[akshayn]

This would encourage sprawl-y and inefficient land use.

[baq]

the problem is that's already the case and the reason why HSR won't work that well in the first place.

imagine though that there's a fleet of self-driving cars ready to take you to HSR stops. best of both worlds?

[akshayn]

Fair enough. Ultimately, HSR has far higher bandwidth than self-driving cars - density could be achieved either by efficient land use or by a feeder network (local transit or self-driving cars).

Presenting self-driving cars and HSR as mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy.