Another comment mentioned the Philippines as the manifest frontier. SF is not on the same plane of reality in terms of density or narrow streets as PH, I would argue in comparison it does not have both.
On that specific count, not really. There's a skate park north end of the Mission, and Stevenson St is a two way road that borders it, but it's narrow enough that you need to drive up on the curb to get two vehicles side by side on the street. Waymo's can't handle that on a regular basis. Being San Francisco and not London, you can just skip that road, but if you find yourself in a Waymo on that street and are unlucky to have other traffic on it, the Waymo will just have to back up the entire street. Hope there's no one behind you as well as in front of you!
Anyway, we'll see how the London rollout goes, but I get the impression London's got a lot more of those kinds of roads.
I live in London. Most residential streets are two-way but there is only space for one car, and driving on the curb is not really an option.
The trick to UK streets is that parking actually happens on the street itself, and when driving you must find a spot when people are not parking to make way for people coming the other way.
That is extremely narrow, I wonder why the city has not designated it as a one-way street? They've done that for other similarly narrow sections of the same street farther north.
This is an alley in Coimbra, Portugal. A couple years ago I stayed at a hotel in this very street and took a cab from the train station. The driver could have stopped in the praça below and told me to walk 15m up. Instead the guy went all the way up then curved through 5-10 alleys like that to drop me off right right in front of my place. At a significant speed as well. It was one of the craziest car rides I've ever experienced.
I live in such an area. The route to my house involves steep topography via small windy streets that are very narrow and effectively one-way due to parked cars.
Human drivers routinely do worse than Waymo, which I take 2 or 3 times a week. Is it perfect? No. Does it handle the situation better than most Lyft or Uber drivers? Yes.
As a bonus: unlike some of those drivers the Waymo doesn't get palpably angry at me for driving the route.
San Francisco isn't uniformly dense and narrow, but it does have both, and it's run remarkably well so far.
Another comment mentioned the Philippines as the manifest frontier. SF is not on the same plane of reality in terms of density or narrow streets as PH, I would argue in comparison it does not have both.
This is the craziest I've seen, but it was 10 months ago which is ~10 years in AI years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DWz1TD-VZg
On that specific count, not really. There's a skate park north end of the Mission, and Stevenson St is a two way road that borders it, but it's narrow enough that you need to drive up on the curb to get two vehicles side by side on the street. Waymo's can't handle that on a regular basis. Being San Francisco and not London, you can just skip that road, but if you find yourself in a Waymo on that street and are unlucky to have other traffic on it, the Waymo will just have to back up the entire street. Hope there's no one behind you as well as in front of you!
Anyway, we'll see how the London rollout goes, but I get the impression London's got a lot more of those kinds of roads.
I live in London. Most residential streets are two-way but there is only space for one car, and driving on the curb is not really an option.
The trick to UK streets is that parking actually happens on the street itself, and when driving you must find a spot when people are not parking to make way for people coming the other way.
> Stevenson St is a two way road
That is extremely narrow, I wonder why the city has not designated it as a one-way street? They've done that for other similarly narrow sections of the same street farther north.
What would be an example city? Waymo just announced they're ramping up in Boston: https://waymo.com/blog/?modal=short-back-to-boston
"we’re excited to continue effectively adapting to Boston’s cobblestones, narrow alleyways, roundabouts and turnpikes."
Any small city in Italy is going to be 10X more challenging than Boston
Depends, which is harder: a narrow street or a three lane one with no obvious lane markers with people double parking?
the absolute chaos of Paris would also be challenging.
and the failure mode for some of them are steep drops off of cliffs
Various European cities come to mind: Narrow streets are something of a trope in certain movies/genres.
To be fair, many of those films do not portray human drivers in the best light.
Not grandparent but I was rather thinking of medieval city centers in Italy or Spain.
edit: Case in point:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/xxYQWHrzSMES8HPL8
This is an alley in Coimbra, Portugal. A couple years ago I stayed at a hotel in this very street and took a cab from the train station. The driver could have stopped in the praça below and told me to walk 15m up. Instead the guy went all the way up then curved through 5-10 alleys like that to drop me off right right in front of my place. At a significant speed as well. It was one of the craziest car rides I've ever experienced.
Do we really need FSD cars (any cars, actually) in medieval city centers?
I live in such an area. The route to my house involves steep topography via small windy streets that are very narrow and effectively one-way due to parked cars.
Human drivers routinely do worse than Waymo, which I take 2 or 3 times a week. Is it perfect? No. Does it handle the situation better than most Lyft or Uber drivers? Yes.
As a bonus: unlike some of those drivers the Waymo doesn't get palpably angry at me for driving the route.
Yes, something like Ho Chi Minh or Mumbai in a peak hour! With lots of bike riders, pedestrians, and livestock at the same roundabout.
Like London? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvctCbVEvwQ
Waymo cars are driving around London right now.
Not taking paying passengers yet though!
They're being trialled in London right now.
Napoli
Old Delhi is the the final boss.
Does it, though? Maybe Dhaka will never get Waymo. The same way you can’t get advanced gene therapy there.