Because the roads are dangerous to cross on foot, and the footpaths stop suddenly for no apparent reason. And there's no AC outside, which matters more in some parts of the USA than others (Davis (CA) and Salt Lake City are above my comfort threshold, from memory).
For example, one time I stayed at the The Cupertino Hotel in CA and tried walking to One Infinite Loop, a junction which every sufficiently old iOS user will be familiar with because it's what Apple used to use as the icon for their Maps app before they relocated their HQ to the flying saucer campus. The junction looks like this, and was an awful experience as a pedestrian:
Other than the high annual death toll and millions of life-changing injuries annually, lowered health, significant impact on household income, and pollution, you mean?
And once all (or let's say most) vehicles are self driving and powered by sustainable energy, things will be overwhelmingly better on all those dimensions.
Meantime, you could adopt some driving-analog version of the following approach, but don't expect most of us to do so:
"The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards - and even then I have my doubts." --Spaf
> And once all (or let's say most) vehicles are self driving and powered by sustainable energy, things will be overwhelmingly better on all those dimensions.
This is only true for one of them and self-driving is still a long ways off. A self-driving EV still produces a lot of pollution (more than half of the CO2 is during manufacturing, and tire dust isn’t improved), costs a lot, and requires significant amounts of space to store and operate.
Nobody is saying there aren’t utility benefits but we shouldn’t continue massively subsidizing something while ignoring all of the problems. That’s why your analogy is nonsensical: spaf and the rest of the community didn’t say “perfect security is impossible, guess we shouldn’t do anything until AGI solves it for us!” and go to the bar.
> And once all (or let's say most) vehicles are self driving and powered by sustainable energy, things will be overwhelmingly better on all those dimensions.
Nope.
In term of general health, on average people will still lower their life expectancy every time they use a self driving vehicle instead of riding your bicycle or walking for the same short trip.
Plus the horror in term of land management and the general effect it has on psych.
Me? Well, the Americans don't let me vote, what with being British and living in Berlin (the original, not any of the 26 places of the same name in the USA), so the best I can do is point out to any Americans who feel like listening that there are better ways to design cities than the ways they've grown up with, and that "15 minute cities" are not the dystopian conspiracy theories that some seem to fear they are.
For example, one time I stayed at the The Cupertino Hotel in CA and tried walking to One Infinite Loop, a junction which every sufficiently old iOS user will be familiar with because it's what Apple used to use as the icon for their Maps app before they relocated their HQ to the flying saucer campus. The junction looks like this, and was an awful experience as a pedestrian:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3350322,-122.0325183,3a,75y,...
This is of course highly situational and varies by location. NYC, despite its reputation, was a lot less scary to walk around.