Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/19/delivery-drones-could-hitch-ri.html
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3 Likes
They’d better be designing them to carry exact change, because corporations don’t need any more free rides. Parasites.
21 Likes
At some point we’re going to finally learn that allowing private corporations to benefit off public infrastructure while they continually avoid supporting that via their tax dollars is a stupid idea…
Yep. Also… jinx! 
17 Likes
Can’t help but think there’s some other public service with fixed routes that actively delivers items… So hard to put my finger on it.
Maybe some service could be provided, for a small fee, say 52 cents? That delivers small packages, like envelopes?
34 Likes
I really do not want to live in a world where drones are buzzing everywhere I go outside.
Airplane noise is bad enough as it is.
14 Likes
If the drone owners pay the transit service, I’d be fine with it. Otherwise, parasites as noted above.
9 Likes
Does San Francisco have an unusually punctual and reliable bus system, or has no one involved in this thought exercise actually had to deal with relying on public transit?
3 Likes
I suspect that drone corporation lobbyists will somehow demand a rebate, a tax write off, or a bail-out for using public transit.
4 Likes
Plus, drone charging points on the bus tops. Paid for, of course.
2 Likes
Welp, too bad we’ve decimated the public transit system in almost all of our major cities GOOD IDEA THOUGH
8 Likes
Not if the right wing maintains control over education and political lobbying (i.e. is allowed to continue its relentless propaganda overload, marginalising and crowding out all sane voices).
Those who know it, know it. Those who don’t are rarely granted any chance to learn it.
(Sorry - feeling even more pessimistic/cynical than usual, today.)
2 Likes
I predict porch pirates changing tactics and becoming bus burglars. Maybe nabbing drones as a bus passes under a bridge or scaffold?
7 Likes
Most bus systems in the world already use GPS trackers available via an API so the drones would decide in real time where to go and not based on bus schedules. It’s actually kind of fun to think about: you would know your bus is really stuck in traffic when a swarm of drones on the roof decided to abandon it in all directions. That would make a nice vignette in the opening of a sci fi movie.
11 Likes
They can’t even figure out how to reliably attach bicycles to SF MUNI buses. The spring mounted stabilizer bar that holds the bike upright somehow came off my bike, so that the the U shaped extrusion holding the wheels up was suddenly a lever, bending my rims so much that they had to be replaced, which cost more than the bike was worth.
The old saying about white van goods that fell off the back of a truck will be replaced by “fell off a bus or a drone”.
2 Likes
The world is full of people who don’t ride or own bicycles but can think of 1000 novel ways to attach bicycles to things.
1 Like
So… The Amazon drone hops a cross town bus to make it’s delivery?
I can just imaging a bus with a roof top of drones.
Of course the drones will have the equivalent of touchless pay to pay their bus fare, right?
1 Like
Should all of those kids get off of your lawn too?
If my lawn is my neighborhood, my town, my city, my forrest, my canyon, my river, my bay, my ocean, then yeah, get the fuck off my lawn.
5 Likes
Even on a bad day I rarely have to wait more than 20 minutes for a Muni bus. “Getting across the city in an hour or less” seems pretty plausible to me considering that they’d basically be mapping the most efficient course in real time and would be flying a good chunk of the way. A bigger metropolitan area with less transit (Los Angeles, for example) probably wouldn’t work as well.
5 Likes
This is something cyclists and skateboarders figured out a long time ago. Just sayin. 
2 Likes
