Rethinking Self-Driving Cars: The Smarter Future is Seamless Public Transportation

Self-driving cars are often heralded as the future of transportation — sleek, autonomous vehicles whisking us from Point A to Point B without the hassle of driving. But step back for a moment, and you realize: self-driving cars are, in some ways, just a flashy rebrand of an old idea — personalized transport — layered on top of an already inefficient system.

Transportation economics teaches us a basic truth: the bigger the vehicle and the more passengers it carries, the cheaper it is per person. Ships on water move goods far more cheaply than trains, which in turn move goods more cheaply than trucks. Similarly, buses — large, shared, and efficient — cost less per person than individual cars, self-driving or not.

The criticism against buses is that they don’t go precisely from your doorstep to your destination. But that “last few miles” problem is precisely where intelligent integration comes into play. Instead of trying to create self-driving cars that do the entire journey — an immensely complex and expensive task — why not combine the strengths of public transportation and personal vehicles into a seamless, smarter system?

Imagine this future:

You buy one ticket from your true starting point to your final destination.
Public electric buses, running established routes (easy for autonomous systems to handle), do the heavy lifting across major corridors.
Self-driving cabs — or even human-driven ones for a long transitional period — meet you at your bus stop for the last few miles.
Everything talks to each other behind the scenes. The handoff is automatic. You don’t even notice it happening.

Technologically, this is much more achievable. Self-driving buses are a far easier engineering problem than self-driving cars. A bus that runs the same fixed route over and over again can be equipped with a narrower, safer, and more easily trainable AI system. Routes can be pre-mapped with precision, road conditions can be monitored centrally, and predictable traffic flows make the AI’s job much simpler.

Meanwhile, letting cabs handle the last-mile problem — paid out of your single public transport ticket — creates a hybrid system where flexibility meets efficiency. No insisting that one mode of transportation has to solve all problems end-to-end. Instead, each mode does what it’s best at.

The result?

Lower costs — Energy and operational costs drop dramatically.
Higher reliability — Dedicated lanes and intelligent coordination reduce traffic snarls.
Lower emissions — Electric buses and cabs shrink the carbon footprint.
Faster implementation — We stop trying to crack the hardest nut first (full self-driving on unpredictable urban streets) and instead layer smartness over systems that already work.

If we’re serious about the future of transportation, we need to shift our focus from "self-driving car for every person" to "seamless, smart, shared mobility." High-speed bullet trains city-to-city, electric buses in-city, and cabs for the last mile — this combination is not only more sustainable, but also the most energy- and cost-efficient model available.

The real innovation isn’t just about creating smarter cars — it’s about creating smarter systems.

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

Why Can’t the U.S. Build Bullet Trains?

Trump’s Trade War

Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible

Trump’s Trade War

Why Can’t the U.S. Build Bullet Trains?

Every few years, the same headline circles around: “High-Speed Rail Project Delayed (Again).”
Meanwhile, in Japan, you can ride the Shinkansen at 200+ mph, sip tea, and arrive exactly on time. In China, high-speed rail connects over 500 cities and has become a backbone of domestic travel.
So here’s the question: Why can’t the richest, most technologically advanced country in the world build a bullet train?

Let’s dive in.

1. Geography and Urban Sprawl

One of the biggest hurdles is how the U.S. is built. Unlike Europe or Japan, where cities are densely packed and close together, American cities are sprawling and separated by hundreds, even thousands, of miles.

High-speed rail thrives when you have high-density, high-demand corridors (think Tokyo–Osaka or Paris–Lyon). In the U.S., the only truly viable route under this logic is the Northeast Corridor (Boston–NYC–Philly–DC)—and even that’s politically tricky.

2. Car Culture and Cheap Flights

America was built on highways and car ownership. The freedom of the open road is baked into American identity. Add in decades of subsidized air travel and cheap domestic flights, and you’ve got a public less inclined to switch to trains—even fast ones.

Why take a train from LA to San Francisco when Southwest gets you there for $59 in under an hour?

3. Political Gridlock and NIMBYism

Building a bullet train isn’t just an engineering challenge—it’s a political marathon. Every new rail line requires land, permits, zoning changes, environmental reviews, and coordination across multiple states and jurisdictions.

And then there’s NIMBYism ("Not In My Backyard")—local opposition from residents who don't want a train line running near their neighborhood, even if it benefits the region. This can slow or completely kill progress.

4. Privately Owned Rail Tracks

Here’s something most Americans don’t realize: in the U.S., most rail infrastructure is owned by private freight companies, not the government.

So unlike countries where high-speed rail was built on publicly controlled tracks, any passenger train in the U.S. has to either:

Build its own tracks (extremely expensive), or
Negotiate with freight companies (slow, limited, and unreliable for high-speed trains).

5. Lack of Long-Term Vision and Funding

High-speed rail is a generational investment. You pour in billions over decades and reap benefits later in economic development, reduced emissions, and regional growth.

The U.S., however, tends to prioritize short-term wins. Congress often funds transportation projects in fragmented, multi-year budget cycles, with changes every time political leadership shifts. Compare that to China, where high-speed rail is part of long-term national strategy and centrally planned execution.

6. Bureaucracy on Bureaucracy

The permitting and approval process in the U.S. is a regulatory maze. Environmental reviews can take 5–10 years, even before a shovel hits the ground. Add to that procurement rules, contractor lawsuits, and layers of oversight, and you get massive delays and budget overruns.

Case in point: California’s high-speed rail, originally budgeted at $33 billion, is now projected to cost over $100 billion—and it’s still incomplete.

So, Is It Impossible?

Not impossible. Just really, really hard under the current system.

Brightline in Florida and Texas Central (planned between Dallas and Houston) are examples of private attempts to break through the gridlock. The Northeast Corridor has Amtrak’s Acela Express (technically "high-speed," but still slow by global standards). And new federal funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law could give high-speed rail a boost.

But unless there’s a national, bipartisan commitment to modern rail, and a rethink of how we fund and govern major infrastructure, bullet trains will remain the American dream that Japan rode 60 years ago.

The Bigger Question

The real issue isn’t just trains. It’s vision.

Other countries build futuristic infrastructure because they believe in public investment, long-term planning, and cohesive action. Until the U.S. learns to do the same, it’ll keep falling behind—not just in rail, but across the board.

What do you think? Will the U.S. ever get its bullet train moment? Or is this just a track that leads nowhere? Drop your thoughts below.

Trump’s Trade War