How steep are robot delivery corridors?
Terrain is not the bottleneck in any tracked corridor. Measured from USGS elevation data, max corridor-scale grade runs from 0.8% in Chicago to 5.4% in San Francisco's core. Even the steepest corridor is gentle at the route scale, well inside what sidewalk robots handle. The famous 41% pitch of San Francisco's Bradford Street is a single city-street maximum, not a delivery corridor: the point is that a robot route is chosen through the flat parts of a hilly city, so the corridor grade and the city-street grade are different numbers, and only the corridor grade governs deployment.
Every figure is measured from USGS 3DEP elevation data (public domain) and carries the Measured basis. How we verify.
Grade, ranked flattest first
Bars show the measured maximum corridor-scale grade (percent) from USGS 3DEP elevation point queries. This is a corridor-scale point-to-point grade, not a block-level maximum. Where a city has a much steeper individual street, that city-street figure is annotated on the row.
Source: USGS 3DEP elevation service (public domain). Corridor-scale point-to-point grade; city-street maxima annotated where published.
The full comparison
All corridors, ranked by measured max corridor-scale grade. Each figure is a point-to-point grade from USGS 3DEP elevation queries at neighborhood locations across the corridor, not a block-level maximum. The city-street column names the steepest individual street where a city publishes one.
| Corridor | Max corridor grade | City-street max | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago | 0.8% | — | Measured |
| Phoenix | 1% | — | Measured |
| Miami | 1.2% | — | Measured |
| Dallas-Fort Worth | 1.5% | — | Measured |
| LA West Side | 1.8% | — | Measured |
| Austin | 2.2% | — | Measured |
| Alexandria, VA | 2.5% | — | Measured |
| Atlanta | 3.5% | — | Measured |
| SF Core | 5.4% | Bradford St, 41% | Measured |
Source: USGS 3DEP elevation service (public domain, USGS 3DEP, queried Jul 2026). Corridor-scale point-to-point grade.
Why corridor grade and city-street grade are different numbers
San Francisco is the case that makes the distinction concrete. Its steepest street, Bradford Street, pitches at 41%, the steepest urban street in the country. Yet the measured corridor-scale grade for the SF core is 5.4%, because a delivery route is chosen through the flatter streets, not up the wall. Quoting the city-street maximum as if it were the corridor grade would overstate the terrain problem by nearly eightfold. Only the corridor grade governs whether a robot can work the route.
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Every figure is measured from USGS 3DEP elevation data (public domain) as a corridor-scale point-to-point grade. City-street maxima are stated separately so a corridor figure is never confused with a city-street figure. These are measured-from-open-data facts, not reviewed DEPLOY registry records, so they carry the Measured basis rather than the registry verified chip. How we verify
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Explore: all robot-delivery corridors, verified deployments.
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