Rob Croson
Elio Addict
It's a possibility, but a remote one. The things is, it's a long-term solution. Think multi-decade long. But for a politician, long-term is whatever helps them win the next election. This kind of thing is a social change, and social changes take lots of time.
People aren't going to be comfortable riding/driving so close to other vehicles driven by someone they don't know. It's one thing when you're lane-sharing with your best buds on a poker run. But when you're driving in rush hour traffic, do you really want to lane-share with someone you've never seen before? It's possible that you could narrow lanes to include one more, but then you're creating a road that can only handle specific kinds of traffic. That means, at least initially, consuming even more land to build your new restricted use road, before the trend can take hold strongly enough to allow you to start dismantling the legacy roads. IMNSHO, that's a pipe dream.
Rather, I see the trend going toward autonomous vehicles. Once enough fully-autonomous vehicles are on the road, with the appropriate inter-vehicle communication, and perhaps a central oversight/traffic-planning system is implemented, then the computerized systems can be trusted to oversee and control traffic in a more efficient manner. Following distances can be optimized by the control system, merges deal with seamlessly, no more rubber-necker delays or distracted driving induced accidents. Once we get to that level of control, then smaller vehicles that automatically lane-share when possible actually becomes a reality. Until then, there's no way in hell I'm lane sharing with anyone. I've seen way too much stupid crap happen to trust that.
People aren't going to be comfortable riding/driving so close to other vehicles driven by someone they don't know. It's one thing when you're lane-sharing with your best buds on a poker run. But when you're driving in rush hour traffic, do you really want to lane-share with someone you've never seen before? It's possible that you could narrow lanes to include one more, but then you're creating a road that can only handle specific kinds of traffic. That means, at least initially, consuming even more land to build your new restricted use road, before the trend can take hold strongly enough to allow you to start dismantling the legacy roads. IMNSHO, that's a pipe dream.
Rather, I see the trend going toward autonomous vehicles. Once enough fully-autonomous vehicles are on the road, with the appropriate inter-vehicle communication, and perhaps a central oversight/traffic-planning system is implemented, then the computerized systems can be trusted to oversee and control traffic in a more efficient manner. Following distances can be optimized by the control system, merges deal with seamlessly, no more rubber-necker delays or distracted driving induced accidents. Once we get to that level of control, then smaller vehicles that automatically lane-share when possible actually becomes a reality. Until then, there's no way in hell I'm lane sharing with anyone. I've seen way too much stupid crap happen to trust that.
