This should not surprise anyone. As the price of a service decreases, consumption increases. So, we should expect that more people are taking taxi rides that w

This should not surprise anyone. As the price of a service decreases, consumption increases. So, we should expect that more people are taking taxi rides that would otherwise commute in different ways (e.g. walking or taking the bus). If we extrapolate to self-driving cars where the cost comes down by about 2/3, it is easy to see a tragedy of the commons situation where roads in major cities are saturated with vehicles. This is where government intervention is required. This can be done either through limiting vehicle permits (which NYC introduced) or other forms of taxes (e.g. congestion taxes).