This isn't about the suburbs, where by and large people don't take transit today. Shutting down transit entirely wouldn't affect most suburbanites directly. But when folks talk about transit, they generally are not trying to tell suburbanites or rural residents to live differently. They should keep their cars and drive or let self-driving get them around.

But places where people take transit are a different animal. These places are characterized by higher density and higher levels of road congestion.

> Self-driving cars should enable higher throughput on existing roads

Yes, in the suburbs and exurbs. A gridlocked highway in a city does not have a much higher throughput possible; cars are generally tightly packed and/or stopped.

Remember that for all the gawkers at an accident on one side of the highway, there are also drivers on the other side of the road who are physically blocked by the accident. Autonomy does not help this either, for medium-term penetration levels of autonomous vehicles. (Making the great assumption that at near 100% penetration, accidents could be nearly eliminated.)