In an example of a bad headline, this article is headlined “Amazon ends California drone deliveries“. But in the first paragraph, you learn they are discontinuing them in one particular town where they have been pilot testing them. There could be any number of political or bureaucratic reasons for this. And in the third paragraph, you learn they are starting them elsewhere, in this case in a Phoenix suburb.
My take: Deliveries by small, light autonomous vehicles make a ton of sense. In my view though, we are considering flying drones because our ground-level transportation designs are about 50 years out of date. We need to evolve our thinking from “bike lanes” to dedicated lanes for all sorts of slow, light vehicles that aren’t going to cause serious injuries or damage if they run into things. They have to be completely separate from lanes designed for highway vehicles. They need to be separate from pedestrian walkways. They need their own signals (or maybe they don’t need signals at all, but only if they are nowhere near those deadly highway vehicles). They need to be well constructed, well maintained, and enforced. I would allow only zero-emission and quiet vehicles in these lanes. All of this should be cheaper and easier than continuing to feed the money pit that is our outdated transportation infrastructure system currently in place in urban areas.
Politically, at least where I live, this gets into the “green gentrification” debate, and we are losing that debate massively, having just elected a mayor who is openly hostile to anything that would reduce the amount of blood soaking our streets. This is irrational of course, when safe efficient street designs could help people of all incomes and backgrounds get to jobs and lead longer, healthier lives.