I don't know that the traffic would be much worse, because if you assume that a significant number of cars are self driving, then you eliminate many of the problems in terms of traffic flow that come from a human driver: maintaining a constant speed and distance from the car in front, aggressive driving, counter-productive driving habits, tragedy of the commons issues. It is possible to use the roads far more efficiently than we currently are capable of as humans.
There's also the point that it doesn't really matter how bad the traffic on the roads is if the only majority of the things suffering that bad traffic don't have any people in them.
Gas and polution:
If you can tell your car to go somewhere else when you are not in it, then electric cars and out of city parking lots - things like that - become a lot more feasible. You no longer need the infrastructure to be right next to your office to make effective use of it.
I don't know that the traffic would be much worse, because if you assume that a significant number of cars are self driving, then you eliminate many of the problems in terms of traffic flow that come from a human driver: maintaining a constant speed and distance from the car in front, aggressive driving, counter-productive driving habits, tragedy of the commons issues. It is possible to use the roads far more efficiently than we currently are capable of as humans.
There's also the point that it doesn't really matter how bad the traffic on the roads is if the only majority of the things suffering that bad traffic don't have any people in them.
Gas and polution:
If you can tell your car to go somewhere else when you are not in it, then electric cars and out of city parking lots - things like that - become a lot more feasible. You no longer need the infrastructure to be right next to your office to make effective use of it.