Read this interesting article about Amsterdam overcrowding of bikes, of abandoning of old broken down bikes, and no adequate budget there to deal with how to improve the situation. For all of the glorious reviews of biking in Amsterdam, they have the parallel equivalent of car traffic jams in the US, but with bikes instead and on even narrower roads.  This BBC article reports that nearly 25% of all deadly accidents there involve cyclists.
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BBC Story here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-20277668/amsterdam-struggles-with-more-bikes-than-people

Holland's Amsterdam is heavily hailed in the US as a cyclist panacea by nearly all bike enthusiasts writing personal blogs and blogs for organizations.  I have yet to see a negative review, the bias is very strong.  And this because Amsterdam was able to realize about  67% population split of citizens who regularly use bikes to travel to work and school, instead of using the automobile.  Sounds very good on the surface of it.  This decision is rightfully hailed as a healthy choice and an air quality win, but there are ramifications to the big picture of transportation because of this prevailing policy choice in Holland.  Even the Prime Minister sometimes gets a photo op riding his bike to work once every few years, but dark tinted window black cars follow close by/behind.  Is this really saving the planet?  

Amsterdam politicians chose many decades ago to ignore the car craze, felt it was jamming their system (it was) and instead campaigned heavily to let bikes prevail instead.  Actively campaigning to get people on their bikes, and why not? It's flat, and they certainly did not have the room to build larger roads to accommodate large volumes of cars.  As a result, cars in Amsterdam now travel pretty much at the SAME SPEEDS as bikes, because they literally trail a bike or two, while they share the narrow road, and with bikes also coming the other way they can't pass... so they essentially can't go any faster than the bikes.  End result?  Very little advantage of taking a car except to escape the weather or have enhanced travel accommodations such as privacy and carrying larger loads of people or cargo.  So cars are used less.  It has a very high hassle factor... by design.  San Francisco has also opted to make using a car in that city have a very high hassle factor. Parking is scarce and very expensive. Only the very wealthy will participate without an impact.  Vehicle lanes have also been converted to favor bikes and buses. It is difficult to drive your car in SF.

The US has car problems and traffic jams in many major cities.  Amsterdam has bike problems and traffic jams also, and the minority car population there are severely impacted by bicycle users.  It is nearly a flip flop of the situation we have in the US where bikes are impacted by cars because bike facilities are lacking, and in Holland, cars are impacted by bikes because the streets are full of them, literally.  

Surely there is a transportation model where ALL MODES OF TRAFFIC can co-exist.  It will take more space.  It will take a redesign and a new paradigm. It will not succeed as long as certain planners and policy makers try and undermine the automobile systems in place.   Current US efforts with Complete Streets are often missing the mark because bike fatality rates are on the rise. Safety is being ignored.  This is because some transportation planners are not addressing the big picture, but have been neglecting vehicle congestion, delays, and level of service, where, if neglected, will increase delay, and possibly road rage for some, and compromise the safety of more vulnerable modes of traffic like bikes and especially pedestrians. An angry driver is a dangerous driver.  The psychology of people should not be ignored.

The US should be leading the way to come up with the solutions to make transportation safe for all modes of travel. To this day, we have failed to eliminate the nearly 40,000 fatalities in vehicle related accidents every year in the US.  I believe it to be because there is not a consensus of what to do, and competing interests, especially bike and pedestrian advocates, who are not considering the side-effects of blindly installing "complete streets" when it is not necessarily complete at all.  All modes of traffic matter, and there has been a consistent effort to let traffic congestion fester, that possibly people will shift modes to ride a bike.   News Flash is: this is not working.  Vehicle ownership continues to rise, fatalities hover at a 40,000 per year, pedestrian fatalities are on the RISE as well as bike fatalities also are on the RISE.

