San Francisco officials are pushing the California Public Utilities Commission to pump the brakes on approving 24/7 paid robotaxi service from Waymo and Cruise — and they want a full do-over on the expansion hearing while they're at it.

The city's position: not so fast. Officials argue the CPUC hasn't adequately weighed the local impacts of unleashing fleets of autonomous vehicles across every neighborhood, around the clock. They want more time, more process, and apparently more hearings.

Here's the thing though — Waymo's vehicles have logged millions of miles in the city and, by most accounts, haven't exactly been causing chaos. Cruise has had its share of hiccups, sure, but the regulatory response from City Hall has started to feel less like measured oversight and more like institutional resistance to anything that disrupts the taxi and rideshare status quo.

Let's be honest about what's happening: San Francisco — the city that exports tech disruption to the rest of the world — is doing everything in its power to slow down tech disruption when it shows up at home. The same city that can't keep its buses on schedule or prevent Muni from hemorrhaging hundreds of millions in losses annually is now asking a state commission to slow-walk the one transit innovation that actually works without a pension obligation attached.

None of this means robotaxis should get a blank check. Legitimate questions around emergency vehicle interference, accident liability, and data privacy deserve real answers and real accountability. If the CPUC hasn't done that work rigorously, a redo isn't crazy.

But San Francisco shouldn't get to veto state-level approvals just because change is uncomfortable. The city can set reasonable local rules. It cannot simply run out the clock on technology it doesn't like.

If robotaxis are genuinely unsafe, prove it with data and act accordingly. If they're not — and the evidence increasingly suggests they're not — then this looks less like protecting residents and more like protecting incumbents.

SF can't claim to love innovation and then lawyer it to death every time it actually arrives.