I work in public transit in the DC region. It will be a banner year for autonomous vehicles as they begin to meet the real world and scale.

The present paradigm of individual car ownership is dying. Regular people are broke, car dealerships are continuing their markups above MSRP because they can, interest rates are terrible, used vehicles are too hard to fix because of supply chain problems, and the pump is primed for disruption on an S-curve adoption rate.

Given: "Construction on Amazon's HQ2 is currently underway, with Phase 1 expected to be completed in 2023. As of 2022, HQ2 hires have surpassed 5,000 and Amazon leases nearly 1,000,000 SF of existing office space in the Crystal City area of National Landing."

Prediction: Amazon announces that their Zoox autonomous vehicle division will begin testing in Arlington and Alexandria. It starts with Prime grocery delivery from their two Fresh stores in Crystal City and Potomac Yard. Their gig workers ride with the groceries to make deliveries. They negotiate with WMATA to leverage the MetroWay to expediently move up and down the otherwise congested corridor. From there, they move up to first-last mile transport of passengers replicating what Waymo has already achieved in the Bay Area. Amazon will then also launch Zoox grocery delivery and robotaxi service in Washington DC, which is the real prize to winning hearts and minds in terms of global significance.

From there, how I envision this happening ideally over the next 5-20 years is almost all bus routes become like BRT (bus rapid transit), but more flexible in terms of how supply matches demand. There will be traffic signal priority for high-passenger volume vehicles on every arterial corridor as part of the BRT treatments. Transit agencies will have the same number of buses, if not more. They'll all be zero-emission buses as they are quickly becoming cheaper to operate.

The heavy-duty buses will focus on running high-quality productive services. Local routes are free (or freemium with incentives to ride and check-in via app). And, what we're doing now for just coverage and off-peak span is serviced by rideshare (increasingly in fleet-managed electric vans like VW's MOIA, AVs with remote piloting over 5G in areas with well-mapped operational design domains, walking and ped upgrades, and abundant micromobility (possibly with semi-automated rebalancing, which keeps them from being sidewalk obstructions). AVs with grocery delivery and mobile vending will continue to deploy helping normalize the technology with the public.

Also, heavy rail will become incrementally better returning to automated train control and great shuttle services during planned track work. Underperforming office space will convert to housing as we adjust to the post-pandemic new normal of working like 2-3 days a week in the office.