Few op-eds that we’ve published over the years spurred more reader engagement than the Sam Schwartz-Kelly McGuinness-penned piece earlier this month about autonomous vehicles. We had commissioned the piece from the pair of experts after Gov. Hochul ended Waymo’s testing of AV taxis in New York City, mainly to ask the simple question, “What now?” Frankly, the piece was fairly anodyne — “What now? Society should have a serious debate about the role of AVs so we don’t end up with what happened in the 1920s, when we failed to have a serious debate about cars” — but reader interest was exceptionally keen. Fortunately, Schwartz and McGuinness were also leading a three-panel seminar last week, “The Future of Transportation,” at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. Because of our readers’ — and society’s — obvious interest in the top, we offer an excerpt from the Schwartz-led panel, “Autonomous Vehicles and the Hard Problems — Safety, Streets, and Tradeoffs.” Panelists were Peter Norton, author of “Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City“; Rachel Weinberger of Regional Plan Association; and journalist David Zipper. Sam Schwartz: Okay, this is going to be exciting. We have a panel here of experts who’ve been studying this issue and have been raising some concerns, and they’re giving us a lot of history, and maybe we’ll start with Peter, and we can go on for a few minutes, and you tell us a little bit about your thoughts about autonomous vehicles, what’s being done right or wrong, or what should we be wary of? And then David, and then Rachel. Peter Norton: We can’t talk about the benefits of robotic cars alone. We can’t talk about the risks of robotic cars alone, and we can’t talk about regulation alone.