I can just see it now out among the midwest corn fields a spaceship being built...NCC 1701!
I will predict here, on Friday, January 27, 2017.
The autonomous vehicle industry will never get off the launching pad. It will be strangled in it’s crib by the personal injury bar after the first large-scale accident.
They fail to mention the one project that may actually impact transportation costs and timing in a big way: the Great Lakes Basin Rail project:
http://www.greatlakesbasinraileis.com/background.html
$8 billion, privately funded. Not a dime of taxpayer money but obviously will require regulatory approval and perhaps assistance with land acquisition. Before jumping onboard with the opposition, read the generous terms of the purchase offers being extended to landowners. The problem is, the closer you get to Chicago the more idiotic things get.
This project will impact freight rail, nothing remotely like passenger transport or high-speed boondoggles.
Considering it snows - a lot - in parts of these states, it ought to be interesting to see how they plan to autonomously deal with that.
Probably by just shutting the whole system down until spring...
Why is the FedGov giving some random city $40M for projects on a non-federal non-waterway? Why are our tax dollars going there?
I disagree with the state spending so much on some of this stuff, but at least that’s local to them.