Picture this: you land at San Francisco International, you’re exhausted, you’ve got three rolling suitcases, and your ride pulls up… two miles from the airport, on a quiet residential street lined with parked cars and confused neighbors peeking out their windows. That’s not a bad dream. That’s reality for a growing number of Waymo passengers in San Bruno, California, where the self-driving cars have developed a strange habit of dropping travelers off blocks away from where they actually need to be.
Residents of the 500 block of Seventh Avenue say it’s been happening for about two weeks, and it’s only getting more frequent. One neighbor counted 29 Waymo vehicles cruising through on a single Sunday. Another day it was five. Either way, that’s a lot of empty robotaxis and stranded travelers for one small residential street that happens to be the closest one to SFO, even though it’s still a solid three miles and about a 10 minute drive from the terminals.
The stories neighbors are sharing sound like something out of a travel nightmare compilation. One gentleman was reportedly headed all the way to Switzerland when he got let out on Seventh Avenue instead of the airport. Another passenger, saddled with three suitcases, simply threw in the towel and said he’d walk the rest of the way. For the record, that’s roughly a 20 minute hike down a busy road with luggage in tow, not exactly the seamless airport experience anyone signs up for…