Advocates Skeptical About Waymo’s ‘Transit Rewards’ Program
Waymo LLC, operator of San Francisco’s ubiquitous robotaxis, announced a “Transit Rewards” program Tuesday for the Bay Area. Under the program, Waymo users who also ride transit will get a discount. From the company’s release:
To participate, riders will link their Visa card in the Waymo app. When riders in the SF Bay Area use their Visa card to take a Waymo trip and public transit within 2 hours of each other, we will automatically issue $2.85 in Waymo Cash, which is the cost of a bus fare in San Francisco.
Alongside the launch of our transit rewards program, we’re also announcing a partnership with Caltrain, which accepts tap-to-pay. Waymo will lease 40 dedicated Caltrain station parking spaces to better serve transit riders with staged vehicles. This is a model we hope to replicate with additional transit agencies, ultimately enabling more seamless connections between Waymo’s service and public transit.
“During the pilot, we will evaluate any improved connections to and from the stations,” said Dan Lieberman, spokesperson for Caltrain. “We welcome efforts that encourage transit use and make it easier for people to choose Muni as part of their everyday trips,” said SFMTA spokesperson Michael Roccaforte.
That all sounds nice—why not offer transit riders a robotaxi to solve the “last mile” problem between a transit station and their origin or destination? But Bay Area advocates were skeptical.
“I suspect one of Waymo’s goals here is to create a permission structure for local politicians, one in which they can feel justified when they decide to not do the hard work to improve their local public transit agencies,” wrote San Francisco transit advocate Cyrus Hall. “Look! We’re part of the transit system!”
“Even with a discount, the rideshare services are much more expensive than transit, and lots of single-occupant vehicles cause traffic congestion,” Seamless Bay Area’s Adina Levin told Streetsblog.
Waymo raised the ire of transit and cycling advocates last year when it successfully lobbied the city to allow its vehicles on supposedly “car-free” Market Street. It’s unclear how Waymo can be a “complementary mobility ecosystem” on Market Street, San Francisco’s main thoroughfare, which is already served by the Muni Subway, BART, and several bus and streetcar routes. Advocates stressed that any additional cars, Waymos included, invariably slow buses and streetcars on Market and increase the risk to cyclists and pedestrians.
“Robot cars and ride-hail pull people away from public transportation in addition to increasing car trips,” said Streets Forward’s Luke Bornheimer. “That’s been shown over and over again.”
That said, on a regional level, as with conventional taxis and rideshare, it could still be a helpful last-mile solution. “Outside central cities where transit is less frequent and has shorter hours, even people who rely on transit sometimes benefit from ride-hail services,” said Levin. “The other day I took BART to Oakland and realized that I had gone to the wrong station and the bus would not get to my destination in time. I took an Uber for the last two miles.”
But advocates weren’t buying that Waymo can be an integral part of the transit system any more than conventional taxis and ride-hail. “Make no mistake, this is a nice benefit if you’re wealthy enough to regularly use Waymo,” said Hall. “But spending ~$15-20 per ride twice a day to get to Caltrain is not affordable or sustainable transportation for everyone, $2.85 discount or not.”
“Community members and our region benefit most from well-funded, frequent, reliable public transit, and policies that encourage sustainable transportation with seamless mobility including first and last mile solutions,” added Levin. “We think about it like the food pyramid, where transit, walking, biking and rolling are the basis of a sustainable transportation diet, and ride-hail services have a place when used more sparingly.”
The Transit Rewards program applies to all 27 San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies that accept direct, contactless payment. Waymo plans to roll out similar transit discount programs in other cities where they operate.
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