[quatrevingts]

Once you switch over to autonomous taxis, so many possibilities open up:

Imagine eliminating most visible parking. A small fraction of the world's vehicle fleet is in use at any given time; the rest of the time it's taking up a parking spot. Remove that and we can have wide sidewalks and bike lanes, parks and new development. Suburbanites get an extra room in their house and a bigger yard.

Buses and light rail become obsolete, but heavy rail transit becomes much more practical, because the door-to-door problem is solved. A virtuous cycle of improved convenience, leading to greater ridership, leading to more trains and shorter headways could result. It makes a lot more sense to ring the bay with a 150 mph train when getting to and from the train is easy. (Then again, it might be easier just to run the taxis at 150 mph on dedicated roads.)

[danssig]

You could get rid of passenger trains and just have the cars drive right in when they chose a train route.

Also, for parking, we can take advantage of LIFO. Today, every single car has to be able to get out independent of the others. With robot cars only the last one of a given type (e.g. van, pickup, sedan).