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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, sitting in for Brian today. Ready or not, here they come. The city has approved the company Waymo's application to test its driverless cars in Manhattan in Downtown Brooklyn. To find out about this test, its ultimate goal, and what it might mean for everyone else on the road, especially taxi and rideshare drivers. Let's hear from my colleague, Stephen Nessen, transportation reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. Hey, Stephen.

Stephen Nessen: Hi, Brigid.

Brigid Bergin: Stephen, let's start with what is Waymo's goal here? What do they want to eventually be able to sell in the city? Are they a rideshare company with no drivers or a delivery service? What's their plan here?

Stephen Nessen: It's a good question. Yes, they are a fully autonomous taxi service. Looking to the other cities where they operate as maybe a model or an indication of what's to come here in New York City, they do operate in several US cities, most notably, I suppose, Los Angeles, San Francisco. They do operate in parts of Atlanta and Austin, Texas, as well. Although it's interesting, in Austin, it's actually a partnership with Uber, where Uber runs the service and Waymo provides the vehicles. They do provide Jaguars, electric Jaguars, which is very interesting. Ultimately, yes, they are a taxi service. I should also note that in one of the cities, I believe in Phoenix, where they operate, which is where they first launched as well, people who order food with Uber Eats can now get it delivered by a fully autonomous vehicle, so get your food delivered by robots, so to speak.

Brigid Bergin: Why would someone want a robot to deliver their food as opposed to a person who might need that job? Is there some part of that explanation that I have not understood yet?

Stephen Nessen: Well, from I believe Waymo's perspective, their idea is that their autonomous vehicles are safer than vehicles that are operated by humans. As we all know, in New York City, with our efforts with Vision Zero, there's basically a car crash every day, and someone is often fatally injured nearly every other day by a vehicle. I think from their perspective, the goal is to get people around safely in vehicles. Of course, one of the highest costs for any company is labor. Of course, taxi advocates and city advocates as well are very concerned about displacing human taxi drivers. Why would they do it? Obviously, you don't have any labor costs if the car is just driving itself.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. Well, I know listeners that many of you have lots of thoughts about our roads. Do you have thoughts about sharing the roads with, I guess, we're going to call them robots or autonomous vehicles. Could driving get any worse in New York City? We want to hear your questions and comments. The number, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

Do you have concerns about the impact of this, literally, as someone who shares the road, if your job is to drive? This could affect your ability to make a living. We want to hear from you. Call or text your questions or comments. Again, the numbers, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Or if you happen to live in a city where Waymo is currently operating or maybe you visited one, help us report the story. How is it going? What do you think? Again, 212-433-9692. You could call or text.

I have one listener who's already texted in and wrote, "Been riding in Waymo in San Francisco for a year. It's quite amazing." Some praise there from a rider. Let's go through some of the details of this pilot program, Stephen.

Stephen Nessen: Sure.

Brigid Bergin: When would we see the vehicles on the streets, or are they already there?

Stephen Nessen: They're already here. I've seen folks have spotted them online, cruising around. There are only eight of them. It's not like the streets are flooded with these vehicles, and there is a human behind the wheel, someone trained by Waymo to keep an eye. They're in the driver's seat, so if anything goes wrong, they're right there to grab the wheel.

I think the most important detail to note is that they are not picking up passengers right now. These vehicles are just driving around, testing out the technology on the streets, and they're only found in parts of Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. This pilot permit that the city issued to them is only good until the end of September, although the city did note they could renew the permit at the end of September.

Brigid Bergin: Stephen, what do these vehicles look like? Am I going to be able to pick them out among other cars on the streets? Is there something distinct? Did they say Waymo on them?

Stephen Nessen: I believe they do say Waymo on them. They're white, and they have this funny little camera thing on top of it that swivels around. That makes it, I suppose, somewhat more distinctive than any other vehicle you'll see on the street at the moment.

Brigid Bergin: Wow, like a cyclops of cars on the streets. You mentioned that there will be people in the cars during the pilot. Is it like they're taking a driver's test where the person can take over the brakes and steering wheel? What is the role of the person in terms of making sure that these vehicles don't do anything they shouldn't do?

Stephen Nessen: Right. It's like a driver's test, but for the vehicle, not for the person behind the wheel. [chuckles]

Brigid Bergin: Yes.

Stephen Nessen: From my understanding, these are folks. I haven't spoken with them. I would love to speak with them. Call in if you're one of those drivers listening to The Brian Lehrer Show right now. That would be awesome. From my understanding, they go through this rigorous training process with Waymo, and they are supposed to, yes, grab the wheel if something goes wrong, and basically take over the vehicle, not just let the vehicle roam freely and overrule them, so to speak.

