SF Chronicle – ‘Do better’: San Francisco is fed up with this Waymo behavior
See original article by Rachel Swan at SF Chronicle
Cyclists in San Francisco have noticed something new about the cars illegally parking in bike lanes: They don’t always have drivers.
That was apparent when a video circulated this week on the social media site Reddit, showing a Waymo robotaxi parked in the green cycling zone near Oracle ballpark. The car sits with its lights blinking as an electric scooter and a cyclist weave perilously around it, along with other motorists who have to change lanes to avoid the obstruction.
“C’mon Waymo. We love you, but don’t do this,” the poster commented. “This is straight up illegal and dangerous. Do better.”
The footage sparked an uproar from bicyclists who decried the dangerous behavior and argued that Waymo, with its technological sophistication, should be designed to follow every traffic rule. California law generally prohibits motor vehicles from stopping in bike lanes, with specific exceptions for tow trucks, garbage collection, newspaper delivery, public utility work or emergencies.
“We are looking into our pick up and drop-off performance in this location,” a spokesperson for Waymo wrote in a statement to the Chronicle, indicating that Waymo’s complex suite of sensors and cameras has to balance many factors in real time, including the safety of passengers and other road users.
“Pick-up and drop-off is a complex challenge,” the statement continued. “We support efforts to establish more loading zones for passenger vehicles on busy streets, as well as efforts to further protect bike lanes” from any impediment.
Representatives of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency agreed that robotaxis and other ride-hail vehicles should use loading zones, and they pointed out that human drivers risk a citation if an officer sees them violating the law. Former Mayor London Breed tried cracking down on motorists who park in bike lanes with an enforcement blitz that led to 1,000 tickets in March 2025. Then the city retreated, handing out fewer than 300 tickets a month in the latter half of the year.
Some observers defended the autonomous vehicle in the video, arguing that passenger drop-offs in bike lanes are a normal practice on city roads. A few contend that it’s the job of city enforcement officers, not private companies, to discourage this type of infraction. Indeed, a new state law set to take effect in July will enable police to ticket autonomous vehicles. If Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to replicate the hard-line approach of his predecessor, he could apply it to machines as much as to people.
“It’s not Waymo’s fault that breaking the law has become standard practice,” said cycling advocate Matthew Lewis. “Ultimately, this is about the city.”
Yet the Reddit video certainly was not the first documented instance of a self-driving car blocking a cyclists’ path. Last year a woman sued Waymo and its parent company, Alphabet, saying she was seriously injured when one of the autonomous vehicles parked in her marked bike lane on Seventh Street. According to the lawsuit filed by Jennifer Hanki, a passenger in the Waymo popped the back door open, hitting Hanki’s bike and knocking her into a second Waymo that was also in the bike pathway. The case is ongoing in San Francisco Superior Court.
“Dooring” incidents — when drivers or passengers open car doors into the path of a cyclist — are common on busy streets, and can end tragically. In 2019, Tess Rothstein was riding her bike down a choked street in SoMa when she saw a woman open the door of a parked car in front of her. Rothstein swerved to avoid getting hit and was crushed by a box truck.
Surveys conducted by UC Berkeley research teams suggest many bicyclists actually feel safer around Waymos than around cars driven by humans, because Waymos’ cameras detect approaching cyclists well before they enter a car’s blind spot. Still, at least one researcher at Berkeley said he has encountered scenes of bike lane blockage in the wild, similar to what’s depicted in the Reddit video.
Matthew Raifman was walking along Embarcadero with his children last year when he spotted a Waymo encroaching on a strip of lime green bike lane near the Ferry Building. Raifman is a transportation safety researcher at UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation and Research Education Center, but was not speaking to the Chronicle in his official capacity.
After dropping off a passenger, the self-driving car lingered for more than five minutes, commandeering not only the designated bike space, but also a red zone and the indented driveway into a parking lot. Raifman snapped pictures with his cellphone, hoping to use them for research or a future presentation.
He said you could view the situation from many different perspectives. One could say, for example, that parking at red curbs or in bike lanes is “the typical way we operate on the road,” prioritizing ease and convenience or the utility of ride-hails over the safety of other people. Yet one could also view this practice as a defect that could be programmed out of a Waymo vehicle if the company took it more seriously.
For that to happen, cities would have to enforce the laws more systematically, Raifman said. Their ability to do that largely depends on people reporting these incidents through official channels — not just posting about them on Reddit.
“We shouldn’t expect a company like Waymo to make its own rules around these issues,” Raifman said. He noted that while there’s really no question that it’s illegal to park in a bike lane, “it needs to be enforced for the companies to follow suit.”
See original article by Rachel Swan at SF Chronicle
