Is there still that Chicago thing where you have to pay double meter or something for a cab going not to Chicago limits?

_________________
Elections have consequences.

My experience in Vegas is that the Cab drivers will ass rape you. Last year I stayed at the New York New York, one of the closer hotels to McCarron and on the way there my asshole cabby decided to get on the interstate and do a massive loop to turn it into a $30 fare. Leaving, my friendly Lyft driver got me there for $10.

for a cab you pick up in the city, generally yes

American Taxi is actually one that specifies the ride must begin or end in the suburbs, so their rate is somewhat more reasonable for something like that

The Islamic drivers @ American Taxi ask you way too many personal questions on those long suburb drives. It makes me uncomfortable.

Thats because they are TERRORISTS and want to wear a BOMB to blow up your HOUSE and your areas of SHOPPING on the next trip!!!1!

_________________

i think the last time i drove in to o'hare, i saw a sign that was basically banning uber or something like that from entering.

They are now allowed. But they have to pick up in the zones between terminals 1-2 and 2-3. Not sure where they pick up at Terminal 5.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Try taking a cab from the airport in Key West. It's $20 per person to go 2-3 miles. And Uber is not allowed there.

_________________

It's a pain in the ass to use Uber from the O'Hare. There are a ton of others doing it and it's hard to find your guy. Plus it takes a long time. Taking one to O'Hare is fine.

_________________
Freedom is our Strength.

I use Google Maps every day multiple times a day and I can tell you right now that while its mostly good it is nowhere near 100%. Here's just a smattering of complaints:

-Sometimes it determines an address is closer to the street behind the actual street listed on the address and drops the pin there. Usually not a huge deal, but once I was put on a railroad service drive to get to an address inside a subdivision in Naperville. I had an uneasy feeling but followed the GPS anyways, wound up being a 15 minute fool's errand just to be on the other side of a 15 foot fence from the guy's backyard. Had to turn around and come back in through the front of the subdivision.
-Its route creating is horrible, especially when it tries to predict traffic. I was getting onto the Ike from SB 83 and instead of just following 290 all the way through to the UC it wanted me to exit North Ave and then reenter the Ike at 25th Ave. or Mannheim ("Similar ETA's" between those two"). Google Maps claimed it would save me 20 minutes to do this, that's how bad it anticipated traffic to be. I called the apps bluff stayed on 290 past North, Google Maps wanted me to exit St. Charles saying it would still save 15 minutes, I disregarded that as well. Eventually I wind up making it all the way to 25th Ave on the Eisenhower without ever going below 50 mph (traffic of course backed up around there as it always does). Now I dont know exactly what was happening on North Ave but having been a veteran of that """shortcut""" I can say with 100% certainty that the route I took was the quicker route, but Google insisted that I was sacrificing 20 minutes of my trip. It does this a lot.
-Some of its routes just defy common sense. Like when it asked for me to take the Dan Ryan to 18th to get to Ashland and Cermak rather than just taking the Ashland exit on 290 and going south. Or when it demanded I take Cicero all the way from Foster to Midway on an airport trip rather than the expressways (which were moving pretty well at the time).
-Here's an exercise, try setting a trip with a start point and destination. Take note note of the route and make sure there's no traffic (as I've established, the perception of traffic renders the app almost useless). Now reverse it, put the start point as your new destination and vice versa. Often, but not always, you'll get two different routes. Traffic not even a factor...app just cant make up its fucking mind.
-Its completely useless on the lower's downtown and will often deliberately mislead you when using them.


I could go on. I dont really need GPS in the city and near suburbs but the outer areas are pretty foreign to me so I lean on it a lot. GPS is useful, and Google Maps is by far the best one out there, but its not perfect. And with the self driving car that is marketed as a "set it and forget it" piece of futuretech I would not trust it consistently. How can I be so certain of the inevitability of the self driving car when I'm not even confident in its ability to know where I'm going and how to get there? This is probably an issue you will just wave away as "oh they'll figure that out dont worry", but they've had years to figure it out already and it really has not improved much. And it also seems pretty rudimentary for a self driving car to have this basic familiarity with routing and the fact that Google's current app, which they have absolutely zero reason to give the public a substandard version of, leaves a lot to be desired is not encouraging.

