The D.C. Council is one vote short of letting driverless taxis carry paying passengers in Washington. Council member Charles Allen, who chairs the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, unveiled a rewritten version of his Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026 on Tuesday, November 10. Three of the five committee members say they will vote no this week: Zachary Parker of Ward 5, Elissa Silverman, an at-large member, and Janeese Lewis George of Ward 4, the mayor-elect. Christina Henderson, also at large, would vote yes. That leaves Allen one vote short.
The bill would let Waymo and other companies carry paying passengers in cars with no one behind the wheel. District law today allows testing only with a trained person in the vehicle, which is how Waymo has tested in D.C. for about two years. Before carrying passengers, a company would need at least 90 days and 75,000 miles of driverless testing in the District. Each company could run no more than 200 driverless cars, and no more than 800 could operate in the District at one time. Companies would pay a tax of 7.5 cents for every mile their driverless cars travel. Half the money would go to public transit. The rest would be split between training rideshare drivers for new jobs and better service for people with disabilities. Companies would have to start adding wheelchair accessible vehicles and report any crash within 12 hours. The bill would also give rideshare drivers, and contractors who repair autonomous vehicles and charging stations, a right under District law to organize and bargain together over pay and conditions.
The opponents say their objection is timing, not the technology itself. Lewis George says rushing the bill is irresponsible when so many drivers could lose work. Parker says he supports allowing self-driving cars in D.C., but wants a few more months to work with the incoming mayor, answer concerns from firefighters, who say driverless cars do not always move out of the way for fire trucks, and wait for the new mayor to seat her agency officials. Labor unions have led the opposition, among them SEIU 32BJ, the App Drivers Union, the Teamsters and the transit workers union. Allen hopes to hold a committee vote this week and a full Council vote by the end of the year. If the bill is not passed before the session ends on January 2, 2027, it dies.
Full story: https://zarknews.com/driverless-taxis-one-vote-short-dc-waymo-bill/
Sources: D.C. Council; The Washington Sun; City Cast DC. Video: Zark News.
