I mentioned this in my post - soccer moms who used to drop off their kid and go home, then pick up their kid and go home will save an entire trip.
My argument is nothing more than a fairly obvious case of Jevon's paradox. If something becomes easier or cheaper, it gets used more. Our road networks can not handle being used more.
And there are other side effects of driver-less cars as well. If driver-less cars become a thing, people will slowly retire their cars and go driver-less. As that happens, the required parking lots in malls and offices and shopping areas will drop. It will start dropping the more driver-less cars are used. This will mean that these areas can now build on these parking lots. Malls might see high rise office buildings in their lots, shopping centers might see some nice 5-over-1's. This will allow the higher density, and higher density means the average person will travel less distance, so that could be a huge win. But they can only do that if the road network can handle the congestion, and they won't be able to handle it if you don't plan ahead with public transportation.
But we'll also see the other side, where people who used to not like driving, so they only lived 1 hour away from the office, now live 2 hours away from the office because they can now read in their car.
So once again, if cities are prepared their land owners could reap enormous profits up-zoning their parking lots into highly dense highly walk-able neighborhoods, and if they don't they will lose the ability for these investments to come. It's a first-mover advantage.
My argument is nothing more than a fairly obvious case of Jevon's paradox. If something becomes easier or cheaper, it gets used more. Our road networks can not handle being used more.
And there are other side effects of driver-less cars as well. If driver-less cars become a thing, people will slowly retire their cars and go driver-less. As that happens, the required parking lots in malls and offices and shopping areas will drop. It will start dropping the more driver-less cars are used. This will mean that these areas can now build on these parking lots. Malls might see high rise office buildings in their lots, shopping centers might see some nice 5-over-1's. This will allow the higher density, and higher density means the average person will travel less distance, so that could be a huge win. But they can only do that if the road network can handle the congestion, and they won't be able to handle it if you don't plan ahead with public transportation.
But we'll also see the other side, where people who used to not like driving, so they only lived 1 hour away from the office, now live 2 hours away from the office because they can now read in their car.
So once again, if cities are prepared their land owners could reap enormous profits up-zoning their parking lots into highly dense highly walk-able neighborhoods, and if they don't they will lose the ability for these investments to come. It's a first-mover advantage.