Getting Ahead of Self-Driving Cars

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How the various types of autonomous vehicles differ, including the anticipated phase-in time frames for each, and the importance of focusing planning on the short-term impacts of mixed AV/non-AV fleets
• How to identify the changes in on-street parking design that will be created as AVs enter our fleets, and how to respond to those pressures
• What changes in parking lots and garages may be needed as AVs enter our fleets, and how communities are responding to the pressure of these changes

MORE SESSION DETAILS

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are coming but they're not coming all at once, and they will be driving among human drivers for many years or decades. This session will avoid the hype about the wonders of AV technology and instead focus on what planners should be doing first in order to prepare their communities for the gradually changing mix of fleets that will be moving their citizens and making deliveries. The session features a national zoning consultant, a university researcher with extensive experience in the impacts of AV vehicles on urban land use, and a public official from New Orleans responsible for implementing the city's complete-streets program. Learn about the main areas that planners should focus their AV attention in the short run: the changing use of public streets - including the need for more pick-up/drop-off/delivery zones and what that means for street design and complete streets - and the need to transform some parking lots and garages into "staging areas" for AVs in order to keep them off the streets when not in use (and other issues surrounding future re-uses of parking facilities).