It depends really. The bus system is good for getting to/from downtown and few other things and I use it for that cause parking downtown is a pain. It just sucks for the commute I have through downtown and back out to the suburbs. I worked from home for years, originally the IT folk kept getting moved out by the engineers then there just wasn’t desk space so they paid for my cable modem. When I started doing the exact same job but with a different paycheck provider we still didn’t get proper office space and since as a group we had people in Puget Sound, St. Louis, Philly, Florida, etc having the office to go to was kinda useless and there still wasn’t space for us in Puget Sound.
Now I am directly billable which means I have to have an on site desk so back to the commute even though the rest of my team is now in St. Louis. (and in no way do I want to move back there)
Thank you for sharing an inside look. The bus system sounds doable if we find do-gooder social justice and teaching jobs downtown. Where else. As long as the city links work to the neighborhood — even LA is doing it now — it won’t feel completely insane. A bicycle in Seattle looks too scary unless it’s attached to a propeller and a single-passenger airship.
Really one of the most exciting things about the potential of self-driving cars isn’t that they could allow drivers to take a break—it’s that they could allow people who wouldn’t otherwise be allowed to operate a car to get around on their own. Elderly people, physically handicapped people, legally blind people, that sort of thing. So I like the idea at least.
In practice it’s going to have to be phased in gradually as we work out the technical challenges. My guess is that the first fully-autonomous cars to hit the market will be used to shuttle people around areas with tightly controlled road conditions and low speed limits. A system for moving residents around a retirement community would be the perfect testing ground.
The northern suburbs to downtown are okay for cycling. South of downtown is a deathtrap.
The buses aren’t bad, but seem to be getting more and more expensive more and more quickly. And I’m never taking the one that goes near my work.
The light rail is a joke. Always 10 years away, like @TobinL says.
The do-goody work is at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but I’ve heard it’s hard to get hired there right now.
EDIT:
Here’s a map of all the stuff they’re ‘proposing’.
And legal questions. If the software is the legal driver and injures you, is it charged with vehicular assault? Sued for negligence? Is the coder liable? There was probably more than one.
There are some folks involved who are accountable to shareholders, not voters. Some are thinking mainly about ROI, not the elderly, unless for marketing.
Thank you! I appreciate the guidance.
I’m a direct services and community-based. There’s usually something. Adjunct faculty too maybe.
Yes, that too. I imagine the liability question will work in a similar manner to “what happens when there’s an accident caused by mechanical failure rather than driver error.”
One thing that may happen is that the injured or wrongly killed party is left without a remedy.
That routinely happens already with human drivers too. The best we can probably hope for is a set of laws that theoretically designate legal liability for any accidents incurred.
Law enforcement officers haven’t yet investigated alleged criminal acts by software with status of “legal driver” of a car. It’s without precedent.
Zoiks! 
But accidents caused by design flaw aren’t without precedent. They currently account for a small minority of accidents, but they happen.
Yes, that line of argument might make criminal conduct almost impossible to investigate.
There are fewer, mainly civil remedies. It’s more quantifiable and predictable for (primarily corporate) defendants. It’s more difficult and expensive for the injured party.
I think we agree.
This topic was automatically closed after 374 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
