Beverly Hills Voted to Use Self-Driving Cars for Public Transportation

The people in LA are used to seeing (and paying for) all kind of crazy things. From caviar machines in fancy malls where you can pay $2,000 for your next fish egg fix to the wonderful world of vampire face lifts, it's tough to shock someone here. However, it will probably still cause some surprise to hear that the city council of Beverly Hills had a vote in April 2016 which will allow the infamous zip code to develop self-driving cars for public transportation.

Traffic in Los Angeles is no joke, and you'd have to venture outside the country to find worse gridlock. Anything that could be done to help would be a blessing to cranky drivers here. Between construction, accidents and broken down vehicles, there is really no time or place immune from the sea of brake lights that seem to define the freeways. Public transportation is absolutely available — if you don't mind spending 3 hours to go 30 miles. LA does have a subway which is generally fast and reliable, but it really only hits a few places in this urban sprawl of a city. There is construction underway to add additional track in more areas, but delays are common with LA construction. Plus once it is finished, it will only drop people off within a mile of Beverly Hills. This new plan could solve that problem.

At just under 6 square miles, Beverly Hills isn't close to the freeways, so this particular self-driving fleet will have to stay on the surface streets at the beginning. The concept is to have self-driving cars where riders can simply download an app and request a ride. This will certainly supplement the current transportation and may well replace it entirely. It will be much more palatable for riders to simply get in a car and go directly to their destination, rather than having a bus or a subway drop them off several blocks away. It would also encourage people to spend that extra cash for new shoes on Rodeo Drive if they knew they didn't have to carry their bags for a half mile.

Mayor John Mirisch is extremely hopeful this will improve both his city and the surrounding area. It certainly makes sense that it would be this ritzy suburb to take on the challenge and push this technology further than it's gone before. As you might imagine, the roads are impeccably maintained which will facilitate self-driving travel and cause fewer problems.

The new initiative is currently called Municipal Automated Shuttle System, or MASS for short, and the first step of the council is to have officials start requesting cooperation from Tesla or Google to supply the cars. Once completed, they can start drafting policies, creating official documentation for approval and then roll out a pilot program as the last step. They're hoping sponsor ships may help with the cost, though a proposed budget and funding strategy have not yet been released.

While they may not have anything on paper now, the city council isn't chasing down a pipe dream. There's too much cash in this area for people to raise their eyebrows at the practicality of their plan. They already have plenty of relationships and influences within the community itself, and likely personal contacts within the big-name tech and car companies they plan to contact. Of course, there's no plans as to what they'll actually charge drivers either, but it seems likely they'll supplement and subsidize to a large degree to make this relatively affordable.

We may be close to the self-driving future, but we're certainly not there yet. Until you can take public transportation with no driver, you'll have to get yourself around first. If you have recently received a ticket for speeding or skipping a stop sign, you may want to consider taking a defensive driving class that can help you deduct points off your license. You may even want to take a class even if you don't have these woes, as it can help earn you safe driving discounts with your insurance carrier. Look into taking a comedy driving class, so you can at least have a few laughs while getting the job done!

Report this Page