Brigid Bergin: You mentioned that the cars are confined to the specific areas of the city. We said Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, but are there street cutoffs somewhere where you might really be more likely to see one as opposed to just those more broad descriptions of the area?

Stephen Nessen: No, it's not like they gave us a map or anything, and were like, here, spot the Waymo, like a Zohran Mamdani's scavenger hunt. I do understand from what I've read that they're not allowed on highways. Not that we're going to necessarily see them on the FDR or the West Side Highway, but those may be considered highways, so you would see them on city streets cruising around. No, we don't have a map. We don't exactly know, like, how to spot them or anything like that. If anyone wants to get a photo with one or intercept one, I guess it's catch as catch can, really.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to some of our callers. Jacob in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC.

Jacob: Hi, how are you? Thanks for taking my call. I work as an Uber driver and a Lyft driver part time. Unfortunately, I don't think Waymo is going to work in the near future because New York City is a totally different beast. There are several things you have to watch out for—cyclists, pedestrians, crazy drivers, potholes, people opening their doors while they're parked. It would be ideal to have Waymo here, but I don't really think it's going to happen anytime soon. Probably giving it maybe another 10 years before it's operational and functional here in New York City.

Brigid Bergin: Jacob, thanks so much for that call. I want to get another caller, another driver, excuse me, in. Let's go to Michael in Manhattan. Michael, you're on WNYC.

Michael: Hello.

Brigid Bergin: Hey, Michael, you're on WNYC.

Michael: Oh, hey. How are you today?

Brigid Bergin: Great.

Michael: All right. As I was just explaining to a friend of mine, to me, it's just a bad idea. It's just another way for big corporate America to continuously take away jobs from people that are just trying to make it in the city. I could see this being something that opens the door to think about 25, 30 years down the line. I think we're moving too fast in the realm of robotics and them taking human jobs. It's only going to hurt the future for us. By the time you know it, all these big companies are going to outsource all their labor to robotics. Think about it. Think about in the last 50 years, how we advanced. Now some of our children, some of our colleagues, they can't live without the internet and social media, and their telephones. I just see this as probably a growing issue, and we're going to regret moving in this direction in the future.

Brigid Bergin: Michael, thank you so much for that call. Stephen, before I get your reaction to those two drivers, I want to read another text message that came in that I think builds a little bit on some of what Michael was saying there. The listener writes, "After the Uber and Lyft invasion, we just got the taxi drivers back in action with medallion relief. Now Mayor Adams is okay giving these folks yet another competitor. I, for one, always try to take a yellow cab, but it seems New York City is intent on killing the legendary industry. In support of humans, I'll pass on Waymo every time. Stephen, a lot going on there, but what are you hearing in terms of the arguments for and against Waymo from that employment standpoint?

Stephen Nessen: Well, can I just clarify one thing, just so we're not being so abstract here, like the caller was saying, big companies taking over. I didn't mention it yet, but Waymo is owned by the company Alphabet, the parent company of Google. We know who we're dealing with here.

Brigid Bergin: Right.

Stephen Nessen: To put some perspective and a little context into what we're talking about. When it comes to, yes, the future is coming, nobody saw, nobody was using ChatGPT and these AI functions a couple years ago. Now it's much more common from the city's perspective, at least from what Mayor Adams has been saying in his transportation department is that they want to stay ahead of the technology, and they want to be a leader. That's why they're doing this limited, permitted pilot program, so they can test it out, get ahead of it, and also be a leader in this field, so that New York stays competitive. That's their perspective.

I also spoke with Bhairavi Desai. She's the head of the Taxi Workers Alliance, one of the strongest advocates for medallion owners, as well as Uber and Lyft drivers as well. Obviously, she's not in favor of this at all, but I think she also takes some heart that New York City is not going to get steamrolled the way it did when Uber and Lyft first arrived, when basically the city had an opportunity to cap the number of vehicles and it didn't, and then we saw what happened with first of all, the major loss of the value of the medallion.

Many drivers lost their life savings because of that, and then the streets were flooded with vehicles, and then it took years and years to sort of claw it back, and like put a cap on it, and then finally, put income restrictions, or not necessarily, but pay rules around drivers, and it took a long time. I think from some folks perspective, we went through that already. We don't need to do that again. Maybe we'll learn from that experience. There's some optimism there that we're not just going to be caught with our guard down this time.

Brigid Bergin: Stephen, you mentioned before some of the cities where Waymo is already operating, Austin, San Francisco, LA. These cities are just physically a lot different than New York City. Have you found reports on how the company has dealt with, or is anticipating the density here in New York, and how to manage the for-hire industry, jaywalkers, crazy potholes, just everything that makes New York City's streets so unique?

Stephen Nessen: Yes well, it will definitely be different, like LA, San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin. I think the one thing they have in common is they're pretty warm, and they don't have snow. They don't have ice. Things like that, that a vehicle would have to prepare for. Drivers are wary of it, but an autonomous vehicle might not see black ice. Not the drivers see it particularly well either, but those challenges, that's true.

