the top-to-bottom car.
• If the intersection was a stop sign it also doesn’t matter; it’ll be the left-to-right cars turn then the top-to-bottom cars turn
• At a roundabout though (at least in the US), vehicles entering on the left always take priority over vehicles entering from the bottom. So the top-to-bottom guy could be there all night

Game days on my campus can cause a 2 hour wait on a 1 mile road. My campus is unusual, but just FYI absolutely insane wait times do happen regularly in some cities.

I mean I actually kinda agree with them. I don’t like vacuum chambers and some of the stuff on here really does ignore the practicality of people’s situations.

I’m on here for the good arguments and laughs, not getting in so deep that I think everyone can and should sell their car tomorrow.

Sorry if it came across that way, I don’t mean it pessimistically. The improvements the article talks about are great.

I just imagine asking random people “Is a 30% reduction in traffic exciting?” And they say “Yes–BUT only if you do it with AI and high-tech stuff Otherwise I couldn’t care less”.

Imagining that kind of response is hilarious to me.