At first, self-driving vehicles would share the High Occupancy Vehicle lane on I-5 to Richmond, B.C. and Highway 99 into Vancouver, according to the report. After early adopters pave the way and the masses begin to acquire autonomous vehicles, the lane could be dedicated exclusively.

“They’re safer,” Tom Alberg, managing director of Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group and one of the report’s authors, said in an interview Tuesday evening at the Fairmont Hotel, as the Emerging Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference wrapped up. “Allowing them into the HOV lane would be an incentive for more people to get into an autonomous vehicle over time.”