This may derail the discussion but it's hard to discuss this question without first wondering the impact of self-driving cars to mass transit. At least in New York, being near a subway stop is a very nice amenity and commercial development typically flourishes around each stop regardless of neighborhood. If stepping into a self-driving car is as easy as walking 50 feet to the nearest subway stop, will real estate around subways command less of a premium?
I guess the bigger question is, will subways have as much demand once self-driving cars become big? Obviously, no, if the cost for hailing a self-driving car becomes almost as inexpensive as a subway. But there are things the city of New York could do to impact that, such as reduce street capacity (i.e. increasing pedestrian and bike capacity).
But that's just New York. Everywhere else in the U.S. where mass transit is not a daily option, automated cars will be a daily habit. Inevitably, as more and more people migrate to New York and expect automated cars to be the default option, it's hard to imagine subways (and buses) winning out, absent some major limitation in self-driving car production or capability.
New York will always be an anomaly...but yes, I'd have to agree with your speculation that suburban living would become much more attractive without having to worry about car ownership or driving. And this would most definitely impact commuters to New York. But if self-driving cars become a ubiquitous option, will there be the political appetite to continue subsidizing mass transit rail, such as the kind that is currently used to bring in upstate workers to the city today?
A royal commission did a study on "Traffic in Towns" in 1963 and concluded it would be impossible to serve a city with London-like size and density with cars even if you put the buildings up on stilts and built multiple levels of roads an highways -- the problem is that you can't support a high enough level of traffic on highway offramps.
New York City is pretty close to the maximum limit of car capacity it can support. For one thing there are only so many cars that can travel on so many lanes through bridges and tunnels. If you tried to add more lanes, you'd have the same kind of problems connecting those to surface streets that you get in the "Jetsons in London" scenario.
Robert Moses did have some plans for urban removal on the southern side of midtown to accomodate more traffic (and destroy traffic demand) but it didn't happen.
(Note the response to the car in most American cities was urban removal -- you can often find a big empty space in a second or third tier city that has a 'civic center' plopped down on it.)
Manhattan looks pretty much the same today with all the cabs that it would look like with self-driving cars.
Lots of factors to look at in how this plays out in very dense and transit oriented cities like NY and large European cities. There is the potential for major problems with traffic as people move from taking transit to riding in a self-driving car. The subway infrastructure moves a lot of people, and if you move a lot of them up to the street level, the streets may not be able to cope. A lot of plusses and minuses come to mind.
1. Until all cars are self-driving, we will still need traffic lights, and so intersections will still be a big bottleneck.
2. Self driving cars may be able however to maintain closer following distances since they have quicker reaction times.
3. Jaywalking has the potential to cause huge traffic problems because pedestrians will know that self driving cars won't hit them.
4. Parking can be made more efficient by sharing cars. This is already happening in Berlin and other cities with floating carsharing systems.
5. Parking can also be made a lot more efficient if there are self-driving parking lots or areas marked off on the street, and the self-driving cars have a protocol to cooperate with parking. Parallel parked cars can be parked bumper-to-bumper, and they all just scoot out of the way to let someone out. In a lot, cars can park much more closely packed left-right since doors don't need to open, and the driving lanes can be reduced or eliminated if cars cooperate to get out of the way when one has to leave. This may free up street area to add extra driving lanes.
6. More people will probably share rides with a self driving Uber Pool/Lyft line type model.
7. If cars are shared, a lot of the fleet can be very small two or even one seat cars that take up less space in the road and parking.
8. Car interiors will resemble an office workstation. With mobile internet, very long commutes will be acceptable if the car is a fairly comfortable mobile office.
What if they redesigned the subway to be a bunch of self driving cars? basically have the stop be a lineup of cars that you get into on demand like a taxi and have each stop have a bypass so if your small car didn't need to stop there you could move on unimpeded.
I guess the bigger question is, will subways have as much demand once self-driving cars become big? Obviously, no, if the cost for hailing a self-driving car becomes almost as inexpensive as a subway. But there are things the city of New York could do to impact that, such as reduce street capacity (i.e. increasing pedestrian and bike capacity).
But that's just New York. Everywhere else in the U.S. where mass transit is not a daily option, automated cars will be a daily habit. Inevitably, as more and more people migrate to New York and expect automated cars to be the default option, it's hard to imagine subways (and buses) winning out, absent some major limitation in self-driving car production or capability.
New York will always be an anomaly...but yes, I'd have to agree with your speculation that suburban living would become much more attractive without having to worry about car ownership or driving. And this would most definitely impact commuters to New York. But if self-driving cars become a ubiquitous option, will there be the political appetite to continue subsidizing mass transit rail, such as the kind that is currently used to bring in upstate workers to the city today?