Viscera's Cyborg Guide to Carbondale, Part 1: Comings & Goings (Con'd)

In my last post I described some of Cardondale's modes of transport, and I left you before getting to the issue of movement control. It seems that the humans have almost completely relinquished control over the precise movements of their comings and goings to machines. The curious 4-eyed being to the right, for example, uses its long arm to control the movement of personal transport vehicles and other such machines across the tracks. "Crossing" any sort of route appears to be quite a risky activity for normal humans and their machines, for it is regulated in various ways. Even upright, walking humans must obey the guidance of machines, who tell them when to walk through the painted passageway and when not to. On my explorative walk I may have stumbled upon a brain center for these controlling machines. They appear to congregate underground, with access to them limited to sealed trap doors.
Comings and goings in Carbondale are not merely regulated by force; monetary power is also required to rest one's transport vehicle in various places. It appears that the city governance leases very small plots of land to humans and their machines, for very short periods of time, if they can deposit the proper coinage. It seems that some resting places are "reserved" for important machines and their people, though I do not think all humans are happy with this arrangement, given that someone has left their mark on some of them as if in protest.