A busy night in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood proved too much for Cruise cars on Friday. Alyssa Goard reports.
A busy night in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood proved too much for Cruise cars on Friday.
Several social media videos showed nearly a dozen robotaxis stopping in the middle of the street or trying to maneuver out of tight spots around Vallejo Street, Grant Avenue, and Columbus Avenue.
Cruise told NBC Bay Area on Saturday that it was suffering from wireless connectivity issues, which caused delays to cars. It added it’s working to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
This traffic jam coincided with San Francisco's Outside Lands Music Festival which is going on about four miles away at Golden Gate Park.
On the social media platform X on Saturday, Cruise said that a "large festival posed wireless bandwidth constraints causing delayed connectivity to our vehicles."
New York resident Valerie Jacobson, who was visiting San Francisco on Friday, says it was a confusing mess.
“As we were walking back to our hotel, there was this huge jam up of about ten cars and I looked and there were no drivers in them," Jacobson recalled.
“One of them was like pretty much stuck up against one of the sidewalk sheds and trying to maneuver out of it but couldn’t," she said. "There was also a huge lineup ahead of it. One of them was stopped at the top of the hill for no apparent reason. This had created a huge backlog."
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Witnesses of this incident told NBC Bay Area they noticed the traffic snarl just before 11 p.m. on Friday.
"Other than being an inconvenience, it’s dangerous," said San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who said he immediately received complaints from his constituents about the robotaxi jam.
The incident happened the day after the California Public Utilities Commission ruled in a 3-1 vote to allow Cruise and Waymo to expand robotaxi operations in San Francisco and part of San Mateo County 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Cruise is owned by General Motors and Waymo is owned by Alphabet.
"There was just a total meltdown," said Peskin of the incident Friday, "which shows that San Francisco’s government that petitioned for an incremental approach --that we’re right."
"These things are not ready for prime time," Peskin said of the autonomous vehicles.
He also said the notion that wireless issues caused this backup "is scary as heck if you think about the fact that moving these vehicles out of traffic requires cell service."
Peskin worries about what would happen if a natural disaster, for example, knocked out cell service. He referred to autonomous vehicles as "amazing devices," but is among the local leaders arguing that "they should not be expanded until the technology has been worked out."
Peskin noted that local leaders are pushing at the state and federal levels, calling for more oversight of driverless cars.
In the meantime, he has an ask directly for California's governor.
"At the end of the day, the five members of California's Public Utilities Commission are appointed directly by the Governor of the State of California, and I think Gavin Newsom needs to do something about this before somebody gets killed," Peskin said.