I guess from Waymo's perspective, they say they do something, like, 250,000 paid rides a week. They've had over 10 million rides. They say their safety record is much better than that of human drivers. The numbers are low, but we do see there have been occasional crashes, although, they say compared to the amount of driving, like autonomous vehicle versus human, they have 88% fewer crashes with serious injuries than if a human driver was doing the same distance.

That said, there was a crash in San Francisco that was somewhat widely publicized. This was in 2024 at a four-way intersection when a big truck was making a turn and a cyclist was trailing the truck very closely. The autonomous vehicle couldn't see the cyclist because of the truck passing in front of it. It did strike the vehicle, hit the cyclist, but the person didn't even go to the hospital, but that's just one example at a four-way intersection. I'm not even sure in Manhattan there are too many four-way intersections. There's certainly a lot of pedestrians. I think it would be a challenge, but I guess that's why they're doing the pilot, to see how things go. The DOT, they don't have that many requirements for this pilot process, but they are supposed to share data. Waymo is supposed to share data with the DOT, so maybe we'll get our hands on that and take a look at it.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to Alan in Poughkeepsie. Alan, you're on WNYC.

Alan: Hi there. Thanks for having me on.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you.

Alan: I called in because I've been a rider in a Waymo. I rode it a couple of times when I was in the Bay Area this summer. I understand the labor issues. I understand all of the social issues that are around. I understand that there are differences. I have to say, it was one of the best rides in a taxi or similar vehicle that I've ever had. One of my best experiences.

Stephen Nessen: Why was this so good?

Alan: It was smooth. It was comfortable. After the first two minutes of wow, what is it doing, is it going to be safe, I just felt totally comfortable doing it. When I saw it pull in through a residential street, it clearly slowed down. It was clearly aware, and I put that in quotes, of its surroundings. When someone walked down into the street, it slowed down and stopped, and waited for the person to go by. Even though there was no crosswalk, there was no indication that it was there. It was showing me what was going on and what the map of the surroundings were. I just felt comfortable in this environment, and I wasn't forced to talk to somebody who was trying to talk to me. I didn't have to deal with someone that I didn't want to deal with.

Brigid Bergin: Alan, thank you so much for that call. Stephen, I want to share another interesting take from a listener who texted us. The listener writes, "As a legally blind person, I hope for this technology to be more available. It gives me hope that one day I might own and operate my own car, especially if I want to live in a place with no or poor public transportation." There's also, as I mentioned, a board full of callers. Let's try Angie in Brooklyn. Angie, you're on WNYC.

Angie: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I've been in autonomous vehicles for almost 10 years because I was in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon when they first launched test there with Uber. I've been in very, very early pilots, one of the first in the country. I have many friends that got recruited to go work for Alphabet's Waymo and Uber out of college, and I've been in many of them. I was in one in May in San Francisco.

I do want to say that actually in May, 1,200 Waymos were recalled for a software malfunction that was causing crashes. That's one thing that people don't think about is that there could be thousands of cars on the road that have a software update needed that could be hazardous to pedestrians or other drivers. I do want to say in experience that my friends and I really pressure tested when we were in San Francisco in May.

We were two women and a male coworker in the back of a car. We made a whole ordeal out of trying to trigger a safety trigger. What we did was we were like screaming and trying to get our male coworker to act like he was stabbing us, harassing us, assaulting us, and we would scream. We were trying to trigger a natural language processing trigger to see if it would call for help if we called for help. Because the only way you can is if you tap on the dashboard, but obviously, if you're being restrained, that's not going to be possible.

Let me tell you, it didn't do nothing. As a woman who's been taking cabs my whole life, I've always felt safer when there is a driver in the front of the car. I would never get in a Waymo alone. When they do get stuck at like an intersection or behind a bus or a bike, sometimes it just totally glitches out. Something that I find really unnerving is what happens when you ask for customer service to help you with your Waymo. That just glitches out. Somebody takes over. It's almost like Mario Kart. Somebody takes over your car and the Waymo will readjust. They have a monitor somewhere, and they will manually take over the car from a distance to get the car into a working position again. I have 10 years' experience being in these cars, and I am still absolutely not sold whatsoever.

Brigid Bergin: Angie, thank you for sharing your experience and helping us report that story. Stephen, any thoughts on Angie's perspective as a long rider in autonomous vehicles?

Stephen Nessen: No, but that was an amazing story, and I imagine that's exactly the kind of feature they would want to add, especially in vehicles. She did refer to in May when they recalled 1,200 of Waymo vehicles, and that was due to collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects, like gates and chains and things like that. I guess there were seven incidences of vehicles crashing into those things.

