Autonomous vehicles, railroads, public policy and not repeating past mistakes

I wish to expand upon and clarify some of the points I made in my previous column on autonomous vehicles, in light of a Brookings Institution forum on the subject I attended yesterday and of some of the comments on last week’s post. First of all, I never intended to suggest that autonomous cars will completely replace traditional cars. I do believe that they will eventually come to dominate in urban and suburban areas, but rural areas will almost certainly retain a number of traditional vehicles due to the many varying needs and uses that rural residents have for cars and trucks.

Secondly, I do not believe, nor do I advocate, that self-driving cars or any new technology be forced upon consumers, by government or by industry. I do believe, however, that government should incentivize the adoption of technologies that reduce pollution and other negative environmental impacts, including climate change, through mechanisms that result in the more detrimental technology costing more to buy and use than the more benign. Those who wish to continue using more polluting technologies may continue to do so, but they will pay a high price for so doing and they will consequently be few in number. Electrically-powered shared vehicles, be they autonomous or not, have the potential to greatly reduce the negative impacts of car dependence in urban areas. Thus, government should promote their development and adoption in a manner consistent with comprehensive transportation and land use planning and with them playing a complimentary role to transit, walking and bicycling.

Government should also have a strong role in making sure that new vehicle technologies are safe. Autonomous vehicles should not be permitted on public roads until their safety record exceeds that of the current vehicle fleet. My suggestion that autonomous vehicles have the potential to greatly benefit urban areas — as part of a comprehensive, wisely planned transportation system — should not be conflated with a call for a headlong rush into adopting them without appropriate scrutiny. This applies to auto-operated trains as well, though rail transit lines that run on autopilot are considerably widespread and proven.

But the larger point to emphasize, and one that most concerns trains and their supporters, is that the coming shift in the transportation landscape — whether it is one decade away or five — presents an opportunity to correct past mistakes through better planning and more balanced policymakers. Americans do not have the same quality of transportation choices — particularly in terms of passenger trains and transit — that Europeans and others enjoy, in large part due to a lack of planning at a time of major technological change in the transportation sector — that which occurred as a result of the inexpensive mass availability of automobiles. 

Federal and state governments responded to this upheaval by pouring public funds into building out roads and highways to accommodate cars without taking steps to ensure that Americans would continue to have other convenient and attractive choices for getting around. Privately-owned railroads and streetcar/interurban lines were left to fend for themselves against massively subsidized competition, and government only stepped in to save what little service was left. State and local governments took over transit systems starting in the 1940s and commuter rail systems starting in the 1970s, and the federal government created Amtrak to preserve a basic intercity passenger train network and unburden the private railroads in 1970. By contrast, governments in Europe, Japan and elsewhere continued to invest in rail infrastructure and to carry out multi-modal transportation plans at the same time as they built and expanded roads, highways and airports. 

I submit that the rollout of safe and commercially viable autonomous cars and trucks — whenever it occurs — will reshape transportation as much as the advent of the automobile did nearly a century ago. This time, however, it will be up to planners and policymakers at all levels to ensure that technology is used to deliver the kind of places we want to live in and the quality of travel choices we deserve — instead of winding up with places being built to serve the technology, as is the case with the auto-oriented bulk of our built environment today. Governments will also have to encourage cooperation between autonomous truck fleet owners and freight railroads so that self-driving trucks do not outcompete trains, but instead deliver loads to and from railheads for the first and last several miles of their journeys.

If governments fail to start making plans now to shape a better transportation future, then railroads stand to once again be disadvantaged by a new technology. But if railroads, transit agencies, other railroad industry organizations and their backers work with governments and the autonomous vehicle industry in pursuit of a future where the two modes have a mutually enhancing relationship, then we could revolutionize our transportation system in a way that benefits all concerned. 

Even if the breakthrough point for autonomous vehicles is still several decades away, it’s never too early to start putting plans and policies in place to ensure that the resulting disruption delivers greater benefits than drawbacks.