One interesting (to me) thought is that while HNers are generally worried about what we can lose here (in the curated world) many non techies are likely to see such a bifurcation in car transport.
At some point soon self driving cars are going to get good enough that they can be used on many roads and cities - but I seriously doubt they will be good enough to be used in a mixed environment (pedestrians, human drivers, snow ice etc). So there will be a push to have self driving cars (convenient taxi style) on isolated roads - sort of a weird inversion of pedestrianisation. Maybe Barcelona style super blocks with only 15mph self driving cars allowed? I don't know - but the impact will be people who used to drive their petrol manual cars around town find parts of town locked off. And it's not anti-car it's anti-freedom-car.
Just a passing thought
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