The Brief

Self-driving cars seem to be taking over the streets of Los Angeles as Waymo continues to expand throughout the county, including in Santa Monica, West Hollywood, and Culver City.

More than 150,000 people signed up for the waitlist this past March for a chance to catch one of the autonomous rides, according to Waymo. The app is still invite only, so you’ll need to secure a special code from the company to cut in line. Otherwise, you’ll be notified when they’re ready to welcome new riders.

According to Waymo, the cars have more than 20 billion miles of simulated driving experience, using detailed custom maps and its advanced suite of sensors to get you to your destination. But there are reports noting the self-driving cars sometimes run into issues with unprotected left turns and rain-soaked roads.

The current Waymo operating area as of September 5, 2024.

(

Screenshot from Waymo website

)

So is the unique, futuristic concept all it's cracked up to be? Well, my colleague Kevin Tidmarsh and I put it to the test — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The set-up

We teamed up to go roundtrip from downtown L.A. to Koreatown using Waymo. The idea was to give the cars relatively challenging routes full of potential obstacles — one-way streets, unprotected lefts and all, right during rush hour.

The first ride was called shortly after 3 p.m. on a Friday from South Spring Street to Hobart Boulevard. The Waymo took about 17 minutes to arrive and cost us just under $20. That was about the same price as other rideshare options, but a much longer wait.

We jumped in the second ride back to downtown shortly after 4 p.m. This one took five minutes to arrive, mostly because it was the exact same car, and also cost us about $20. That was about $6 cheaper than Uber or Lyft.

The positives

Both the pick-ups and drop-offs were convenient. We were able to find the cars, and the cars were able to find us — in public parking lots that were mostly empty. For our first ride, that meant we had to walk a bit farther than originally intended, but the car accounted for the distance and gave us a few extra minutes to get there.

The door handles are only accessible after you hit an unlock button in the app, which can be a bit confusing for first-time riders, but is helpful from a safety standpoint.

Now, the car was quite nice. It was spotless, there were two easily accessible charging ports, a pair of screens in the back and front, as well as several curated playlists to choose from for the roughly 15 minute ride.

Waymo uses a fleet of Jaguar electric cars, so yes, compared to my hand-me-down Honda CR-V, it’s a big upgrade.

As you approach your Waymo for a ride, your initials are displayed on the rotating object on top of the car.

(

Makenna Sievertson

/

LAist

)

A robotic voice welcomed us as we slid in the seats, and Kevin, my partner in crime, said it “smells like a Macy’s.” The crisp, clean, and noticeably inoffensive business casual clothes section though, not the mid-priced perfume department.

While the driving wasn’t always so smooth (we’ll get to this, trust me) there were a few notable positives.

The Waymo always used its blinker, which is better than some drivers in the city.

It also stopped slowly and gently at most stop lights, leaving an appropriate amount of space between us and the crosswalk.

The screens mapped every single vehicle, scooter, bike, and person in the car’s immediate vicinity, tracking them like little video game characters so we knew what was going on around us.

It was very responsive to obstacles, almost too responsive, and it would regularly readjust the wheel to avoid anything even remotely in our way, making for an occasionally rough ride.

The negatives

The car was comfortable, but the driving didn’t start out strong. Let’s just say it did things the DMV wouldn’t want a human driver to do.

As we were leaving the downtown L.A. area, we almost immediately ran a stop light. To the car’s credit, it was yellow when we entered the intersection, but it clearly didn’t intend to slow down or stop. It also didn’t speed up from our consistent 25 mph cruise to try and beat the yellow.

“It was, like, barely legal, if it was legal,” Kevin said as we passed.

“That definitely felt ticket worthy,” I replied.

Kevin Tidmarsh taps the "start ride" button in a self-driving Waymo car in Koreatown on Friday, August 30.

(

Makenna Sievertson

/

LAist

)

While Waymo did use its blinker, we noticed that it sometimes was signaling in the wrong direction. The car also seemed to prefer to change lanes in the middle of an intersection, which isn’t illegal, but also isn’t recommended.

