Self-Driving Cars Don't Exist But They Still Need Subsidies

The Daily News has an opinion piece that discusses the shutdown of the L train in New York City for eighteen months in order to repair damage to the tunnel and the line that resulted from Hurricane Sandy. The writers, Levi Tillman and Colleen McCormick, think this is a perfect opportunity for New York to once again become a "pioneer in transportation technology" by offering an "autonomous vehicle-based taxi system in the tract of Brooklyn served by the L". They somehow believe that these vehicles "could dramatically reduce traffic and pollution by means of electrification, carpooling, and superior routing". Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure adding a bunch of taxis on the road will not reduce traffic and I'm not sure they cut pollution any more than the current buses in New York, even if all the taxis were electric. And there is nothing to stop people from car-pooling right now - an autonomous vehicle does nothing to improve that. According to their proposal, the vehicles will simply be delivering passengers to existing transit hubs. In addition, they admit that the city would need to update the roads to be "clearly signed and demarcated". But, as Atrios over at Eschaton notes there is one other critical element to this proposal. According to the plan, "Here’s how a rollout would work. New York City would invite one or more companies planning to test autonomous vehicles to deploy a fleet of autonomous taxis in Brooklyn — soon. The city could offer heavily subsidized rides to anyone wanting to cross to and from Manhattan." As Atrios says, "And people wonder why I obsess about this stuff. Let technology that doesn't even exist solve a problem it wouldn't be capable of solving even if it did! With subsidies!" That's right, the plan requires the city to improve signage and then give subsidies in order to create an opportunity for a technology that has yet to be proven. And all because Tesla, Google, Apple, Uber, Lyft and others need to get some return on their investment on an unproven technology.