Washington DC Global Lead in Autonomous Vehicle Infrastructure

Featured article by Jeremy Sutter, Independent Technology Author

Ten global cities, including Washington D.C., are participating in an initiative by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute Center for Urban Innovation to bring leading global mayors together for preparation and planning for the advent of autonomous vehicles in their cities. The global cities participating in the Bloomberg-Aspen initiative are: Austin, USA; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Los Angeles, USA; Nashville, USA; Helsinki, Finland; Paris, France; London, England; Tel Aviv, Israel; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Washington DC, USA.

Bloomberg Aspen Initiative on Cities and Autonomous Vehicles

The new Initiative on Cities and Autonomous Vehicles seeks to bring together cutting-edge information and facilitate a process for innovation that will help city leaders consider myriad ways that autonomous vehicles could solve chronic urban problems and improve lives. New York Mayor and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg said at the 2016 CityLab conference, “The advent of autonomous cars is one of the most exciting developments ever to happen to cities – and if mayors collaborate with one another, and with partners in the private sector, they can improve people’s lives in ways we can only imagine today.” Subsequently, at the 2017 North American International Auto Show, Aspen Institute CEO and President Walter Isaacson noted that the partnership between Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute Center offered an excellent opportunity for leading cities and experts to share knowledge and collectively plan, ultimately, to improve the quality of life in urban centers throughout the world.

The objective of the Bloomberg-Aspen initiative is to come up with a collection of tools and principles that cities can employ to plan for the coming revolution in driverless technologies. Ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft, also interested in self-driving cars, could also be taking part. John Zimmer, President and CEO of Lyft said that it would be “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine and design our cities for people over cars.” More livable cities could replace those now organized around motor vehicle traffic.

A Leading Autonomous Technology City

Andrew Trueblood, chief of staff to the DC Mayor of Planning and Economic Development is hopeful of the opportunity for peer-to-peer learning. The implications of what autonomous vehicles mean in terms of workforce, employment, urban planning, and parking need to be explored collaboratively among all the cities in the initiative. Washington DC, though, has unique regulatory advantages over other cities because it operates under a single governing structure without the need to navigate state, county, and local regulations in testing innovative projects.

In part, such advantages played a role in attracting a package delivery, food delivery, and online shopping pilot program for the innovative Starship autonomous delivery robot service to come to Washington DC and Redwood City, California in addition to their ongoing European testing locations. Legislative approval of the Starship pilot was written into the D.C. Personal Delivery Device Pilot Act of 2016. The London-created Starship delivery service features six-wheeled robots that will deliver small packages within a two or three mile radius of a central hub within a half-hour of ordering. The Starship robots will operate autonomously 99 percent of the time, using sensors and mapping data to navigate their environment.

Autonomous Vehicles Could Possibly Eliminate Fatalities

In addition to the Bloomberg Aspen initiative, Washington DC is also getting infrastructure help from Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs. Sidewalk Labs partners with the Transportation for America advocacy group to help test and analyze autonomous vehicle mobility as well as other innovations around Washington DC, Los Angeles, Boston, and Austin. Vision Zero is an initiative of the District to eliminate automotive and pedestrian fatalities. DC car insurance coverage could be strikingly affected by many aspects of autonomous vehicles in the District. Trueblood believes that autonomous vehicles might be an amazing way to get traffic to move smoothly without fatalities, and could answer questions such as whether fewer parking spaces were needed throughout the city, whether roads could support multi-modal uses, and how autonomous vehicles could support transportation options in underserved areas.