Waymo’s race to provide airport rides to SF International Airport now has a very well-defined set of approved steps, as the company just got the green light to start testing rides to SFO with human drivers behind the wheel.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie clearly feels that there is some enormous public desire among San Franciscans and tourists to take Waymo self-driving robotaxis to as many places as possible. Earlier this year he opened up Market Street to Waymos and Waymos only on parts of the street where only Muni and commercial vehicles could drive, and only belatedly gave that privilege to Uber and Lyft vehicles too. And now the Chronicle reports that Lurie has announced Waymo’s first steps to provide rides to SFO, something the company has been clamoring to do for years.  

“Across San Francisco, we are expanding safe, reliable, and modern transportation options—supporting our city’s economic comeback, boosting our tourism industry, and connecting residents and visitors to everything our city has to offer,” Lurie said in a Tuesday morning press release. “We announced in March that we wanted visitors to be able to ride in a Waymo as soon as they arrived in San Francisco, and today, we are taking another important step to get there.”

Per Lurie’s announcement, the rides will be rolled out in three phases. Phase One is with the cars being driven by human drivers, presumably to map the routes in and around the airport. Phase Two will see the vehicles actually in self-driving mode, but with Waymo or SFO employees as the only passengers allowed. And Phase Three will see the Waymos graduate to normal commercial operations for Waymo customers.

There is no timeline attached for any of these phases. Waymo announced service to San Jose’s Mineta International Airport earlier this month, though that too is being rolled out in a very tiered and gradual way (the robocars aren't even allowed in San Jose proper as of now), and the local media are framing this as some sort of “race” between the two airports.

But the goal here should be to get it right. And to their credit, Waymo has shown themselves to have far fewer safety screw-ups than their erstwhile robotaxi competitor Cruise.

There’s no question that tourists love the novelty of their first self-driving car rides, and those who enjoy the friction- and person-free pickup experience will likely enjoy the option of a robot airport pickup. But, as most of us know, Waymo rides are substantially more expensive than Lyft or Uber rides and that's likely to continue to be the case — what will those SFO trips actually cost? $100?

Related: Waymo Passenger Says He Was Late to the Airport Because Robocar Kept Doing Circles In a Parking Lot [SFist]

Image via Waymo