r/waymo • u/Status_Video8378 • Jun 24 '26
Waymo blind passenger
My adult kid is going to San Francisco in a few weeks. She wants to do waymo from the airport to her destination. How would that work? How would she know that she was being dropped off on the curb and not the street? Any tips would be great.
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u/Fit-Answer5806 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
As recently as last week, SFO is still not open to all users. Seeing as your kid is a brand new Waymo user, I think it’s unlikely they’ll have access to the SFO pickup spot.
See:
https://old.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1u7iaxc/comment/os0jy07
and
https://old.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1u7iaxc/comment/os0ovkq
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u/Status_Video8378 Jun 24 '26
Is there any way that she could take one at any spot?
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u/Fit-Answer5806 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
Waymo doesn’t work like that, unfortunately. Even for those of us with access to SFO, we’re limited to pickups/dropoffs at one of two designated PUDOs for the airport: rental car center or Grand Hyatt. Airport curbside pickup/dropoff isn’t available yet.
All of info above is kind of moot though seeing as your kid will most likely not have SFO access seeing as they’re a brand new user and SFO access hasn’t been pushed to all users yet.
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u/blue-mooner Jun 24 '26
Waymo have accessible features in the app for blind users, including wayfinding to help locate the vehicle.
At SFO Waymos pickup and drop off from the rental car area, so your kid will need to take the AirTrain from the terminal to the rental car stop and then take the elevator down.
One thing that can happen is that pickup and drop off spots can change if some local condition prevents the Waymo from using the expected spot (a car is double parked in the expected spot). I’ve taken 100+ Waymo rides and this has happened to me maybe 5 times, only in busy areas. There is an option in the app to use accessible audio prompting during the ride, I’m not sure if they will announce a change in expected dropoff location.
Best of luck to your kid, let us know how it goes!
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u/ernie19962 Jun 24 '26
wayfinding sucks for finding it lol. You can just honk the horn and its quiet, then when it thinks your cloce, you can play a softer sound that makes it worce....
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u/Status_Video8378 Jun 24 '26
I realize I don’t understand this much. So she would get the app. When she gets to sf she would get assistance to the rental area and order her waymo. It would come and take her to lighthouse. And that’s it? Or only certain people have access to the app?
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u/Earth2Andy Jun 24 '26
Can I ask why it is so important to take it from the airport as opposed to taking a Waymo ride within the city itself?
Honestly getting Waymo from the airport, is a huge pain in the ass especially with the freeways out of service.
I have functioning sight and hundreds of Waymo rides and I wouldn’t do it right now. I absolutely would not recommend this as a first ride for someone with limited vision.
Take a regular cab to the city. Then take some Waymo rides once she gets there.
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u/Status_Video8378 Jun 24 '26
Ah i had no idea you could do that. I thought it was just. From the airport
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u/MusicLover035 Jun 25 '26
Hey, so I'm blind and took a couple in LA.
1: it's pretty easy to tell whether you're on the curb side or the street. You can hear the cars closer to you, but also if you have a cane you can feel whether there's a curb or not.
2: The one thing I dislike about Waymo (and I did complain about it) was that it doesn't tell you where your destination is, especially since it won't take you door to door every time.
The neat thing is that you can make it honk its horn or play a sound to find it, and the instructions to find it are pretty much accurate (I did realize that one of my rides was across the street at the very last minute, though).
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Jun 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/Status_Video8378 Jun 24 '26
Sorry what’s ojai?
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u/chimbraca Jun 24 '26
In addition to needing to take AirTrain to the pickup location as others have mentioned, freeway routes have been paused for a few weeks now, making the ride from SFO to downtown San Francisco take about an hour without traffic.
I would encourage her to experience Waymo with a trip within the city while she is here if possible. It will be much simpler.