If you believe the hype coming out of Silicon Valley in recent years, the transportation world is about to experience its biggest disruption since the motorcar replaced the horse-drawn carriage at the beginning of the twentieth century. Within the next two decades, corporate giants such as Google, Uber, Tesla, and Ford will roll millions of autonomous vehicles onto our streets, roads, and highways, with some very serious implications on the way we design our cities, not to mention how we live our lives.

Those who study the issue tend to fall into two camps. The first, more optimistic group believe driverless cars will complement existing walking, cycling and public transit options, reduce the number of vehicles using our streets, increase safety and mobility options, and free up public space currently used for parking. The second, more cynical crowd fear automated vehicles will induce longer commutes, sprawling development, compete with walking and cycling, and reduce investment in high capacity transit.

While the reality will likely fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, local and regional governments will play a crucial regulatory role in shaping our driverless future, and it seems many are woefully underprepared for its imminent arrival. When the National League of Cities conducted an analysis of transportation plans for the 68 largest U.S. communities in late 2015, just four of those documents had considered the potential effects of driverless technology.

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