Also to Angie's point, I've spoken with other women who say, they feel safer without having a driver due to harassment potential from Uber and Lyft drivers that they've heard about or experienced in the past. I guess it cuts both ways, but her perspective is interesting. Yes, for sure.

Brigid Bergin: Stephen, we have seen disruptions from some of these different tech companies to lots of industries here in New York City. Rideshare apps like Lyft and Uber, as previous caller mentioned, really devastated the taxi medallion owners. Airbnb has had huge effects on hotels and rentals, delivery apps on restaurants and pedestrians. How much of a disruption do you see from what could be coming from these driverless vehicles?

Stephen Nessen: Absolutely huge disruptions and massive need for regulations, requirements, rules, things like that. Last night, I spoke with City Councilmember Justin Brannan, and he thinks the city is totally unprepared for what's coming, and they really need to get it together and pass some legislation. He wants the TLC to regulate these heavily and put together some documents that would make the rules and requirements very clear from the get-go right now. Right now, we don't really have that.

I think as far as the rules and regulations go, basically, the state doesn't allow autonomous taxis. I think they've washed their hands of it, and said, that's good enough for now, but they do allow these permits to test out the waters. New York State has actually had that sort of testing all the way back to 2017. They've allowed it and the legislature renews it every year, I guess.

Brigid Bergin: I want to get another caller in. Let's try Larry in Brooklyn.

Larry: Hey, hi. My question was, I'd love to hear what you think about this. It was really a two-part question. One, let's say one of these cabs jumps the curb and mows down three pedestrians. Who's responsible? In a regular cab, we arrest the driver. Is it the CEO of Waymo, the stockholders, the programmer who wrote the code, the passenger who told the Waymo car to take a shortcut that didn't work? That seems we've eliminated responsibility from this equation.

Second question is we're turning over moral questions to software. Does the cab software prioritize the safety of pedestrians or the passenger? That's a valid, real question. I asked your screener, do you know what the trolley problem is? He said, yes. How is that handled? Situations like that, lesser of two evil issues with the cab. It seems to me a really, really bad idea to turn this over to software programs written by who the heck knows who? There's just one more reason not to permit this in our city.

Brigid Bergin: Larry, thank you for your perspective. Stephen, any thoughts?

Stephen Nessen: I am familiar with the trolley problem. For listeners who don't know, it's a classic philosophical question. Do you move the trolley to the track where it kills one person to avoid killing 10 people? Is that the right choice? What would Waymo do in that situation? I wish the previous caller, Angie, was on there to answer that, if they program that at Carnegie Mellon. Very curious to hear.

Yes, to his point, that's one of the major concerns as well of the city councilmember that I spoke with is who is responsible when there's a crash. Waymo is required to have $5 million in automobile insurance, which would cover personal liability as well as property damage. I don't know because I haven't had the chance to interview them. They haven't responded to interview requests, but I would assume the company is responsible. It's a great question, and it's one of those things I think some legislature could hash out as well.

Brigid Bergin: Stephen, in our last couple minutes here, I just want to get into where this is going. Assuming this pilot goes, and it's successful or it's not successful, who ultimately decides the next step here? Would the mayor be able to approve a rollout on his own, or would it take city council or state approval? What would need to happen for us to see Waymo's flourish on the city streets?

Stephen Nessen: That is a great question. I believe it would probably be a combination of New York State amending its law, first of all, to allow autonomous taxis to operate in some capacity. Then, yes, the City Council would probably have to sign off in some way or another. It seems like they do want the DOT at least to be involved. I would assume that the TLC, if it's regarding picking up passengers, would also get involved in some rulemaking. I should add that Waymo does not have their sights set only on New York City. They're also hoping to come to Dallas and Philadelphia, as well as Washington, DC next year. I do see they have plans to operate in parts of Tokyo as well. That's on their horizon. You talk about congested streets, Tokyo is far more congested, I believe, than New York City is.

Brigid Bergin: Stephen, just last question, and I'm going to take what a listener wrote, and give my last spin on it. The listener writes, "Consider that this is a test to create an algorithm for driving in New York City, which is clearly different from other Waymo operations, so it's much like training AI, do you have the sense that Waymo actually wants to operate here, or is this just an exercise to show that they can do it anywhere?"

Stephen Nessen: I believe they absolutely do, and they have been in the city before. This is not their first time on city streets. The vehicles were here several years ago, just mapping out the streets. They already have, I believe, a vast amount of data about New York City. I believe their intent is very much to set up shop and begin running their taxi service right here in New York City.

Brigid Bergin: Well, Stephen, I know you will stay on top of how these Cyclops cars are on our streets. Can't wait to check back in when the results come in. Stephen Nessen, transportation reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, thanks so much.

Stephen Nessen: Thank you, Brigid.

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