Ghost Road

March 16, 2020
Townsend, president of urban-planning organization Asterisk City Group, takes a deep dive into automated vehicles (AVs) and driverless technology in his well-researched, and at times deeply disturbing, book. At first blush, AVs hold great promise for reducing traffic fatalities and traffic congestion, but they may also, Townsend argues, “open the door for an insidious infiltration of markets into every choice about when, where, and how we travel.” Breaking the book into three “big stories”—titled Specialization, Materialization, and Financialization—Townsend explains how “self-driving technology will set changes in motion that reshape our world.” Section I features an overview of AV development; while informative, this section occasionally suffers from purple prose. The takeaway here: planners should focus less on the software controlling individual vehicles than on those controlling traffic patterns as a whole. Section II examines the current reliance on “seamless materialization of online merchandise,” which is driving the emergence of “last-mile” fulfillment changes. Readers will learn about “mobile warehouses,” ghost restaurants, drastic changes in trucking, and much more. Section III—alternately exciting and ominous—examines the demise of free roads, the redesign of cities with “streets... designed for people, not vehicles,” and new fiscal challenges cities will face as revenue sources (parking fees, traffic fines) disappear. This fascinating and complex book will strike a chord with technophiles.