Actually, Governor, this was too long in coming. I have been against these red light camera installations, instinctively knowing that they were more dangerous than good, more unfair than just, and just a bad idea of how local cities can make more money by partnering with some tech company who wrote a bad app, bad software designed to nab people without people fair to people, without involving a human that could make some judgment calls. It was always a bad idea. And I also know that not all Traffic Engineers share my view, in fact, I have debated many of these over the years. Turns out that they were wrong after all.  I am glad to see the menace of technology catching humans making mistakes, and not allowing for some humanity, get reduced... even while some countries are upping their ante by installing more and more cameras all over their countries, to nab humans making mistakes.  It's not a good trend elsewhere.  But I applaud the trend in the United States on this matter.

This is a great idea. Give Elon Musk credit for ambition, and for being successful. He is a genius at what he does, innovating, and transportation needs major innovation now, because some people, misguided as they may be, are thinking that we need to get rid of cars and try riding bikes for a while.  Um, no we don't.  What we need are more engineers to figure out the problem, and we need that portion of government who are roadblocking innovation, to get out of the way of roadblocking innovation.  We need to let the private sector take over the innovation because when your own hard earned money is on the line, when you own sweat and hours spent taking chances that something will come of all your visions and designs, then is the time that great things take place... when you don't take it for granted.  

The future of transportation will be with cars. Not just any cars, and they might not even look like a car, such as the rendition above, they will be merely transporters that have multiple functions.  They will drive themselves, and the people inside these transportation machines will be able to multi-task.  Riding in a tunnel prevents the possibility of getting T-Boned at an intersection. Having things autonomous helps prevent rear end accidents, and other kinds of accidents. Having a tunnel to travel in, removes all of the potential hazards of say, hitting a bicyclist, a pedestrian, a kid, somebody's pet animal, or even a train.  It removes all of the elements that are now responsible for 1,000,000 deaths / fatalities in the world each year having to do with motor vehicles.  It takes away the dangers of texting, falling asleep at the wheel, distractions while driving, drunk driving, speeding, reckless driving, etc., and makes it all about getting from point A to point B.  How can this NOT be a great thing??!  It is!

Grant Johnson, TE, is a registered traffic engineer in California,
and is passionate about the future of transportation and infrastructure.

One of the drawbacks to green alternatives in automobiles is the extreme amount of amps it takes to run a heater than can compete with the heat given from an internal combustion engine.  The electric cars must drain the battery to run a heater, and according to tests, extreme winter coldness can cut the range by HALF.  What this means, is that it takes as much energy to run the heater as is does to actually run and move the car!  With the internal combustion engine alternative, the heater is run just fine from merely an offload transfer of heat from the cooling system fluid passing through a heat transfer box in the cab.  Compare that "free heat" to running COILS that glow orange with a fan to blow air past it in the electric vehicle, an energy cost you paid for the night before when you charged your electric car.  Like running 10 blow dryers at the same time to heat the car!! Think what kind of cost that is. I would think twice before using that kind of energy on myself for heat, because AFTER ALL, we would be paying for that car heat specifically, charging our hypothetical electric car right out of our own electrical bill for our home. Would you run 10 blow dryers at home to heat yourself temporarily in a small space that has lots of glass windows continually getting cooled by freezing winds against the glass?   In an electric car, that's what takes place. Your electric bill is going right out the windows.  In a gas powered car? It's a "free" heat, going to be used one way or another, so there is no additional loss from using gas.
"If an EV requires 40 kWh to recharge a fully depleted battery, and the rate is 18 cents per kWh, that's $7.20 for a fill-up. Depending on the Southern California Edison rate plan, a 2018 Tesla Model 3, rated at 26 kWh/100 miles, would cost as little as $1.56 for 50 miles' worth of power if home charging started at 11 p.m. Or it could cost four times as much, $6.37, if the car was routinely charged during peak hours." (source: EDMUNDS.COM) 

The story was by TOM KRISHER.  He gave 5 reasons why (like a "top 10" list) it won't happen anytime soon:
https://www.apnews.com/b67a0d6b6413406fb4121553cdf0b95a

1) SNOW AND WEATHER
Tom said: "When it’s heavy enough to cover the pavement, snow blocks the view of lane lines that vehicle cameras use to find their way. Researchers so far haven’t figured out a way around this. That’s why much of the testing is done in warm-weather climates such as Arizona and California."

