SF Standard – Lurie gives Waymo the keys to Market Street. People are furious
See original article by Josh Koehn at SF Standard
Rideshare companies and safe-street advocates are fuming that the mayor is playing favorites.
Safe-street advocates and militant cyclists have spent more than a decade fighting with rideshare companies Uber and Lyft in San Francisco’s transportation trenches. But the natural enemies have finally found common ground: They all hate Mayor Daniel Lurie’s decision to give Waymo robotaxis near exclusive access to Market Street.
The mayor’s office gave transit officials marching orders to let Waymo operate on Market Street, similar to the company’s activities at San Francisco International Airport. Meanwhile, officials for Uber and the slow-streets group KidSafe SF were kept in the dark on the company’s Market Street deal, receiving word of Lurie’s unilateral decision less than a day before it was announced.
Lurie’s decision to quietly work behind the scenes with Waymo was a notable departure from how he has handled most of his first three months in office, when he appeared to be trying to appease a wide range of constituents. Many of the key players involved in the mayor’s efforts to revitalize downtown seem to overlap with the Waymo expansion, a scenario that has raised concerns of favoritism. Critics have also noted that Lurie seems to have cut a deal without extracting long-sought concessions on data to make sure the robotaxis are as safe as Waymo claims.
“Market Street is still one of the most dangerous streets in the city, even after we removed private vehicles [in 2020],” KidSafe SF cofounder Robin Pam said, noting that there were 49 injury collisions on the downtown corridor as recently as 2022. “So, it’s not about Waymo, it’s about any vehicles adding congestion to the street. Transportation is never going to solve public safety problems.”
Uber and Lyft are on the same side as safe-street advocates, albeit for different reasons. By partnering with Waymo, Lurie is now seen as playing favorites in the lucrative rideshare and autonomous vehicle industries, which are almost certain to converge into a single business lane as technology advances.
“AVs offer exciting rideshare opportunities, and we support their growth,” Alex Tourk, a lobbyist who represents Lyft, said in a statement. “However, allowing only AVs on Market Street disregards the thousands of drivers on Lyft. We should be competing on service, not on creating exclusivity. If the mayor believes opening Market Street benefits the city, it should be accessible to all rideshare drivers.”
Waymo officials have close ties to the Lurie administration. Ruth Porat is the president and chief investment officer of Alphabet, which owns the robotaxi company, and she cochairs the mayor’s Partnership for San Francisco, which is tasked with improving business conditions. In a statement last year, Porat praised the appointment of policy chief Ned Segal, who has fingerprints on all major economic decisions in Lurie’s office.
Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for Lurie, did not answer emailed questions about the Waymo agreement. In a call, Lutvak said he wasn’t sure if Waymo officials or the mayor’s office reached out first about getting robotaxis onto Market Street; he added that he probably wouldn’t share that information even if he did know.
As part of its Better Market Street project in early 2020, San Francisco shut down Market Street to private vehicles, cordoning off the city’s main artery for Muni buses and streetcars, taxis, and commercial loading vehicles. The goal was to reduce congestion and make the city’s most dangerous street safer after years of fatal collisions. But the pandemic hit weeks later, emptying office buildings. The hollowed-out downtown has lagged in its recovery compared to other major cities.
Officials for both Waymo and the mayor’s office said the robotaxis are safer than human drivers and bear commercial license plates, which would have given them access to Market Street under the 2020 plan. Officials for Waymo said the company has refrained from using the thoroughfare out of respect for the Better Market Street program.
However, Uber officials told The Standard their company also has commercial vehicles on its platform that would meet the criteria, but they haven’t heard from Lurie on gaining access to Market Street.
Rideshare officials also question Waymo’s mapping agreement at SFO, concerned that it could be a step toward Lurie granting the company exclusive rights to curbside pickups.
Not everyone is in opposition, of course. Alex Bastian, president and CEO of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, described the Waymo announcement as “a step in the right direction” when it comes to revitalizing Market Street.
“We need to have everyone at the table, and that includes small businesses, big businesses, transit activists and motorists,” Bastian said. “We’re all going to have to compromise.”
Waymo has been far from compromising in sharing data around “bricking,” or incidents in which a robotaxi shuts down and becomes unresponsive, blocking traffic until it can be removed from the scene. City transit officials have spent the last couple of years trying to gain access to this data and other information related to the blocking of emergency first responders, but Waymo has resisted. Legislative efforts to corral more data and enforcement on robotaxis went nowhere last year.
People who have been involved in discussions with Waymo were surprised when the company’s agreement to begin mapping operations at SFO did not come with a requirement to share data on bricking or other incidents.
“Apparently, Lurie has been welcoming them with open arms and no conditions attached,” said Aaron Peskin, the former president of the Board of Supervisors. “It’s not an outlandish request, but because Waymo has gotten the support of Gov. [Gavin] Newsom, they have not been required to divulge this information. And now that the city is giving them special favors, the city should get that data in return.”
In response to an emailed question about whether the company will provide bricking data, Waymo officials said the company submits reports as required to its regulators at the state and federal level.
Pam noted that bricking Waymos on Market Street could become a huge issue, as hundreds of thousands of people ride buses there every day.
“Are we gonna have empty Waymos blocking buses on Market Street with 80 people in them?” Pam asked. “I think there are a lot of things that haven’t been thought through, and the implementation is going to be tricky.”
See original article by Josh Koehn at SF Standard