It regularly drove in dedicated bus lanes and struggled to respond to someone attempting to parallel park, inching closer and closer to the car while they tried to reverse into the spot. It also casually drove down the middle of two lanes at one point.

Again, the car was responsive to potential obstacles, which meant we had some jarring and sudden stops along the way. If a pedestrian stepped into the street on the opposite end of traffic, or a mail delivery vehicle was parked slightly in the lane, the Waymo seemed to slam on the brakes.

And it did feel a little strange to be in the backseat of a car that so many people were staring at. We got enthusiastic waves from small children and many lingering looks from people around us. But we’ll never really know whether they were annoyed with, or amused by, the self-driving set-up.

A driver looks at a Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar driving along a street near Venice Beach on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

(

Mario Tama

/

Getty Images North America

)

Final thoughts

Overall, although the driving was occasionally questionable, it did feel safe.

Neither of us felt completely at ease during the first trip, analyzing the Waymo’s every move for signs of trouble.

“I’m watching every car that passes with bated breath, just like how is it going to handle it,” Kevin said. “To be honest, sometimes it handles it well, sometimes it doesn’t.”

“I’m watching more intently than I would if it was a human driver,” I said. “Part of it is curiosity, but part of it is [being] scared.”

What the Waymo screens show when you're taking a ride, including a detailed map of every vehicle, person, bike, and scooter around you.

(

Makenna Sievertson

/

LAist

)

But we calmed down by the second round, at least enough to enjoy a Sabrina Carpenter song on the pop preset station (the driverless cars are great for karaoke with EDM, Disney hits, and Bollywood stations — here’s an idea for another late-night talk show segment).

Our verdict: We’d consider calling one of the self-driving cars if we weren’t in a rush to get home and they continued to be a cheaper option. But a share of your payment (plus tips) won’t be going to human drivers, as with most ride-hailing apps.

“There were a couple points that were a little bit hairy,” Kevin said. “There were some decisions it made that I wouldn’t have made as a driver … but there were lots of parts of the experience that definitely did make me feel comfortable.”

However, there’s a notable knock against the service now — Waymo doesn’t have as many cars on the road as other rideshare options, and its routes are limited to nearly 80 square miles of L.A. County.

At least we know our fears were mostly unfounded, Waymo can handle one-way streets or unprotected left turns pretty dang well.

California hospitals and the state’s largest health workers union reached an agreement Thursday to pull two competing initiatives from the November ballot hours before a state deadline. But a separate measure to impose a one-time tax on billionaires remains headed toward voters, potentially reshaping how California funds healthcare.

That measure would levy a one-time 5% tax on California billionaires if approved by voters. Supporters estimate the tax would bring in $100 billion to replace recent state and federal healthcare cuts. The union accused Gov. Gavin Newsom, who tried to strike a last-minute deal to kill the ballot measure, of having “no plan” to prevent cuts projected to lose jobs and leave millions of Californians uninsured, according to recent projections.

“We thought it was important to do everything we could to try to solve that problem,” said Dave Regan, president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West.

In addition to the wealth tax, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West had qualified an initiative to limit how much hospital executives are paid; while the California Hospital Association hit back with a proposal to limit the union’s political spending without member approval. Those two measures will no longer appear on the ballot under a deal brokered by the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO.

Union members argued that money has been siphoned away from patient care through federal and state budget cuts as well as business decisions that support costly executive salaries. In turn, hospitals and some experts contended that capping leadership salaries would drain talent from pricey California and result in worse patient care.

Initially the two sides were adamant that they weren’t interested in negotiating, but Thursday’s agreement is the latest reminder that few things are fixed in Sacramento politics. Both sides had raised tens-of-millions of dollars to support their proposals.

Carmela Coyle, hospital association president and CEO, said in a statement that the agreement would “ensure high-quality health care services are accessible throughout California.”

Lorena Gonzalez, president of the labor federation, said the deal would support “quality healthcare and good union jobs to Californians.”

SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West declined to comment on the agreement.

A history of dealmaking

This marked the sixth time the union has attempted to cap healthcare executive salaries at $450,000 through state or local ballot measures.

For decades the union led by Regan has used ballot initiatives to gain leverage over the healthcare industry, broker deals with lawmakers and push its political agenda forward.

Voters may remember dialysis center initiatives appearing on three back-to-back ballots in 2018, 2020 and 2022. All three failed, and the dialysis industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat them.

That strategy is what SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West does — and what it’s doing this year.

Since 2012, the union has sponsored 48 state and local ballot initiatives spending $120 million. Most of the measures have been withdrawn or voted down. Despite those specific failures, the strategy has yielded major wins, including a $25 per hour health worker minimum wage. On that issue, the union asked voters across multiple cities to increase salaries before striking a deal with lawmakers and hospitals that included a 10-year moratorium on local minimum wage ballot measures.

That strategy is shaping debate over this year’s most contentious measure, which would put a major question before voters: whether California should impose a new tax on its wealthiest residents to help fund healthcare.

The proposal has drawn opposition from an unusual mix of business interests, Newsom, billionaires and progressive groups like Planned Parenthood and the California Teachers Association.

“We have to use all of the tools in our toolbox,” union spokesperson Renée Saldaña said prior to the agreement. “We see the ballot initiative as one way to take it directly to California voters.”

Good policy or ballot blackmail?

It’s a game of cat-and-mouse dating back to the early 1900s. California special interests spend millions to place a ballot initiative before voters; use it for political leverage; and ultimately strike a deal with lawmakers or political rivals to pull the measures in exchange for some other benefit.

Dan Schnur, a longtime Republican analyst and political communications professor at USC, said special interests have always taken advantage of ballot initiatives to try and advance their agendas. What makes SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West unusual is how often it repeats initiatives that fail, but the willingness to do so may be what gives the union so much political leverage.

“A ballot initiative is the ultimate blunt instrument,” Schnur said. “The threat of a ballot measure can help shape negotiations in the Legislature on the same subject.”

John Matsusaka, a USC law professor and executive director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute, said ballot initiatives are intended to allow voters to decide directly whether a proposal should become law. This helps bypass a Legislature that constituents may feel doesn’t actually reflect their interests.

California groups have attempted to pass more initiatives than any other state, Matsusaka said, but wielding them for leverage is an unhealthy way to view the law.

“Laws shouldn’t be used as bargaining chips in your negotiations in my opinion,” he said.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Following the Logistics warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, many residents have expressed concerns about contaminants from smoke and ash settling into the soil. 

The Contaminant Level Evaluation and Analysis for Neighborhoods (CLEAN) project at USC is offering free soil testing for Boyle Heights and East L.A. residents. 

CLEAN is a rapid response soil testing program from the USC Department of Earth Sciences and Public Exchange developed by USC faculty, students and staff to assist local communities impacted by fires in L.A. County.

Residents can collect soil samples and drop them off at Boyle Heights City Hall for CLEAN to collect. 

Below is a step-by-step guide.

How to collect your sample: 

1. Review USC’s CLEAN project guide
2. Submit this survey– Your sample ID will be provided upon completing the survey. Make sure to save your ID as this is how the CLEAN team keeps track of your sample and provides results to you. 
3. Before getting started, gather your materials and protective equipment. (ADD points)
   
   1. Disposable gloves and an N95 or KN95 facemask
   2. Plastic spoon or shovel
   3. Ziploc bags (2 per composite samples)
   4. Permanent marker 
   5. Masking tape (for bag label)
   6. 9-digit sample ID code (from your survey)
4. Select your sampling zones
   
   1. Your sampling zones are where you will be collecting the soil from. Your zones can be your front or back yard, garden, etc. The picture on page four of the guide shows the different zones in a home and though your home may not have all zones, what’s important is that you understand what zones you’re collecting from and labeling them accordingly.
5. Once you’re wearing your protective gear and have your equipment, you are now ready to collect the sample.
   
