The Urban Time Trial 2048

‘Cause dystopian future fiction’s just more fun?

This is my confession: I do the urban time trial. I am by law required to acknowledge my accusers.

Some context:

Driverless car technology has become very good. Nearly perfect, most would agree. After president Trump the Younger (Barron, that is, none of the others) agreed with the Consortium of EV Public-Private Provider (PPP) Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Tier-1 provider(s) to craft and pass legislation mandating that driverless car technology be perfected by 2044, then, by definition (because there were lawyers), driverless cars were by definition perfect. (This also took a lot of pressure off of the judicial system, since all traffic-related incidents involving driverless cars were quickly dispatched after the Supreme Court established in their ruling on UTT v CEVPPPOEMT1P that the First Amendment protects Connected and Automated Vehicles against all claims because they are by definition perfect.)

Leveraging the safety benefits of driverless cars to outlaw driving cars manually on the streets of Chicago (or in any urban area in the First World) was immediate. It was left to the states to determine for themselves how cars with drivers should be regulated. Of course, hobbyists could certainly still drive their performance and vintage collector Corvettes and Cyber-Trucks on private property and closed tracks or in auditoriums for commercial events like old-time racetrack competitions and truck pulls. Meanwhile, nearly sixty years of trickle-down economic policies meant that only the "1%" could even afford driverless cars (in quotes because the actual figure is smaller by far, but the idea that 1% can still make it affords hope--helps keep the masses aspirational). Most driverless cars are owned by the Consortium, which offers a full suite of subscriptions for ride hailing services, addressing the needs of riders of any economic strata.

The thing that the driverless car hardware, software, algorithms, quantum computers, servers, and connected infrastructure could never quite figure out and which had to be legislated around was bicyclists. Rain, snow, ice, deer, drunk pedestrians--no problem. But the ability of the best automated vehicle to successfully predict the trajectory of a bicyclist turned out to be inversely proportional with the amount of tattoo ink the bicyclist had in their skin. Which is interesting but unhelpful to an AI engine making split-second calculations at up to 70 MPH about whether to proceed, slow down, or take rubber-screeching, fishtailing evasive action.

Meanwhile, just about everyone now is too poor for any of that and they ride bicycles. The way driverless cars were legislated into perfect level-5 automation status was by limiting bicycles to streets unused by automated motorized (electric, internal-combustion, hydrogen, fission-drive, compost-fueled, whatever) vehicles. Segregating the streets was a political process akin to gerrymandering. Over time, cyclists and pedestrians were relegated to the most indirect, circuitous, and desolated streets, forcing anyone who could possibly afford to hail a ride or take the H (short for HyperLoop--the vacuum-tube transport system that replaced the El sometime during the Ivanka administration) to do so.

The Consortium has made it tough for the bike business, too, successfully lobbying for heavy taxes on bicycles on the basis that they are inherently dangerous. So people are creative about keeping their bikes working forever, leading to a bizarre Mad-Max-like city of bicycles--but without the violence and gasoline wars.

Most cyclists are like sheep. They follow the rules, ride slowly on the potholed streets they're supposed to, hail a ride or take the H when they can or have to make an appointment on time, and pay their tickets for speeding, parking violations, and missing or unmaintained safety equipment such as rear-view mirrors, reflectors, and flashing perimeter lighting, on time.

There's also a subculture of stronger, faster cyclists who ride wherever and whenever they like. Most of them ride vintage bikes or new ones styled after those from around the turn of the century. No mirrors or perimeter lighting systems. They are young, strong, fast. They prefer to ride where the cars are because the cars are very predictable, and the privatized (and chronically under-funded) police force rarely tries to catch them. It's much easier for them to meet their quotas going after the regular cyclists who can't keep track of all the rules, little less sprint away on bike-choked roads to avoid being caught.

So. I do the urban time trial. It’s an outlaw sport, condemned by USA Cycling. Unlike an ordinary time trial, which typically follows an out-and-back route on a disconnected road or trails officially designated for recreational bicycling, an urban time trial is raced exactly where it shouldn’t be, on roads reserved for CAVs: Connected & Automated Vehicles. There are no specific rules governing the safe conduct of the sport. Laws for relegating cyclists to the roads designated for non-CAVs are ignored—we actually prefer lanes that are reserved for driverless cars and shuttles. It’s illegal but faster because the routes are direct, and it’s safer because self-driving vehicles are predictable. Anything driven by an unplugged human is erratic and potentially lethal.

My apartment window overlooks Roosevelt Road, a ribbon of silky-smooth CAV-reserved pavement that comes from somewhere out past the Tri-State CAVway, pushes through the western suburbs, past my building, and into the heart of the city where it terminates at Justice Clarence Thomas Park, near Lake Michigan. Roosevelt Road wakes me up at night rumbling beneath the weight of eerily silent platoons of electric semi-trucks hauling people and food throughout the city, and each day it produces tides of synchronized traffic that pull me to work in the morning and wash me out again later on.

Most people who know Roosevelt Road don’t give it much thought. Encapsulated in their self-driving private cars or automated municipal shuttles, most of them are either napping or absorbed in their tabs, gaming, conferencing, or reading. It’s hard to know what they’re doing because the composite shells of most modern vehicles are opaque. You can’t even tell most of the time whether vehicles are occupied.

I am different in that I recognize and fully engage in the daily challenge of getting to my job as quickly as possible, under my own power. For me, the twenty-five minutes between Oak Park and Chicago’s Loop are the best of the day.