Autonomous Vehicles Will Change The Urban Landscape

Last week I attended the Realtors Commercial Alliance meeting Commercial Disrupters, Game Changers, and Market Makers and was fascinated by a presentation by John Dohm  on autonomous vehicles.  These cars are not in the far off future, they are already here and the big players including Google, Tesla, Apple, Audi and most of the car companies are spending a lot of money developing them.  As often happens, once I tuned in to what Mr. Dohm described, this week all I seem to be reading about are  autonomous vehicles.  USA Today,  and The Miami Herald have had several articles about Tesla’s Self Driving Car.  My twitter feed also has several tweets addressing the topic.

The technology is coming so rapidly that Florida and 12 other states have already enacted legislation to address autonomous vehicles.  So how will having autonomous vehicles change the urban landscape?

1. It will change parking requirements allowing for more density, wider sidewalks, and rely on drop off lanes
2. Make traffic move more efficiently
3. Increase focus on pedestrians and bikers

Urban planners and developers can start getting creative on how to use space that used to be reserved for parking.  That space can now become parks, community centers, or anything else that adds value to a neighborhood’s aesthetic.  This fact alone, makes the possibilities of what can be overcome my hesitancy over the thought of hundreds of driverless vehicles cruising the streets and highways.  On the other hand, Florida has never been ranked high in the “good driver” column, so maybe autonomous vehicles are the solution!