> But congestion? That's going to get a lot worse, it's not going to be the utopia that people here seem to expect.

Some congestion, but other congestion will get better. Parking shortage is a form of congestion that will get better when cars can drop you off rather than needing to find a parking space. Also, circling and searching for parking when there's little available causes congestion. There's few more frustrating driving experiences than being stuck behind someone going 10mph while looking for parking.

I can imagine one of the initial big selling points to self-driving cars will be a "go earn money" mode where, instead of parking your car, you tell it what time to come back and pick you up and it goes to drive for Uber/Lyft in the interim and accepts any ride that doesn't preclude it from returning in time.