If self-driving cars become a reliable, safe, legal technology, here’s a vision of what cities may someday look like.
There are no downtown parking lots or parking lanes.
There is no mall parking, no grocery-store parking, no airport parking.
There are no home garages where your car sits unused whenever you’re home. In fact, you probably won’t own a car at all.
Instead, you’ll just request a ride (presumably on an app), and a car will appear at your doorstep. Once it drops you off, it’ll turn to the next request. If there are none nearby, it may be rerouted to areas where demand is anticipated soon (say downtown before the evening rush), put to use delivering lunches or Amazon.com orders, or sent to a large open lot in the suburbs where it will wait to be beckoned.
Via Paul Brody.