Taxis and ride-sharing in Toronto

[afransen]

That's not my point. My point is that this so called "progress"* is zeroing in on just about every aspect of life all at the same time. In a vacuum, if you removed one so-called "pointless" profession, there would still be others. But again, the tech bros don't want that. They're trying to make it so that machines are better than humans at everything. When that happens, according to your parameters, all professions will be pointless. Hooray!

It's really disturbing how so many people openly celebrate this type of "progress". Progress, as defined in the 2020s, refers to the enshittification of life for non-billionaires, and nothing more.

Regardless of what techbros want, professions won't all become 'pointless' overnight. AI doesn't really automate jobs, it automates tasks. Jobs are collections of tasks. Some tasks are more harder to automate than others. Jobs where some of those tasks remain difficult to automate will continue, but will tend to become more productive. Perhaps all tasks will eventually be automatable to superhuman levels, but that will take quite some time and won't be uniform. And if we get to the point where all tasks can be produce autonomously at low cost, we will have material abundance. The problem of allocation becomes political. Smashing the looms won't help.

 

[txlseries4]

A couple articles about Waymo/AVs

Waymo Is Not In The 'Vision Zero' Toolbox: Data - Streetsblog New York City

At least two of the cities where Waymo operates have not experienced declines in traffic-related injuries and deaths.

nyc.streetsblog.org

Has this gem:
Waymo has told advocates that expecting it to respect bike lanes is “too high a bar” because customers expect to be dropped off in them, said Christopher White, executive director of the San Francisco Bike Coalition.

“People always point out that unlike human driven cars, the AVs stop at lights and obey the speed limit. However, they are really only as good and effective and safe as they are programmed to be,” White said. “Waymos pull over into bike lanes all the time for pickups and drop-offs and that’s neither legal nor safe but the companies say that is a normal practice and that’s what customers expect.”

One cyclist in the City by the Bay is suing Waymo for driving into a bike lane to drop off a passenger who subsequently doored the cyclist. And in Austin and Atlanta, Waymos keep mysteriously passing school bus stop arms as kids disembark.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-22/nyc-s-waymo-pause-sends-message-to-other-cities-on-autonomous-vehicles?srnd=undefined

Q&A interview with transportation historian Peter Norton who "sees a pattern in the promises that autonomous vehicle companies make as they push self-driving cars into cities."

 

[CMQSD402F9011]

Could Toronto allow “dollar vans” on Toronto streets like what NYC has? I’m sure if someone had tried that in Toronto, it probably would be shut down very quickly.

 

[Mihairokov]

Could Toronto allow “dollar vans” on Toronto streets like what NYC has? I’m sure if someone had tried that in Toronto, it probably would be shut down very quickly.

These unofficially exist for inter-city trips (Toronto-Montreal, for example) but I'm not aware of any serious ones in Toronto.

There are also apps that help connect people driving from city to city.

 

[futurebound]

Here's a very simple baseline for the safety of Waymo cars.

Waymos have not been found at fault for any fatalities, ever. They've driven 170 million rider-only miles (fully autonomous).

Freeways are actually much safer than the roads Waymo drives on. In 2023, the fatality rate was ~0.5-0.6 deaths per 100 million miles travelled on freeways. On urban arterials, ~1.5 deaths/100M VMT. Urban local/collector, ~1 death/100M VMT.

Waymo mostly drives on the latter 2. Therefore, if we are to go by the VMT stat, there should have already been 1-2 deaths caused by Waymo vehicles. Now, this is not 100% proven to be zero fatalities. But so far, the signs are very good. 0 deaths/170M VMT is nothing to scoff at.

Source: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/813581

You can argue around the self reported peer review stuff as much as you want, but it's pretty hard to deny that they haven't killed anyone yet.

 

[nfitz]

Here's a very simple baseline for the safety of Waymo cars.

Waymos have not been found at fault for any fatalities, ever. They've driven 170 million rider-only miles (fully autonomous).

What's that got to do with Waymo themselves saying that they can't guarantee that the cars would respect something as simple as bike lanes.

And if it can't even deal with stopping for a flashing school bus, what is it going to do with a streetcar that has stopped for unloading?

Or give way to buses change lanes to the left?

I'm sure one way day this will be there for urban use without an operator on-board. But if it can't handle bike lanes, then it shouldn't be driverless in urban areas.

 

[afransen]

What's that got to do with Waymo themselves saying that they can't guarantee that the cars would respect something as simple as bike lanes.

And if it can't even deal with stopping for a flashing school bus, what is it going to do with a streetcar that has stopped for unloading?

Or give way to buses change lanes to the left?

I'm sure one way day this will be there for urban use without an operator on-board. But if it can't handle bike lanes, then it shouldn't be driverless in urban areas.

Demanding they be perfect before they be used is likely to see more people dead due to road conflicts rather than less. Those issues can be addressed with time.

 

[nfitz]

Demanding they be perfect before they be used is likely to see more people dead due to road conflicts rather than less. Those issues can be addressed with time.

Once known issues have been fixed. If it's routinely failing to stop for school buses, then needs to be pulled from service for a few days for that issue to be solved. If were to accept that, or driving/parking in bike lanes, then the company would lose their incentive to fix; as they seem to have done with the bike lane issue.

 

[Jm gravel]

Could Toronto just organize its taxi and uber pickups at places like Union Station ( and at all these new Ontario line stations where one might hope some preplanning could occur) ? Airport isn’t bad….but the rest of the city….and if you are moving eventually to an automated environment, some rational planning for these services might be useful.