Washington DC - Richard Biter, assistant secretary of the Florida department of transportation, describes the arrival of autonomous vehicles as "a technology tsunami".
He's not the only one. Travis Brouwer, a spokesman for the Oregon department of transportation, said: "This is going faster than anybody would've expected, say, six years ago."
Both states plan to hire specialists - before the end of 2015 - to guide the transition to self-driving vehicles. But according to the National League of Cities, only six percent of city and regional transportation plans take driverless technology into account - and those that do are discovering that the future is full of challenges and uncertainties.
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There's a trend in the United States for people to move back into urban areas to cut down on commuting from the 'burbs. Driverless cars could reverse that trend, but does that mean roads will become even more crowded?
We might all gravitate toward small one-person pods, or sell our homes and live in self-driving campers.
Autonomous cars have already demonstrated that they can steer more accurately than human drivers - does that means lanes could be made narrower, making space for extra lanes and relieving traffic?
And how much of this is just hype? Although many carmakers make bold claims about the proliferation of driverless cars by 2020, most current test programmes are small and limited to hand-picked roads.
And they're not keen to give accurate details on their progress, which would help bureaucrats project the future.
Peter Marx, chief technology of Los Angeles, said: "Right now we're in a very uncertain place.
"We see an awful lot of stuff happening out there, but, frankly, I haven't met anybody whose crystal ball works perfectly."
BULDING FOR AN UNPREDICTABLE FUTURE
It's like trying to dress in the dark and pick out clothes that match - and given how long to takes to get legislation passed, urban planners could be stuck wearing that same outfit for years.
As Biter said: "We're designing infrastructure today with a life expectancy of 50, 80, even 100 years.
"Not just Florida but every state needs to start taking self-driving transport into account, building infrastructure today that will be able to cope with this technology."
For example, the Los Angeles region's traffic management system controls 45 000 intersections; it will almost certainly have to be adapted at some point. In addition, the California DMV is expected to release proposed roadworthy regulations for driverless cars by the end of 2015.
Oregon is considering crash reports. If autonomous vehicles deliver the expected safety improvements, there will be fewer accidents - but authorities may have to require manufacturers of driverless cars to provide a report each time one of their vehicles is in a crash, to explain accidents caused by software and sensor failures.
The average age of cars on US roads is 12 years, none of this is likely to happen overnight but, while Tesla and other manufacturers can update self-driving software in seconds, adjusting on the fly is a luxury infrastructure planners won't have.
Washington Post
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