SF Transit Boss Hashes Out His Robotaxi Experience
January 10, 2025 12:26 PM Subscribe
In an interview with Bloomberg, outgoing San Francisco Muni director Jeffrey Tumlin discusses his experience with autonomous vehicles as part of his role managing SF's transit systems. (SLBloomberg)
Overall, Tumlin feels that robotaxis have produced no real benefit overall for SF transit as a whole, and serve to displace the use of public transportation both in ridership and funding. He also notes that with autonomous vehicles regulated at the state and federal level, that leaves localities with little visibility or control.
Overall, Tumlin feels that robotaxis have produced no real benefit overall for SF transit as a whole, and serve to displace the use of public transportation both in ridership and funding. He also notes that with autonomous vehicles regulated at the state and federal level, that leaves localities with little visibility or control.
I think robotaxis offer the potential for significant upsides for personal convenience, but it remains to be seen whether they offer any overall benefit to the transportation system.
That seems to be our relationship with a lot of the tech coming out of that city.
Anyway, I'm sure the San Francisco Muni director, rather than giving a vibes-based interview, would have lots of data to back up his thoughts...
Q: How many robotaxis are operating in San Francisco right now?
A: We don’t know. The city has regulatory authority over taxis, but not over robotaxis. We get very little data from state and federal authorities.
*facepalm* The lack of oversight at the municipal level for AVs is crazy.
OTOH: Taking a Waymo is the safest way to travel. Total monthy rides went from 77,000 last January to 312,000 in August. That's a lot of people choosing personal convenience over the good of the commons.
posted by gwint at 12:42 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
That seems to be our relationship with a lot of the tech coming out of that city.
Anyway, I'm sure the San Francisco Muni director, rather than giving a vibes-based interview, would have lots of data to back up his thoughts...
Q: How many robotaxis are operating in San Francisco right now?
A: We don’t know. The city has regulatory authority over taxis, but not over robotaxis. We get very little data from state and federal authorities.
*facepalm* The lack of oversight at the municipal level for AVs is crazy.
OTOH: Taking a Waymo is the safest way to travel. Total monthy rides went from 77,000 last January to 312,000 in August. That's a lot of people choosing personal convenience over the good of the commons.
posted by gwint at 12:42 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
Meh, lots of people will spend money for immediate personal convenience, so that’s not much of an argument. Do you have any counter analysis of the linked study showing replacement of transit, cycling, & pedestrian trips?
(Eta: to 1st comment not 2nd.)
posted by clew at 12:42 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
(Eta: to 1st comment not 2nd.)
posted by clew at 12:42 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
I would be surprised if there was a lot of net new displacement from public transit to rideshare due to Waymo. I think Waymo is eating into the pool of people who have been using Uber/Lyft, who had already encouraged people to abandon public transit.
This is just based on how I've been using it though - I still walk or use trams for a lot of trips, but have a pretty low threshold for just calling Uber/Lyft/Waymo if it's too far to walk and the public transit option involves bus connections and/or takes twice as long as a car ride.
posted by pulposus at 2:42 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
This is just based on how I've been using it though - I still walk or use trams for a lot of trips, but have a pretty low threshold for just calling Uber/Lyft/Waymo if it's too far to walk and the public transit option involves bus connections and/or takes twice as long as a car ride.
posted by pulposus at 2:42 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
I think this part is particularly interesting:
posted by rustcrumb at 3:28 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
Was there a robotaxi moment over the last several years that prompted you to think, “I cannot believe this is happening”?Emphasis in original.
In my first meeting with the original CEO of Cruise [Kyle Vogt], I was in City Hall trying to lay out the case why good data supports public trust, and explaining why I didn't expect robotaxi companies to be perfect. San Francisco streets can handle a good deal of chaos, but I can’t have dozens of Cruise vehicles being immobilized in traffic and blocking my train lines.
He leaned across the table from me, pounded his fist on this heavy oak table, and said, “Jeff Tumlin, you are the single greatest threat to the American autonomous vehicle industry.”
