Julia Friedlander
Plenary Speaker
Driverless Vehicle Vision & Reality: A View from San Francisco Streets

Location: Oregon Convention Center - Ballroom (202-203)

Given San Francisco’s climate, proximity to Silicon Valley, history of mobility innovation, and varied street forms, the city has been the focal point for autonomous vehicle testing for several years. No agency collects comprehensive information on automated vehicle miles traveled, but it appears the large majority of automated driving has occurred in San Francisco. In 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) adopted a Standing General Order requiring AV operators to report all AV crashes, and the large majority of reported crashes have occurred in San Francisco. In 2022, both Cruise and Waymo removed safety operators from behind the wheel of their AVs. Julia Friedlander, Senior Manager for Automated Driving Policy at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, will provide a report on what the Agency has learned from its front row seat on AV operations.

CE Credits for APA, AIA, and ASLA, should be available for many sessions and workshops. More information on this will be available shortly.

Presenters

Julia Friedlander, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Julia Friedlander is a public servant whose career in public policy, public infrastructure and public law in New York and San Francisco city government has centered on periods of transformational policy, regulatory and social change. These included the HIV public health crisis, the deregulation and reregulation of telecommunications markets at the dawn of the broadband age, the LGBT civil rights and marriage equality movements, and restructuring of transportation governance to support multi-modal use of public rights-of-way in San Francisco. She served as General Counsel to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency for 11 years and – after a four year sojourn outside the transportation arena -- returned to the SFMTA wearing a policy hat. Her work now focuses on federal, state and local policy related to the future of automated driving.