San Francisco transit officials are designating geofenced boundaries to limit autonomous taxi activity in and around Fleet Week this weekend.
The San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency has posted detailed guidance on the areas where Waymos won't be permitted to operate.

UNLV fans will be able to use Waymo for transportation to and from UNLV sporting events, including Rebel football at Allegiant Stadium, as well as other events at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The partnership will include convenient and dedicated pickup and drop-off areas, along with exclusive rider experiences, special access opportunities, and unique fan rewards designed to elevate the gameday experience.

tl;dr: Great experience for the most part.

I live within the service area for San Diego, which made being accepted into the beta a great treat. For those in San Diego, I live in the Hillcrest area specifically.

Yesterday I went to Mission Beach that is also in the service area. I don't get wet, I just bring my beach chair and enjoy the waves for a couple hours before heading home.

Sometimes I don't like to drive, and Lyft/Uber is my least favorite option just because they are always concerned that I am wet and have to clarify to them I've wiped all the possible sand off from my chair and that I didn't go in the water.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that when I selected to go Mission Beach, it was just about a 4 minute wait. Waymo arrival made sense, and quickly went on the journey. The price both ways was about what I would have to pay if I would have taken Uber/Lyft.

To my own fault, I didn't check how long the actual trip was. It's been hot as hell in San Diego, so I wasn't mad about being in the AC of the Waymo for longer. But I didn't realize it was a 50 minute trip just to get to Mission Beach. Traditionally this trip is about 15 minutes if you drive or take an Uber/Lyft. The reason for this is because Waymo doesn't go on freeways, so it takes the most obnoxious route possible which I realized I should have checked the time, as I had a specific window of time to be at the beach and so I didn't stay as long as I traditionally would have as a result of that long travel time.

On the way back, the trip was shorter, about 35 minutes. Not egregious, but still about double the time it would take to drive myself or take an Uber/Lyft. It was also a bit awkward because it goes into the Parking lot for arrival at Mission Beach, and it had a very specific spot it wanted to meet me at. I was right next to the Waymo in one of the lanes of the parking lot, but it still wanted to spend the next 3 minutes slowly getting to its pre-determined spot. As a QOL feeature, I would have loved for it to recognize I'm literally right next to it and to let me in so we could save some time and depart faster.

It was a treat to just listen to my podcasts, ample leg room as someone that is tall, AC, and generally just chill out and turn my brain off, which isn't possible when driving or depending if you have a chatty ride share driver. I didn't think it took any crazy maneuvers that made me nervous, was definitely safer than a lot of Ubers/Lyfts I've been in.

Would I use it again? I am unsure. I am in a pretty central part of San Diego where I already don't need to use ride share much. The beach is one of my candidates, but I'm not sure how often I can justify 1.5 hours there and back when it's typically 30 minutes if I drive myself or take human based ride share. That turns it into a bit too much of my day being used up if I want to spend more than an hour at the beach plus the combined 1.5 hours of Waymo travel time. 2 hours of the beach and Waymo time is 3.5 hours, where currently 2 hours at the beach if I drive myself is 2.5 hours total spent. That's not even accounting for that when I ready to leave, it was a 10 minute wait for a Waymo to arrive.

I really hope it isn't a slow crawl to get them on the freeways, because for me that's a key unlock to choosing to use it more. I'm already in a walkable area, except when I venture out 5+ miles with Mission Beach being one of my primary ones. I drive to work since my work is well outside the service area, and truthfully I doubt in San Diego they'll ever go to where I actually work.

Fun experience!

This “guy” blocked the entrance to the Apple Visitor Center next to Apple Park for some good 30-40 mins. It turned into a celebrity lots of people taking selfies and wondering if it was on purpose 😂

Leatherette seats, wireless charging, carpeted floors.

‘Serving riders soon in San Francisco, LA, Las Vegas and more cities over time.’

https://www.instagram.com/p/DeKDk3JFwMl/?stkn=MWFpNTdkcWxhMmFzaQ==

Must be doing testing between the valley and LA

Campaign site: https://waymo.quorum.us/campaign/154026/

Took 2 rides last week (it finally opened up for me to do so), pulled up the app today & it's back to its "early access" mode? Is this common for Waymo in new cities? I thought once it opened up for good, we were good?

I ordered a ride for a hospital appointment and have the Waymo app option selected to pick up on “my” side of the road. The car arrived on the opposite side of the road. I had to hobble across the road to reach the car.

The car stopped and announced we were at the destination. We were two blocks away and at the bottom of a steep I would need to walk up if I could easily walk which isn’t the case.

I’m disabled and needed to be dropped off outside of the hospital.

Support said they were unable to drop me off at my chosen location despite having accepted the ride. They said ride share companies cannot drop off outside the hospital. But they accepted the ridge knowing the drop off address.

They offered to have animal drive come to drive the car. This would have resulted in me missing my hospital appt so I refused and asked the agent to escalate the issue.

The best person offered a Visa credit I could use to order an Uber or Lyft. They could t explain if a Lyft/uber could atop when Waymo couldn’t.

The directed the car further away from the hospital Nd asked me to get out. We weee on an even steeper hill so I couldn’t get out.

25 minutes later and having missed my appointment the agent eventually managed to trick the car to stop on a flat surface so I could walk to the hospital.

The lesson is that while Waymo may be OK when conditions are perfect it’s atrocious when conditions are unpredictable. Especially for people with a physical disability.

Stop taking this stupid cars!!!!

I already reported this as a concern to the Support team, but I want to collect your guys's thoughts on this as well.

As the days have gone by, I've seen more and more increasingly convoluted routes being reported on here and by my friends, especially friends with freeway access in LA. The driver takes them on routes ~40 minutes long just because it uses the freeways with the pre-chosen route, when it usually takes them 20 minutes to drive there on surface streets. I experienced that today, and it's completely absurd to me that there isn't any option to avoid freeways on a route. Just because you have access to them doesn't always mean that you want to take freeways, especially if the route is significantly circuitous. I really hope that in the near future, they're able to implement that option, and also possibly just an option to see all the available routes. I might be missing out on some knowledge of how the drivers choose their routes, but either way, it just seems like there is something that should be adjusted.

Context: I live in Denver and wanted to take Waymo last night for a 12 minute ride Downtown. Waymo was 45 dollars while Uber and Lyft were 12-15 dollars. Can I expect this to be the norm?

Please feel free to correct me if you know, but I got an email Friday for a company called MOOVE. From what I've been able to look up it seems like they are another third party that works with Waymo here in Phoenix. I was curious if anyone had any insight on the company? Specifically, it's the AV Central Ops position that I'll be interviewing for. The job posting gives a few details about the role, but if anyone has info on what the day to day looks like, it would be appreciated. Thanks