I've had almost no issues with Google Maps and it has saved me 30+ minutes multiple times. I'm not worried if it takes a wrong turn once a year and has to adjust.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The only issue I ever have with Google maps is when you sit in a parking lot or similar to launch and it doesn't know which way you are facing when it tells you to begin. In a case like that would it send a driverless car in some interminable circles?

_________________
Elections have consequences.

_________________
Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

The only way you can not experience these same issues is if you are so dumb or hopelessly lost all time that you cant even recognize when its steering you wrong.

I can read a map. It's quite a skill.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

_________________
Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Suburban taxis are not allowed to handle rides that start and terminate in the city (Midway/O'Hare as well). American, 303 are suburban - Flash, Yellow, Checker, Carriage are all city/medallion operations.

Taxi companies are a scam business anyway. Fuck them.

_________________
Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

CCFC is on the money here.

Self-driving cars will eventually be the norm, but it will be a long time. The infrastructure, statutory laws, tort "law", insurance reform and regulation, cyber security needs and regulations, rules of the road, and general public acceptance are all things that will have to be addressed. This shit won't happen overnight.

_________________

I spent this morning at work watching a Senate subcommittee hearing on rural transportation and telecom/Internet accessibility. The Utah Department of Transportation director twice mentioned that DSRC bandwidth was critical so that the infrastructure could inform the Connected Autonomous Vehicle about status and hazards. He was explaining how Utah has been laying conduit when they update pavements and bridges so the technology providers can lay fiber into the network.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Yeah, without getting specific, we work with a good number of municipalities and public entities, and they are doing similar things. It's really a new and difficult area for us to price, but it's good to get in on the ground floor and start accumulating data. Plus it's just good to see.

_________________

Uber's long game always has been (and will be) to develop self driving cars that are company owned and will be used to provide the ride sharing service.

The current service with drivers is just a thing to get people to download the app and generate some revenue while they spend billions on R&D.

_________________
“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

_________________
Elections have consequences.

The infrastructure claims are both right and wrong(See leash, not black and white!).

It's not like one day we are going to wake up and there will be fully automated self driving cars. It will be gradual probably over a few decades. We are already seeing some of the tech making it into vehicles that can parallel park and do automatic cruise control themselves on the highway. The next step may very well be automatic highway driving mode which would very quickly result in a lane being designated as a self driving and bus lane. It's already fairly trivial for cars to start and stop based on what is in front of them. It can also read the lane lines(besides in snow obviously) but the next step is probably to embed a chip in the lanes that can overcome that.

This means that if you are driving from Chicago to St. Louis you can get on 55 and enter the lane and then sit in the drivers seat as it keeps you in the lane and there you go. This "could" be done now but they have some stuff to perfect still.

Then you'll see that go on major roads with multiple lanes and on highways ramps. This will be sufficient for a majority of driving.

The hard part for a company like Uber is that they need it to be able to get to your house without a driver. That is going to be much more difficult but once the bigger roads have it then they can pretty much go slowly in your neighborhood to get there assuming no snow.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

America-

Your argument is absurd: You know better than the computer, and if anyones disagrees it just means they are stupid. You are certain that your routes are faster than real time reporting to GPS maps? That seems like Luddite arrogance.

It's going to start with trucks. As Brick mentions above, there is about zero problems navigating between two cities. The problem is local driving, but even there the computer is likely already better than 95 percent of drivers. GPS maps have vastly improved already in past few years. To assume they are at their peak when machine learning is in it's infancy and computing power continues to grow is a quite an assumption.

_________________
Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

I knew that deep down you have always been a fan of public transportation!

_________________
Freedom is our Strength.

Self driving cars solve almost all of the issues with public transportation. I'm looking forward to it!

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

and global warming

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I do like using Lyft (I've only had one bad experience with it). Have used Uber and UberX with no problems. If the drivers understand the implications of being independent contractors, what's the problem?

Huh? I have my map app up all the time and there are times I know damn well when it's taking me a slower way. It's usually right, but when you drive the same way to work for 10 years you figure out some things.

That's just terrific.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George