What does the autonomous vehicle future look like to Sam Schwartz, the legendary “Gridlock Sam” transportation planner?
Messages from car companies like this:
If you don’t buy an AV, you don’t love your family.
While there are some major potential benefits of AVs (less traffic, less parking, and increased safety), there are some big concerns we need to address before jumping on the AV bandwagon – and before falling for messages like the one above.
Sam Schwartz
Schwartz talked about this and more in a preview for his upcoming book, No One at the Wheel, at Mobility Lab last week. Here are Gridlock Sam’s top reasons why we need to be wary of AVs.
1. Ride-hail riders come from wealthy, transit rich areas
It’s a nice thought that ride-hail apps like Uber and Lyft serve people without access to public transportation. But the reality is a little different.
In New York City, most transportation network companies (TNCs) serve the wealthy and transit-dense neighborhoods.
In addition, most ride-hail users are former transit riders – not former drivers.
This suggests that AVs might be used more frequently by wealthy people with good transit access rather than lower- and middle-income people with poor transit.
2. Ride-hailing creates more traffic by taking people away from transit
Guess what happens when transit riders use Uber or Lyft instead? Traffic gets worse.
Here’s how: buses get slowed down by traffic. Instead of waiting for the bus, you use an app to call a car. That car creates more traffic, which slows down the bus even more. 
Schwartz thinks this “vicious cycle” will apply to AVs, too. If transit riders switch to AVs, the traffic worsening as a result will slow down buses even more – and make driving more attractive.
3. Inactivity diseases are the biggest killers in the world
Inactivity has overtaken smoking as the biggest killer on the planet. Now there are 5.3 million deaths per year from inactivity and then there are an additional 1.25 million deaths from car crashes. Schwartz noted that 40.5 percent of U.S. deaths are related to inactivity.
What’s a major cause of inactivity? Sedentary lifestyles. And what’s a major cause of that? Cars.
It’s not a stretch to say that reliance on cars causes inactivity that kills. Residents of walkable cities with good transit have both longer life expectancies and fewer cases of inactivity diseases, like diabetes and obesity, than people living in sprawling suburbs.
4. AVs aren’t as safe as everyone thinks
Even though there’s limited data on how safe AVs are – simply because of the small sample size – evidence suggests that transit is still 95 percent safer than AVs.
5. “Walkers are the oxygen of your city”
And beyond all of this, Schwartz said, “In the U.S., we seem to be getting lonelier in our cars. The occupancy average has been getting closer to one person per vehicle for the past 20 years.”
This isn’t just a problem for the environment or traffic, but for our own happiness. Interesting street life is what makes cities special places to live, according to Schwartz (and only partly because he met his wife when walking down the street).
So how can we reap the benefits of AVs?
Making sure that people don’t fall for the trap of personal car ownership and that AVs are integrated with transit are imperative for a successful transportation network, according to Schwartz.
He thinks a big opportunity is to cater to the Millennial generation.
“It’s not just financial for Millennials,” Schwartz said. “Their freedom is defined by having a smartphone. They can get around anywhere like they’re a regular.”
This is not hyperbole. Millennials are driving 20 percent less as a cohort than any other previous generations coming of age, he added.
Schwartz said many older people are a very tough sell to getting them to understand that they don’t need to own an AV. But Schwartz thinks one appeal might be to suggest that kids and grandkids may have a much tougher time visiting if the only way to their homes is by personal auto.
Photo from Sam Schwartz. Home page photo by Mikael Colville-Andersen.