As cycling and livable city advocates we must fortify our city of Dunedin, against the coming onslaught of autonomous vehicles.
With Elon Musk now firmly pulling the strings of the President Elect, autonomous vehicles (AV) within a few years will be ploughing the streets of new zealand cities and killing small retailers thru streets favorable to AVs. Dunedin may be a sleepy town far away from America but our history has many parallels with America and Europe as like them, we did once have effective cable cars and electric trolley busses - highly efficient transportation for a densely packed city which has given way to urban sprawl as people demand cheaper property away from dying urban centers ironically killed by cars.
Dunedin and New Zealand is at a juncture. Do we elect car centric government officials like
Simpleton Brown who will make New Zealand cities more like sterile America or do we take strong and important actions to make Dunedin a strong hold against autonomous vehicles - which may at first appearances seem appealing but ultimately will probably make our city less vibrant and livable for humans.
Autonomous vehicles are coming and quickly. It was only 10 years ago that I wrote a tech column article about my experiences operating the “new” self driving Tesla model S. The Tesla model Y is now the most sold vehicle in the world and has many autopilot features available. The shroud of electric cars may seem more environmentally palatable but ultimately they are just another hunk of metal which makes life more difficult as someone who prefers far more healthy and environmentally friendly modes of transport like walking and cycling.
Cycle advocacy in Dunedin has never been at a more important juncture to make our city a great livable place like the exemplary european city of Utrecht, Netherlands in this video. We have time to enact reduced speed limits and elect officials who won’t create cities hostile to bikes and pedestrians.
Dunedin needs to get infrastructure in place to inoculate itself against the coming onslaught of single person vehicles driven by computers.
Myself as someone involved in the tech industry, I can say every statement about the future in this video is highly realistic and likely and have seen much of this first hand in the US and Canada. Please watch and share thus important video. It paints a bleak picture of the future where we automatons are pawns to the propaganda of car companies. But instead we have options to prevent Dunedin being engulfed by self driving cars and the consequent mobility limits for pedestrians and bikes. This 54 minute video by “Not Just Bikes” is highly engaging and makes many important statements that affect mobility advocates. While self driving may seem some time away in Dunedin just recall how quickly we went from having no smart phone in 2007 to everyone owning a smart phone by 2012. Please add this video about city design and Autonomous cars, to your watch list and join the conversation below with your comments.
How Self Driving cars will destroy our cities and what to do about it:
