It’s a daunting task to develop and adopt plans and policies, build infrastructure and chart a vision for a community that is relevant today but also considers the dramatic shifts of the future. The pace of change has ramped up so exponentially that all the rules and expectations that once founded our decision making around city building are potentially, and in some cases, rapidly becoming obsolete.
Disruptive technologies are forcing a dramatic rethink of how we envision and build resilient and vibrant communities.
Much of how we design our cities was determined over 100 years ago when cars became the foundational framework of municipal infrastructure; roads connect people with each other, businesses and jobs, they play a role in valuing property and fundamentally deliver quality of life.
But as driverless technologies become real, and an inevitability faster than anticipated, it’s forcing municipalities to drastically adjust traditional responses to the usual conundrums of parking, roads and transportation.
So how do we continue to provide relevant infrastructure today while ensuring those tax dollars are not being wasted? And is there a way we can responsibly consider both?
A complete rethink of the car is long overdue; it’s a technology that has not fundamentally changed in 100 years. As technology networks advance, it will provide an opportunity to make our municipalities safer for everyone. For example, human error is by far the biggest contributor to accidents.
Driverless cars would reduce accidents and slash insurance costs, making it safer for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicle occupants.
Automated cars will make society more equitable by providing underserved populations such as people with mobility or visual impairments, the elderly, people with health conditions, and even those who are inebriated, with safe, reliable and hopefully affordable opportunities for transportation.
Driverless cars could result in fewer cars (11:1 according to a recent study at the University of Texas) which will create less air pollution and reduce urban sprawl and could require 60 per cent less parking and roads, and significant opportunity to reclaim these expensive public spaces.
Our challenge today is to consider these possibilities without any certainty or timelines.
And although we can’t crystal ball a solution, we can start to build infrastructure with an eye to the future which could, for example, include building infrastructure today with roadside sensors on our streets and highways, and conceptualizing the parking of today with an eye to their obsolescence or repurpose in the future.
And then there is the idea of drones replacing trains and trucks and how that disruptive technology could have us reinventing truck routes and railway corridors in the future. Opportunities and challenges to ponder and infrastructure to rethink; never a dull moment.
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