Draft: Waymo shows Autonomous Taxis Are Real. Let's Chat About Policy to Incentivize Carpooling.

Like many, I wish the transit options in the US were better, but now autonomous vehicles offer a solution if we can manage it carefully.

Here we're going to explore a few ideas.

• I'll first try to establish that autonomous vehicles (AVs) are no longer scifi, but are truly ready to be part of planning and discussion. (Section 1)
• I'll lay out what I view as the key challenge of this new AV world: how to seize the opportunity to vanquish the single occupancy vehicle in a way everyone can love. (Section 3)
• We have the resources for interesting policy here. But it might take some reckoning and compromise on whether projects realistically make sense with AVs in the equation. (Section 3)

Some of this is a bit contentious, but I think it's interesting and important to think about.

Autonomous Vehicles are Here Now

For a lot of the world this doesn't feel quite right. But in certain places like in San Francisco or Phoenix, Arizona, you can just download an app, tap a button, and a car without a driver will appear. Just this one company gives over a million rides a month^{[citation needed]}.

In late 2025, Waymo began rolling out highway driving, which dramatically opens up the kinds of routes possible^{[citation needed]}(image of highway new map).

Even in these places though, it's still easy to forget this is even possible. If you already own a car, you will likely still drive. If you live next to a transit stop and are going next to a different transit stop, you'll probably still transit. In other cases, an Uber or Lyft is often still cheaper -- at current supply, Waymo can still charge a slight premium for the novelty, safety, and experience. However, this can change soon.

Autonomous vehicles can dramatically improve transportation for the better. However, a possible version of the AV deployment is we end up with something very similar to what we have today, with heavy traffic and costs creating a system that could be much better.

What Do We Really Want From Transit?

editing notes: this section needs better fleshed out research

Before thinking through policy it can be useful to reflect on what research says about what people want from transit.

Fast

We want our transportation to conveniently get to our destination quickly and without struggle. However, not all parts of the journey are created equal, and we estimate how much worse different parts of trip are compared to riding in a vehicle. Numbers vary here, but loosely waiting is roughly 1.5x-2x worse than riding in a vehicle ^{[citation needed]}. Walking is estimated about 1.5-2.0x worse. More detailed research will also show the various costs people place on transfers or reliability (the variance in arrival time).

Under this model we can reason about why people frequently choose to own a car or Uber/Lyft. A 10 minute walk, a 10 minute wait, and a 10 minute bus ride is in total a 30 minute journey, but with the waiting and walking it might not be preferred over an instant 45 minute vehicle ride right at your front door.

Cheap

How much we are willing to pay for various amounts of speed and convenience depends on a lot of factors. People value work time, more than commute time, and more than leisure time.

Safe

Green, Equitable, Pleasant

We won't get to every factor here, so group a couple to gesture that there is more than just fast, cheap, safe. We want new transit options to be green but as electric vehicles show green won't be a deciding factor for many, we want them to provide equitable access across the community, and we want them to be pleasant.

Driving is Fun, but Traffic Sucks.

What this Means for Policy

"Bus good, Train Bad?"

There's a maxim usually attributed to Harvard economist Edward Glaeser of "bus good, train bad"Which he refers to as a slightly comical summary of a few Harvard economists views. Long before AVs, there has been a view that if we can put aside some of the romanticism of the train and the stigma of the bus, the economics and route flexibility of buses beat out trains.citations and examples

This is hard to swallow. I like trains. I really do. In the Bay Area, the multinamed rail systems (BART, CalTrain, and MUNI) are a regular part of my transportation, and I've enjoyed light and long distance rail in the US and around the world. Meanwhile, my time with buses feels more pragmatic. There were childhood school buses and then about a two year time where for my commute in Austin was either a bus or a bike ride depending on the weather/mood. Buses pragmatically got me somewhere, but didn't fill me with wonder like going to a grand century-old train station to be smoothly whisked away above (or perhaps below) the streetside commotion.

Yet, autonomous vehicles make the "bus good" argument too overwhelming to ignore. Investments made in bus routes and roadways now are prime to leverage a future change to autonomous buses. The greatest cost of most bus routes is often not the bus itself, or the fuel, but instead the driver^{[citation needed]}. AV progress can be a massive value multipler on bus routes while giving less extra value to rail. Additionally AVs are a new paradigm where we can likely replicate some of the pleasant joys of train travel.

Beyond the Single Occupancy Robotaxi

Thinking Harder on Megaprojects

Embracing New Infrastructure Needs

Interactions with Labor Policy

Conclusions