• REBUTTAL by Grant Johnson: This is a problem that is probably BIGGER for HUMAN drivers, for they too, lose track of where they should be on the road when it snows. I know, I have driven on a road covered with snow and where the striping was not visible. This is not an autonomous problem, an AV can simply be programmed not to drive by following a stripe (there are other ways), and in the FUTURE, the roadway infrastructure will have wireless communication with the AV so that visual camera work is a FIRST PHASE ONLY approach to navigation. In the future, there would be no need for cameras to guide, the infrastructure will have technology and IT will guide as a default.  I did not see SNOW as a problem for AV anymore than a problem for HUMANS.

2) PAVEMENT LINES AND CURBS
Tom said: "Across the globe, roadway marking lines are different, or they may not even exist. Lane lines aren’t standardized, so vehicles have to learn how to drive differently in each city. Sometimes there aren’t any curbs to help vehicles judge lane width."

• REBUTTAL by Grant Johnson: Humans don't do a great job at this either. So this is not a "new" problem created by AV.  This is such a short term and temporary problem once AV gets implemented, there will be devices that help navigate, and it will NOT be paint.  Not a deal killer, and certainly not something that would cost decades of time, not even a year. Just different devices.  Once AV is implemented and ubiquitous in a city, it goes without saying that the roadway infrastructure will also be electrified or there will be wireless communication devices installed at proper intervals along the roadway, maybe IN the roadway, and so the camera dependent navigation will be phased out and replaced by sophisticated dedicated infrastructure communications with the vehicle. Cameras would still be employed to see if there are obstructions on the road that the vehicle needs to stop for, but the need for complex decision making on interpreting video of the roadway ahead is going to disappear quickly.  Infrastructure will be reimagined and redesigned for AV and will have various wireless technologies imbedded in the system to guide and communicate with AV in motion.

3) DEALING WITH HUMAN DRIVERS
Tom said: "For many years, autonomous vehicles will have to deal with humans who don’t always play by the rules. They double-park or walk in front of cars. Recently in Pittsburgh, an Argo backup driver had to take over when his car stopped during a right turn, blocking an intersection when it couldn’t immediately decide whether to go around a double-parked delivery truck."

• REBUTTAL by Grant Johnson: Humans ARE the problem with transportation today, and are directly at FAULT when it comes to death on the highways and roadways. 40,000 fatalities in the USA alone, and these are nearly 100% caused by 1) HUMANS who are AGGRESSIVE, are 2) DRUNK, and are 3) DISTRACTED.  A tiny handful of the accidents are related to a "technical" problem in the vehicle, not even on the radar of cause for fatality.  AV had a few blips, like the UBER accident with a PED, and where the PED was JWALKING at night, in dark clothes, and was at fault. There was no human driver who could have avoided here. See my well detailed article on this here: http://www.prism.engineering/uber-car-fatal-ped-accident-with-ped.html   Until AV becomes ubiquitous, transportation safety will always be dumbed down to the lowest denominator, the human driver, for they are the fault for 99% of the accident fatalities.  AV will reduce the 40,000 fatalities to ZERO, because there will be no human element to be AGGRESSIVE, to be DRUNK, or to be DISTRACTED while driving.  

4) LEFT TURNS
Tom said: "Deciding when to turn left in front of oncoming traffic without a green arrow is one of the more difficult tasks for human drivers and one that causes many crashes. Autonomous vehicles have the same trouble.

