Why Are Waymo Cars Always Parked on My Street?

For residents across Los Angeles, the sight of a Waymo vehicle parked on a residential street has become a familiar, if puzzling, part of daily life. These autonomous cars often choose the same spots repeatedly, leading many to wonder what draws them to specific curbs and driveways.

Ten-year-old Morgan rushes to the window whenever a Waymo parks outside her West Los Angeles home. “The Waymo is home!” she announces to her parents, Lisa Delgin and Zach Tucker. This isn’t a one-time event. For over a year, the family has watched as different Waymo vehicles return to the same one or two parking spaces near their house, sometimes lingering for minutes, other times for hours. “It would always come back here, like a beacon,” Delgin remarked. “Like it knew there was a spot here that it could take.”

This phenomenon isn’t unique to their neighborhood. From Pico/Fairfax to Brentwood, residents report similar patterns, Waymos idling in front of the same apartment buildings or lining quiet streets. Online forums like Nextdoor and Reddit are filled with questions and complaints from people in Palms, Playa del Rey, and Westchester, all asking variations of the same thing: why here?

Even in Arizona, where Waymo has operated since 2020, residents note the same behavior. A Scottsdale family described a Waymo frequently parking near their home, adjacent to a shopping center. The question on many minds is whether there’s a method to the machine’s parking choices, or if it’s all just algorithmic randomness.

Waymo acknowledges that its vehicles sometimes park on public streets between rides. According to Vishay Nihalani, Waymo’s director of product management, the cars select parking based on local regulations, how many other Waymos are nearby, and how long they plan to stay. If high-demand areas already have enough vehicles, the AI may opt to park rather than contribute to traffic. The goal is to balance supply and demand while conserving energy.

But that doesn’t fully explain why the same house or block becomes a recurring parking destination. Phil Koopman, an autonomous vehicle expert from Carnegie Mellon, suggests that machine learning may be at play. “A computer just doing exactly the same thing the same way every time should not be a surprise to anyone,” he said. “That’s how computers are.” In other words, once the AI identifies an ideal parking spot, based on factors like legality, safety, and convenience, it may lack the flexibility to choose a slightly different location if that spot is taken.

Waymo has not confirmed whether machine learning guides these parking decisions, only stating that “several elements” influence where vehicles choose to wait. Still, the company emphasizes that it follows all local parking laws, which in Los Angeles limit continuous parking to three hours for both commercial and personal vehicles. According to data shared with researchers, rideshare vehicles rarely exceed two hours in one spot.

Some residents have expressed unease about the always-on cameras and sensors on idling Waymos, while others are simply annoyed at losing convenient parking. A few have complained directly to the company, which says it has made adjustments in response to feedback. In certain cases, Waymo has even programmed specific spots as no-parking zones for its fleet.

Lately, the Delgin/Tucker family has noticed fewer Waymo visits, a shift the company attributes to increased ridership and a growing fleet. As more Angelenos use the service, the cars have less downtime to linger. For Lisa Delgin, the change is bittersweet. After months of curiosity and occasional frustration, she now hopes a Waymo will be nearby when her family actually needs a ride.

(Source: The Verge)