I can handle myself in almost any situation, but I was just tongue-tied. I was trying to be a good bureaucrat while supporting the industry — being a partner with prudence. I didn’t even know that he had any idea who I was. So it was a very strange first meeting, and I think it set the tone for the challenges that we had following that with Cruise.
[After a San Francisco woman was badly injured on Oct. 2, 2023 by being dragged beneath a Cruise vehicle, California regulators accused company officials of withholding crash information and rescinded its operating permits. General Motors announced in December that it was terminating its investment in Cruise, and that the company would cease offering robotaxi service. A Cruise spokesperson declined to comment.]
posted by rustcrumb at 3:28 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
No robotaxis, no AI. Uber/Lyft/Airbnb/etc. are all ways of making slaves from workers, all to enhance the already fat wallets of techbros and oligarchs. Burn them all. I will ride a bike or walk or not go if my only realistic car option is Uber/Lyft.
And while I'm on the subject, the absolute blaséity with which the tremendous overwhelming supermajority of my middle-class friends and acquaintances toward Uber/Lyft, even when I spell it out carefully how absolutely toxic they are, is proof positive that there will never be even a Saint Bernie level of Just a Few Socialist Flavors politician who can be elected in anything outside a college town. Every last one of these people, many of whom have already barely survived a round of downsizing, will absolutely shrug at the plight of the "ride share" driver. "Well, what do you expect?" is about the best I ever get.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 4:06 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
And while I'm on the subject, the absolute blaséity with which the tremendous overwhelming supermajority of my middle-class friends and acquaintances toward Uber/Lyft, even when I spell it out carefully how absolutely toxic they are, is proof positive that there will never be even a Saint Bernie level of Just a Few Socialist Flavors politician who can be elected in anything outside a college town. Every last one of these people, many of whom have already barely survived a round of downsizing, will absolutely shrug at the plight of the "ride share" driver. "Well, what do you expect?" is about the best I ever get.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 4:06 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
Meh, lots of people will spend money for immediate personal convenience [over the good of the commons], so that’s not much of an argument.
It's a good argument for taxing the fuck out of them.
posted by AlSweigart at 4:23 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
It's a good argument for taxing the fuck out of them.
posted by AlSweigart at 4:23 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
Taking a Waymo is the safest way to travel.
Even if you take that report at face value, and extend it to a 5x reduction in deaths, that still makes them 3 times more dangerous than rail, and 10 times more dangerous than taking a bus.
posted by netowl at 4:39 PM on January 10 [19 favorites]
Even if you take that report at face value, and extend it to a 5x reduction in deaths, that still makes them 3 times more dangerous than rail, and 10 times more dangerous than taking a bus.
posted by netowl at 4:39 PM on January 10 [19 favorites]
Stalling out in vehicle lanes and blocking traffic absolutely affects bus ridership. Not every impact on transit is because rideshare and robotaxis offer better service. Some of it is just throwing a monkey wrench into the streets in the form of additional traffic.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:05 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:05 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
Women, visibly LGBTQ folks, and other folks at risk of harm or mistreatment may have a different perspective . Waymo won't harrass them, hit on them, assault them, take advantage of their inebriation, or be discriminatory, all things that have happened to people with a driver. I'm aware of people on the street trapping a woman in a Waymo by blocking it in order to harass her, at least one time, so it's not perfect, but definitely better in that respect than the person being in the car with you.
To be fair I suspect bus and train drivers are generally upstanding folks,in part because there's less opportunity to do something shitty, but they don't have door to door service.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 6:55 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
To be fair I suspect bus and train drivers are generally upstanding folks,in part because there's less opportunity to do something shitty, but they don't have door to door service.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 6:55 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
OTOH: Taking a Waymo is the safest way to travel.
Not safer than a bus, tram or train I'd wager.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:11 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
Women, visibly LGBTQ folks, and other folks at risk of harm or mistreatment may have a different perspective . Waymo won't harrass them, hit on them, assault them, take advantage of their inebriation, or be discriminatory, all things that have happened to people with a driver.
It happens without drivers too- yes you pointed this out, but it's not just once.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:12 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
It happens without drivers too- yes you pointed this out, but it's not just once.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:12 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
That's a lot of people choosing personal convenience over the good of the commons.
