What should Minneapolis do about Waymo?

I attended a conference last spring in San Francisco. It’s one of America’s unique cities in part because the entire range of American transportation technology is seemingly on display. Visitors can ride everything from cable cars (!) to streetcars from different eras to ferries to a late 20th century subway (with an unusually wide track width). For an urbanist, it’s like a living museum.

And of course there are the Waymos, automated driverless taxis milling about the city at all hours of the day. To sate my curiosity I tried one of those, too, using a new rider discount to cross town one night. The experience was uncanny: The Jaguar’s steering wheel turned by itself, I had nobody to talk to and no way to tell them to stop and let me out early. 

In the end, the ride was pleasant and uneventful, though for some reason the car released me two blocks short o...