> > We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery
> Just moving parking to the periphery won't make American cities better or more walkable.
It certainly can make cities better. Removing street parking allows streets to be narrower, giving us room for larger sidewalks, bikepaths, outdoor seating in restaurants.
> > Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone
> If you're assuming that self-driving cars will be perfect and segregated, conditions will always be perfect (e.g. no pedestrians or bikes slipping), etc. etc. etc. Why would you?
Humans definitely aren't perfect, that's why there are so many collisions, deaths and injuries. Many of those occur in "ideal" conditions due to distracted driving. In exceptional conditions (where people, bikes, animals run into the road), humans have a pretty poor response too. You'd have to run the numbers (like insurance companies) to determine when they are generally better than humans.
There's also no reason you couldn't delegate parts of the road system as autonomous only, we already have areas that are pickup/dropoff or taxi only. Just expand them.
> > Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity
> The vast majority of driving can be replaced by already existing, proven and drastically more efficient tech - public transit.
Why not both? Put in your destination in an app and if there are enough people on the way, an autonomous bus can pick you up. If not, an autonomous car does.