Apropos the discussion about the future role of parking lots in downtown Menlo Park, Id like to raise an idea to the council.
The general, open-ended, problem of autonomous driving is hard, but the constrained problem of in-city autonomous taxis is a solved problem. Waymo has commercial programs in multiple cities, and they are expanding. Waymo works by mapping an area; once it is mapped, their vehicles use multiple sensors to very safely navigate between origin and destination within that mapped area.
I used to be fairly skeptical about Waymo but I have changed my opinion in the last year or so. I remain very skeptical of Teslas "fully autonomous" vehicles for multiple reasons, including their lack of transparency of their data, but Waymo is different.
Back to downtown Menlo Park. There are valid concerns about how to use some of the existing parking lots for housing; I liked the summary from Anna Chow during a recent meeting; she emphasized the need to transition from todays situation to a future situation without impacting business.
An objection Ive heard is "what about the need for future parking growth?". I think this is where local autonomous transportation fits in. I believe a solution like Waymo WILL happen, and when it happens we will see BOTH increased visits to downtown, AND reduced needs for parking.
The worst thing we can do is to ignore the future; the role of the Council is to ask these questions.
Id like to put forward the suggestion for our city to reach out to Alphabet / Waymo and explore a pilot program in Menlo Park. A pilot would be beneficial. Even just seeing these vehicles on the road will make our citizens start asking about the future.
Thanks for reading,
Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart. The Willows,
