In cities a substantial fraction of traffic is people circling the block trying to find parking near their destination and some fraction of traffic holdups is f

In cities a substantial fraction of traffic is people circling the block trying to find parking near their destination and some fraction of traffic holdups is from people stopping in a lane while waiting for somebody else to pull out of a parking space. These problems are substantially reduced with autonomous vehicles. Instead of slowly going around the block looking for a parking spot, you get out at your destination and the car drives away to some place where parking is cheap and a spot is known to be available. (When you need to leave, you tell the car via an app and it comes back to get you.) Self-driving cars can park far more densely without fear of being blocked in and can park inconveniently far away while still being reasonably available. Thus cities will need less on-street or near-street parking and can reclaim a lot of that space for traffic or transit or bikes or people or commerce. If your wife only occasionally needs a car, couldn't she call a local on-demand one - an automated uber? That seems cheaper than paying to send an empty car on two daily 20km trips...