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Speaking from a totally American perspective, transit mode share is already so small as to be irrelevant to the issue of congestion. The only way that self driving cars will increase congestion is through increased trips taken because the cost of driving is lowered. And considering how most people currently own a car and prepay most of the cost of ownership in financing and insurance, I don't see trips increasing that much. Being able to watch tiktok in the car instead of being stuck listening to the radio while driving probably won't increase trips all that much either.
In fact, self driving cars should save urbanism by getting rid of all those horrid parking lots and parking garages. Infill replacing surface parking will bring up density and also close the gap between existing businesses that are surrounded by seas of parking.
So let's go through the video's specific braindead arguments.
Transit share is so low that you could delete buses from every city in the USA and not notice a difference in congestion. You can even look at the EIR statements of transit megaprojects (subways and shit) in California and see that they're projected to do literally nothing to congestion. Transit is a service to increase accessibility for the car-free, not a tool to reduce congestion.
So what? This doesn't affect urbanism directly. Laws about who can sue when someone gets flattened by an idiot driver don't usually factor into people's everyday decisionmaking. The feeling of safety based on design is what matters.
It would take a monumental stretch to delete sidewalks and crosswalks. Nobody is going to call a self driving car to cross the street, and nobody sane would mandate that. The fact that (granted, inadequate) crosswalks exist in even the most mind-numbingly car-dependent, zero-transit suburbs means that we as a society understand the need for these things even when almost nobody uses them. Regarding noise pollution, nimbys exist, and will obviously be able to limit vehicle speeds for the sake of noise.
I wouldn't put too much stock into environmental impact statements. Their methodology for predicting traffic is often suspect; for instance, the draft EIS for the I-5 project between Portland and Vancouver, WA expects the same number of cars per direction on the I-5 bridge whether or not the bridge is expanded.
You could not delete buses from every city in the USA without noticing a difference in congestion. See this study about a 2003 LA transit strike, which saw average highway delays increase by 47%. Then consider that LA has a much lower transit mode share than some other US cities.
You're right that transit isn't a good tool to reduce congestion. (At least, I think you're right; I'd have to do more research to be sure.) That's because road space is almost always provided free of charge. It's rational for drivers to fill up the free road space until traffic delays make it too inconvenient, and if transit siphons off some of those drivers, other drivers will fill in the gap.
But the purpose of transit isn't just to increase accessibility for non-drivers. It can also convert drivers into non-drivers, and it can enable drivers to forgo driving when parking is too expensive or traffic is too bad. (E.g. going downtown, going to sports games and concerts, or going to the airport.)
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It's been noticed that congestion sometimes goes DOWN during transit strikes in Philadelphia. Some of this is likely reduced trips, but the claim that buses are basically cholesterol in the road system is out there.
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Except all the cars in those lots are now on the road, with nobody in them. The streets are the new parking lots. This wouldn't be a good thing.
Or they could park further away than their occupants are willing/able to walk....
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There would likely be a lot fewer of them. Instead of owning a car people could use cars as a service.
Discussed below. I think this is unlikely given that Uber has not reduced car ownership at all.
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No, because of the peak load problem. A very significant percentage of those cars get used all at once.
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