   1. Collect two spoonfuls of soil for 2-5 different spots within a single zone
   2. Drop all spoonfuls from the zone into one Ziploc bag. By the end of collecting, the bag should have about a cup size of soil in it.
   3. Seal your Ziploc bag and for extra protection, put it over another Ziploc bag. This bag will now contain the zone’s composite sample. 
   4. Then repeat for every other zone you want to test. You should have one composite sample per zone you test. (e.g. one for the garden, one for the front yard, etc.)
6. Using a permanent marker, label each Ziploc bag with your unique sample ID and the zone name either on tape or directly on the bag. 
7. Then you repeat steps 5 and 6 for each zone you are testing. 

After collection 

Once you have finished collecting your samples, make sure to wash your hands. If you suspect your soil to be contaminated, CLEAN suggests limiting access to that area, wiping or taking shoes off before entering your home, and preventing children from playing in bare soil.  

CLEAN will test all samples for lead and some select samples will be tested for Arsenic, Chromium(VI), and Mercury. Testing for lead can take up to four weeks, while tests for other materials may take longer.

Where to submit your sample

After collecting and labeling your soil samples, you can submit them using one of the following methods:

Option 1: Drop Off Your Sample

Option 2: Mail Your Sample

Who to contact: 

If you have any questions or concerns, contact cleanproject@usc.edu

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Inglewood’s video billboards just secured a big legal victory.  

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that the city of Inglewood can, for now, continue its deal allowing WOW Media to run its digital billboards along the city’s major roads. 

Last summer, companies tied to SoFi Stadium, Kia Forum and Intuit Dome sued to block the agreement, arguing that the city had violated competitive bidding rules and policies governing the use of public roads and sidewalks.

The stadiums, which run their own massive digital billboards on its properties, also claimed the city’s dealings with WOW breached their contracts with the city. Court records previously reviewed by The LA Local suggested the yearslong relationship between Mayor James Butts and SoFi Stadium owner Stan Kroenke was fraying.

At one point, Butts claimed the city’s SoFi Stadium development agreement was void.

The dispute also moved beyond the courts and onto the streets when stadiums launched a ballot initiative aimed at banning WOW’s billboards. WOW fired back with a pair of its own ballot initiatives aimed at stadium taxes and parking fees.

Superior Court Judge Joseph Lipner rejected several claims brought by the stadiums, saying in a 25-page ruling that WOW’s agreement with the city adhered to rules governing the public right–of-way, the legal term for publicly accessible roads, sidewalks and other paths.

The judge also ruled that the city was not required to open a competitive bidding process for the agreement because WOW and its patented spiral video kiosks were uniquely positioned to fulfill the contract. 

But Lipner said he did not have jurisdiction to rule on allegations by the Forum and Intuit Dome that the city breached their development contracts.

A spiral video kiosk is seen on Prairie Ave. in Inglewood on Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Los Angeles, Calif.

(

Dania Maxwell

/

The LA Local

)

Butts told The LA Local that the court’s findings speak for themselves and touted the revenue the billboards bring the city. Inglewood has made as much as $7.4 million in billboard revenue in a year, according to budget documents. 

WOW celebrated Lipner’s ruling in a statement to The LA Local, calling the stadiums’ court case and ballot initiative part of an “expensive misinformation campaign.” 

“The court’s ruling makes clear that the city followed the law and acted in the best interests of its residents,” WOW CEO Scott Krantz said. “It has become abundantly clear that the stadium duopolists want complete control of every facet of Inglewood life.” 

A spokesperson for Hollywood Park, the complex that includes SoFi Stadium, said it plans to appeal and that the case raised important questions.

“We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision regarding the city’s long-term agreement with WOW and continue to believe that leasing public rights-of-way in this manner is inconsistent with state and municipal law,” the spokesperson wrote. 

Beyond a possible appeal by the stadiums, Lipner wrote that the parts of the case he did not rule on will be transferred to another court department to be calendared for future proceedings.