This to me sums up many/most(?) of the non b2b tech "innovations" of the past decade...the road to serfdom via personal convenience.
posted by nikoniko at 9:07 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
This to me sums up many/most(?) of the non b2b tech "innovations" of the past decade...the road to serfdom via personal convenience.
posted by nikoniko at 9:07 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
Drivers in Austin regularly bitch that all our big buses are empty most of the time. I live just north of UT in one of Waymo's big areas of operation, and most of them I see are totally empty. Saw 2 empties just this morning. May I bitch about it?
I used to see flocks of 10-15 empty Cruises before they pulled them out of Austin. I regularly drove home late at night from a friend's house that's about a quarter mile away and almost always saw three empty Cruises during my 5 minute drive.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:29 PM on January 11
I used to see flocks of 10-15 empty Cruises before they pulled them out of Austin. I regularly drove home late at night from a friend's house that's about a quarter mile away and almost always saw three empty Cruises during my 5 minute drive.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:29 PM on January 11
No robotaxis, no AI. Uber/Lyft/Airbnb/etc. are all ways of making slaves from workers, all to enhance the already fat wallets of techbros and oligarchs. Burn them all. I will ride a bike or walk or not go if my only realistic car option is Uber/Lyft.
You don't specify where you live, but I'm going to guess you're not elderly or disabled and live in a major city. Riding a bike or walking is not an option for a lot of people, and even for those who prefer it, it's basically suicide in 95% of the US.
"Well, what do you expect?" is about the best I ever get.
Be appalled all you want, depending on where you live, they have a point. Taxis are barely functional in many areas and transit is nonexistent. I got brigaded and virtually banned from this site last time I brought it up, but the hard reality is that there is no alternative in many US cities. I would prefer actual public transit, but I'm stuck in a homogenous low-density city, that like most North American cities, was intentionally designed decades ago to be car-centric. Mass transit by definition isn't going to work well in homogenous, low-density cities like mine - ridership would be extremely low, any trip would require 3+ transfers because businesses are widely scattered (or would require 2+ miles of walking on either end), etc. It's a horrible shitty design for cities, but we are now stuck with it thanks to the selfish decisions of prior generations.
So what's the solution for existing cities like this? I honestly can't think of one, other than seize property, blow it all up, and rebuild from scratch or continue to force people to own expensive hunks of metal and drive themselves (and force them to become shut-ins banished from society once they can no longer drive safely). THAT is why I support options like autonomous cars. Instead of abolition, we should be regulating the fuck out of these companies and making sure people don't get screwed over.
But I'm sure I'll get brigated and bashed again for daring to be a realist.
posted by photo guy at 1:32 AM on January 12
You don't specify where you live, but I'm going to guess you're not elderly or disabled and live in a major city. Riding a bike or walking is not an option for a lot of people, and even for those who prefer it, it's basically suicide in 95% of the US.
"Well, what do you expect?" is about the best I ever get.
Be appalled all you want, depending on where you live, they have a point. Taxis are barely functional in many areas and transit is nonexistent. I got brigaded and virtually banned from this site last time I brought it up, but the hard reality is that there is no alternative in many US cities. I would prefer actual public transit, but I'm stuck in a homogenous low-density city, that like most North American cities, was intentionally designed decades ago to be car-centric. Mass transit by definition isn't going to work well in homogenous, low-density cities like mine - ridership would be extremely low, any trip would require 3+ transfers because businesses are widely scattered (or would require 2+ miles of walking on either end), etc. It's a horrible shitty design for cities, but we are now stuck with it thanks to the selfish decisions of prior generations.
So what's the solution for existing cities like this? I honestly can't think of one, other than seize property, blow it all up, and rebuild from scratch or continue to force people to own expensive hunks of metal and drive themselves (and force them to become shut-ins banished from society once they can no longer drive safely). THAT is why I support options like autonomous cars. Instead of abolition, we should be regulating the fuck out of these companies and making sure people don't get screwed over.
