Eventually I made my fist Waymo ride. Waymo robotic taxi now operates in ten cities in USA including San Francisco. But in my home town on East Bay it is not available yet. To give the ride some sense we decided to visit De Young museum by public transit: ride on BART to San Francisco downtown and from there take Waymo to Golden Gate Park.
Trip from corner of Market and 4-th street to De Young (<4 miles) cost us $26. Taxi trip would be probably more but Lift or Uber should be less.
I ordered ride by Waymo Android app. It instructed us how to walk to to the place where robocar will pick us up. It was taxi stand at the corner of 4-th street. We waited about 10 minutes. When car arrived we came to car door and pop up app button asked me to push the button to unlock the car. After that handle moved out of the door, I opened the door and we entered the car. For movement to start all passengers must buckle up seatbelts.
The ride was fun. This Waymo can drive I would tell you. The only complain is the last part of the ride in the park. Due high traffic of pedestrians and bicycles it was too slow.
We would be better of to leave the car and just walk to the museum but I had no idea how to convey our wish to Waymo. So we patiently waited till car stopped near museum entry and let us out.