• REBUTTAL by Grant Johnson: Autonomous Vehicles will NOT need a traffic signal to know when to go. This will be a computerized decision. There will not be a human taking a chance and having a mishap in judgment (a very very small percentage of fatalities for this, BTW...most are because of aggression, drunk driving, and distractions).  The AV car or truck will communicate with other AV cars and trucks to know where they are and when they can make the turn safely and without collision.  This is NOT a problem that AV will have, navigating left turns at an intersection.  In fact, it will all be solved to Vision AV ZERO fatalities, as the fatal human elements will be removed from the equation. People shouldn't fear AV, they should fear the present, because there is a much greater chance that they could be killed on the roads today compared to the roads of tomorrow. Humans are killing people by 1) Agression, 2) Drunk and Drug impaired driving, and 3) Distractions while driving.  THIS is how it is happening now.  We need to embrace safety.  We need to embrace the future on this, and AV is the answer to safety as these human factors are removed.  

5) CONSUMER ACCEPTANCE
Tom said: "The fatal Uber crash near Phoenix last year did more than push the pause button on testing. It also rattled consumers who someday will be asked to ride in self-driving vehicles. Surveys taken after the Uber crash showed that drivers are reluctant to give up control to a computer."

• REBUTTAL by Grant Johnson: Tom works for the very organizations, sensational and headline grabbing journalists, who seeking clicks and hits chose to demonize the AV technology with the UBER accident, rather than look sensibly at what REALLY happened. What happened is we had a pedestrian, who late at night in the pitch black, chose to cross a 45 mph roadway and step into the path of a 40 mph moving vehicle.  In the dark, pedestrians can't be seen by a human driver more than 100 feet away. Especially if they are coming from the left (as headlights shine slightly to the right).  She would have died no matter who the driver, that's the point.  Check out this detailed analysis I made on the accident and see if you don't come to the same conclusion I did, that AV was unnecessarily demonized, and the mainstream news had EVERYTHING to do with that, and not the truth.  See my well detailed article on this here: http://www.prism.engineering/uber-car-fatal-ped-accident-with-ped.html  
  

For some reason, it appears that mainstream news people are writing articles that cast doubt on the good that AV can do, and will do in the very near future, if we embrace it.  Holding on to the status quo is offensive to me, my son died in a car accident, hit by one of those DRUNK drivers in a head on collision.  As long as we have situations of danger like this, where humans can make huge driving mistakes, or even through their aggression in all of its forms: speeding, reckless, rage, etc., we will have more death. 40,000 per year.  It is time we step back and say, you know, our existing system is NOT working to reduce this. We need to try something new. We need to give the AV the chance it deserves, and we need a better education system other than the main stream news.

Under current US safety rules, a motor vehicle must have traditional controls, like a steering wheel, mirrors, and foot pedals, before it is allowed to operate on public roads. But that could all change under a new plan released on Thursday by the Department of Transportation that’s intended to open the floodgates for fully driverless cars. 
The department, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “intends to reconsider the necessity and appropriateness of its current safety standards” as applied to autonomous vehicles, the 80-page document reads. In particular, regulators say they will look to change those safety standards “to accommodate automated vehicle technologies and the possibility of setting exceptions to certain standards — that are relevant only when human drivers are present.”

PRISM Engineering sees the whole landscape changing, and rapidly. The status quo in transportation planning is outdated already.  Traffic Engineers and Transportation Planners are going to be updating all of their methods to morph into what will be the future of transportation: autonomous smart and programmed driverless vehicles.  It is going to require a wholesale revision to street systems, sidewalks, bike paths, and freeway systems.  It is going to see a repurposing of roadways that only need 7 foot lanes instead of 12, unless the width of the vehicles are widened to 10 feet, which would be nice.  Vehicles are going to travel much closer together, much much closer, so you will have a greatly enhanced capacity, and if travel demand remains the same, you are going to see all congestion completely disappear.  Capacity will be increased, 10 fold, or an order of magnitude.

​​https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/17936576/self-driving-car-av-guidelines-3-nhtsa-elaine-chao

source: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/06/f34/fcto-h2-fc-overview-dla-worldwide-energy-conf-2017-satyapal.pdf