But I'm sure I'll get brigated and bashed again for daring to be a realist.
posted by photo guy at 1:32 AM on January 12
And before someone starts bashing me, yes I'm aware OP's article is about San Francisco. I do not live in SF, and I agree that places like NYC/Chicago/SF have a plethora of viable alternatives for getting around, transit is robust, many neighborhoods are indeed walkable, taxi services are functional, etc. I am not talking about places like that, I am talking about the rest of the US - most of us don't live in NYC/Chicago/SF.
posted by photo guy at 1:39 AM on January 12
posted by photo guy at 1:39 AM on January 12
Tumlin seems to have a pretty well-balanced view of autonomous vehicles. I like that he's aware of the cost of running the IT systems autonomous vehicles rely on.
As with any use of individual vehicles, there are spaces and situations where this is the best (or least bad) solution and others where mass public transport is ideal. Like photo guy, I live in a (non-US) city that has never had any decent mass public transport. Despite a lot of investment in building this (including rebuilding train services where the lines were demolished and the land sold because cars were seen as 'the future'), cars remain the only way of getting around almost all of the city. It's partly a geography problem and partly an infrastructure problem, but mostly a lack of will on the part of the various governments, to be honest. Even the limited infrastructure that is being built for mass transit faces constant ongoing protests and complaints from residents for NIMBY reasons, so it's hardly surprising politicians are loath to publicly commit to funding more of it.
I do think autonomous vehicles have potential to provide those first/last mile services to allow people with limited mobility to access mass transit (and such services should be publically funded), but I can see a couple of reasons why this won't happen. Firstly, people don't want to transfer between transit modes and would prefer to get into a car and stay there for the entire journey. This leads to the other problem - as has been found with rideshare services, they don't replace car journeys, they replace mass transit journeys. So, in an environment like SF where there is effectively no regulation of autonomous vehicles, the inevitable end result is more congestion and less usage of public transit.
In the end, our global and universal selfishness is most likely to lead to the death of mass transit for any local travel, replaced by fleets of small autonomous vehicles. I don't even come close to being about to figure out how the financial cost of that equation works out, but it will sure come at a social cost, notwithstanding some safety concerns helped by autonomous taxi-like vehicles.
posted by dg at 7:03 PM on January 12
As with any use of individual vehicles, there are spaces and situations where this is the best (or least bad) solution and others where mass public transport is ideal. Like photo guy, I live in a (non-US) city that has never had any decent mass public transport. Despite a lot of investment in building this (including rebuilding train services where the lines were demolished and the land sold because cars were seen as 'the future'), cars remain the only way of getting around almost all of the city. It's partly a geography problem and partly an infrastructure problem, but mostly a lack of will on the part of the various governments, to be honest. Even the limited infrastructure that is being built for mass transit faces constant ongoing protests and complaints from residents for NIMBY reasons, so it's hardly surprising politicians are loath to publicly commit to funding more of it.
I do think autonomous vehicles have potential to provide those first/last mile services to allow people with limited mobility to access mass transit (and such services should be publically funded), but I can see a couple of reasons why this won't happen. Firstly, people don't want to transfer between transit modes and would prefer to get into a car and stay there for the entire journey. This leads to the other problem - as has been found with rideshare services, they don't replace car journeys, they replace mass transit journeys. So, in an environment like SF where there is effectively no regulation of autonomous vehicles, the inevitable end result is more congestion and less usage of public transit.
In the end, our global and universal selfishness is most likely to lead to the death of mass transit for any local travel, replaced by fleets of small autonomous vehicles. I don't even come close to being about to figure out how the financial cost of that equation works out, but it will sure come at a social cost, notwithstanding some safety concerns helped by autonomous taxi-like vehicles.
posted by dg at 7:03 PM on January 12
And if you thought autonomous vehicles could not get worse, we have open source AV software with such bugs as "vehicle stops steering without warning when speed drops below 45 mph."
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:35 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:35 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
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However, I do agree that the local municipalities have little if any control over these companies as they are indeed regulated at the Federal and State level. They should be, like taxis, also managed at the local level / licensing, IMHO.
posted by kschang at 12:37 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]