Yes, autonomous vehicles will increase vehicle miles traveled by about 6% according to at least one set of serious researchers. They say this might not sound like much, but it will be enough to exceed capacity and cause massive traffic jams. Now, I’m sure these are serious transportation researchers who have thought about all the things I mention below, but I’ll mention them anyway:

• Autonomous vehicles shouldn’t need to maintain the same “safe following distance” human drivers are supposed to maintain, which is based on slow human reaction times. So the autonomous vehicles should be able to travel closer together (from front to back) than human drivers at a given speed, and do this safely.
• They also should be able to travel closer together from side to side. Our standard 12-foot travel lanes allow a lot of space for human drivers to weave wildly and unpredictably from side to side, which of course we do. Keep your arms, legs, heads, and pets inside the vehicle at all times, please!
• Most vehicles are parked most of the time, so that much more space is required for vehicle storage than for moving vehicles. Not only this, but enormous amounts of empty space are required between parked vehicles for human drivers to maneuver the vehicles in and out of storage. Computers drivers will need much less space for maneuvering and will be infinitely patient.

So put all this together and I think that even if VMT increases, the amount of physical space required for vehicles could be massively reduced. This could be a big win for people, cities, and the environment. If VMT increases because people are able to get around more easily and cheaply, including the elderly, disabled, and parents pushing strollers, in all kinds of weather, this is a win for quality of life. I don’t see artificially restricting mobility as a win for people. I shouldn’t even have to say that reducing death and injury caused by vehicles by a factor of 10 or more is a moral and quality of life win.

Now, I am worried about urban and suburban sprawl getting even worse as it gets easier to get around. I am worried about air pollution and climate change. Add in augmented and virtual reality, and we might also come to care less and less over time what our cities look like to unaugmented eyes. I love compact, walking, cycling, and public transportation oriented urban form. One of the downsides of this form in the past has been a lack of green open space, but massively reduce the amount of space required for parking, and it will open up a lot of space in cities that we will then have choices of what to do with. So it really comes down to policy choices, and different places are going to make different choices, but I don’t see the technology itself as the root problem.