Can cyclists and self-driving cars be friends?

Los Angeles is A car town, and rarely is this more evident than in a vulnerable spot atop a peak bike. Between the big one Cities In the United States, Los Angeles has an average to poor reputation for cycling. The lack of connected cycling lanes and safe crossings led a national cycling advocacy organization recently Classify the bike network in Los Angeles No. 1136 nationwide. The city’s mechanistic tendencies are inscribed on its infrastructure, leading to deadly consequences. according to One local portat least 12 Angelenos died while riding this year.

So it’s a surprise that Eli Akira Kaufman, executive director of Los Angeles County’s bicycle advocacy group BikeLA, is so enthusiastic about the car. Specifically, a car driven by a robot.

For more than a year, Alphabet’s Waymo has been drawing riders in the western half of the city. Kaufman likes what he sees. “They’re not driving stressed, tired, drunk or racist,” he says. He found the Waymos pilot predictable, mostly abiding by traffic laws. When he gets in the car, “I deprioritize them in terms of my level of interest. “I can focus on the human drivers.”

Kaufman’s sentiments represent a shift in the cycling community, and what feels like a divide. For many years, some cyclists have viewed the efforts of developers of autonomous vehicle technology — and the automakers that support them — with deep suspicion. Self-driving cars, after all, are heavy and dangerous; More than 40,000 Americans die in traffic accidents every year. Moreover, if self-driving vehicles replace cars and trucks today, advocates worry that other forms of transportation will be lost. The long-term result of doubling car travel may be sprawling cities with few opportunities for low-cost, emission-free modes of transportation. One might argue that it is exactly the kind of cities that exist today.

But as more self-driving vehicle services emerge across the country, they have set a safety record that appears to improve humans’ performance, though it’s not definitive. Waymo Latest data It notes that in the cities where it operates, its vehicles are involved in 92 percent fewer crashes that injure pedestrians, and 78 percent fewer crashes that injure cyclists.

This has prompted some cycling advocates to take a more realistic approach to the technology. “I don’t think anyone, including self-driving vehicle operators, believes that taking drivers out of the equation will single-handedly solve America’s traffic safety crisis,” says Joe Catrofo, CEO of Bike Houston. Waymo began testing in Houston in May, and the Texas city has seen tests from companies including Nuro and Cruise. “But we need to be open about solutions that can deliver quick results.”

As more new technology appears on city streets, activists are asking a question that goes beyond wheels: What should the city of the future look like?

Emerging relationships

Cycling groups say some self-driving vehicle developers have mostly done what other transportation companies haven’t done: They showed up. Waymo representatives join Zoom meetings with bicycle lobbyists. They appear at local events. “Companies like Waymo and Zoox have proactively reached out to us, asking us about their technology, and asking us to meet their engineers,” says Kendra Ramsey, executive director of CalBike, a Sacramento-based California cycling advocacy group.

The self-driving car industry is also writing checks. Waymo sponsored last year’s National Cycling Summit in Washington, D.C., a lobbying event hosted by the nonprofit League of American Bicyclists, and will sponsor next year’s event as well. Local groups, including BikeLA and BikeHouston, count Waymo among “partners,” and Zoox has joined the Alphabet affiliate — and organizations including Caltrans and AARP California — as sponsors of the annual CalBike meeting.