Waymo rolls toward San Francisco Airport — showdown brewing

On Friday morning, a driverless Waymo vehicle, for reasons unknown, rolled into a patch of wet cement on the grounds of Laguna Honda Hospital — and sank in. It was, for onlookers, a source of much mirth and cellphone picture-taking. 

A witness tells your humble narrator that the wet cement ought to have been better demarcated with barricades — but, also, that a human driver would never, ever have made this mistake. 

Two weeks prior, an official with San Francisco International Airport wrote to the Planning Department. “The City and County of San Francisco, by and through the San Francisco Airport Commission proposes to approve a permit allowing autonomous vehicle companies to map the roads at San Francisco International Airport, ” it read.

“Under the Proposed Project, autonomous vehicle companies would be allowed to deploy up to two autonomous vehicles operated by human drivers to map the publicly accessible roads at the Airport…”

Planning determined this action would be exempt from the dreaded California Environmental Quality Act. You’re not going to believe this, but there is, presently, not a “Mapping the airport for driverless cars” permit. One will be created and, presumably, issued. 

But not without a fight. 

San Francisco International Airport is, if not the Holy Grail, certainly a Holy Grail for autonomous vehicle companies. It is a place where they can get rich — or, in the case of Cruise, die tryin’. Every step of autonomous vehicle companies’ sequential Bay Area expansion plans appears poised to capture SFO. 

If Waymo had its way, this would be unfolding at a much quicker pace. Last year, we wrote how SFO and Waymo were moving forward with the issuance of a mapping permit — a clear precursor to other “phases” and “timelines” posited by the autonomous vehicle company for service to SFO. But the chipper back and forth abruptly turned cold and SFO quashed all talk of mapping the airport. 

But the times, they are a-changing. A recent public records request reveals that Waymo and SFO officials, like Herb Caen and Willie Brown in the days of yore, have a standing meeting: “SFO // Waymo Bi-weekly Connect,” reads one subject line. 

Mapping, of course, is not just done for the benefit of future cartographers. Waymo’s “phases” and “timelines” all lead to driverless vehicles picking you up and dropping you off at SFO (but not if you live in Fremont or somewhere they don’t yet go). 

Waymo has every intention of rolling into SFO — and sinking in. 

At which site will tensions between Waymo, the pugnacious Teamsters union and vestiges of city government take off? Naturally, it’s the airport. 

In October, the Teamsters filed an ethics complaint charging Waymo with unregistered lobbying of SFO. Everything obtained in a subsequent records request reveals the company is still doing a great deal of lobbying at SFO — but now doing it by the book.