How self-driving shuttles could enable car-free living in the suburbs

Enlarge (credit: Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica)

RESTON, VIRGINIA—A Boston-based startup called Optimus Ride has launched a new self-driving vehicle service in the Washington, DC suburb of Reston, Virginia. On Monday, I traveled to the site, a 45-minute drive from my home in the nation’s capital, to see it first-hand.

Since August, the company has been ferrying passengers between a Fannie Mae office building at the site and an overflow parking lot a few minutes’ walk away. But Optimus Ride has much larger ambitions for the site.

The 36-acre property is directly adjacent to a new stop (“Reston Town Center”) on the DC Metro system’s Silver Line. The site’s owner, Brookfield Properties, is planning a massive mixed-use development here it has dubbed Halley Rise. There will be new homes, office space, and retail stores—including a Wegmans grocery store.