Will self-driving cars just encourage sprawl to the point that commuting becomes annoying again?
But carli has a good point: transit can be made self-driving as well. If you don’t need a motorman, it becomes cheaper to run shorter rail vehicles more frequently. If you have enough vehicles running, you can also change up the routings, have more “lines” that are combinations of parts of formerly distinct lines. Maybe move from a “train” paradigm to a “pod” technology, where pods carry 10-20 people rather than 40-80 in a rail car.
Rail has certain advantages over rubber tires. Easy to power electrically without worrying about care and feeding of batteries. Inherently self-guiding. Easier to do high speeds as compared to cars. When I lived outside of Philly, you could look through the front windows of the trains into the driver’s cab and see the digital speedometer. It was surprising to see those 1950s-era railcars get up to 65-70 mph between towns a few miles apart at most when the streets connecting the towns had speed limits of 30-40 mph.
Less friction compared to rubber tires on asphalt. (Believe it or not, a single person can push a modern rail car with roller bearings by hand: try that with a bus or truck!). Also, tracks tend to be visible and it’s obvious where stops are, so people tend to actually use rail transit. Self advertising.
