> Medallion supplies weren't constrained due to corruption and cronyism but to prevent the overpopulation of Taxis. Removing the driver may lower costs of Taxi's but there will still be a minimum floor to Taxi prices as you can't just infinitely supply a city with driverless cars.
This is maybe true in exceptional cities like NYC and Tokyo, but for the vast majority of US cities the fraction of cars on the road that are taxis is negligible. Autonomous service will almost certainly increase the average number of passengers per vehicle, thereby greatly improving the efficiency of the road system. (Obviously a better/cheaper system can induce demand, increasing overall congestion, but this is the case with all improvements to transportation and simply signals that more value is being delivered.) Yes, small cars will have difficulty matching the passenger volume of trains, but autonomous vans and buses will come much closer and with vastly more flexibility than trains.
This is maybe true in exceptional cities like NYC and Tokyo, but for the vast majority of US cities the fraction of cars on the road that are taxis is negligible. Autonomous service will almost certainly increase the average number of passengers per vehicle, thereby greatly improving the efficiency of the road system. (Obviously a better/cheaper system can induce demand, increasing overall congestion, but this is the case with all improvements to transportation and simply signals that more value is being delivered.) Yes, small cars will have difficulty matching the passenger volume of trains, but autonomous vans and buses will come much closer and with vastly more flexibility than trains.