This is a false alternative, because robocars do not exist, while public transit does exist but simply hasn’t been adequately implemented everywhere.
Politicians (and grifters alike) like to point to a future technology to solve an existing problem only to delay existing solutions which they don’t want to implement, most often for political reasons.
Robocars most certainly exist. They’re probably about 5% of car traffic in San Francisco. I’ve not taken one yet (taxis/ubers/Waymos are mostly impractical with a young kid in the US as you must use a car seat unlike in most European countries) but as a pedestrian they seem mostly a safer than other drivers. As a driver I expect they will eventually induce gridlock but the city can always create more bus lanes.
Portable booster seats are pretty small. I can’t see it working if you have a kid younger than the booster seat min though. Only a few states have strict rules here, Washington and California being a couple, although I think California has a taxi exemption.
Living in San Francisco I've not seen the taxi exemption for California anywhere. New York City taxis are exempt like most of Europe.
My kid is too young for a booster city. It's pretty impractical to take a child seat or booster with you unless you plan to hire a car the other end. When I travel back to see my family in Europe I take the train from the airport. So we bus and Bart to the airport even though it would be much easier with luggage to take a taxi.
My kid is 2. New York City and most EU countries (including Spain, Portugal, UK, France) allow children to ride in taxis without a car seat.
This makes it far more practical for people to live without a car - hard to imagine in most of the US I know. As most such trips are low speed around town (e.g. getting to and from a train station or airport) it seems a reasonable trade off.
The robotaxis that do exist only do so in very limited places using very expensive technology (including off-shored service center for intervention) that is not available for the public consumer markets.
They mean consumer robocars as opposed to robotaxis. The latter exist, the former don't. And the latter are remotely controlled by operators when hard situations arise, but a blind consumer would presumably be on their own or would have to pay an additional subscription for that service.
Politicians (and grifters alike) like to point to a future technology to solve an existing problem only to delay existing solutions which they don’t want to implement, most often for political reasons.