Road design, transportation and walkability

[jeffster]

That said, I do believe within 20 years fossil fuel vehicles will be a thing of the past. And I know that we are all smart enough to go in that direction.

(...)

Maybe one day we'll have a fleet of autonomous vehecies...who knows. That would be good public transit.

In 20 years, sales of gasoline/diesel-powered cars will be in the minority, but they will not have disappeared entirely. There are too many use cases (long distances, remote communities etc) that won't be easily supported by battery-powered (or even fuel cell) vehicles that getting to 100% will take much longer.

Autonomous vehicles as such are no better for public transit than taxis or Uber: they would still be inefficient (albeit with no drivers needed), cause congestion and need road capacity. Maybe larger, shared autonomous vehicles, say, the size of a bus ... ?

You’re right, for many purposes gas will still need to be used. As you mentioned, remote communities, or any sort of long distance travel (especially if it’s not served by some sort of transit).

As for autonomous vehicle’s, though, I think it could be an option. Smart software would allow such a vehicle to pick up extra people who are going in the same direction (though you could have transfer points as well). And it might give people a second thought before doing a midnight snack run. But I think we’re a long ways away from that.