Waymo wants D.C. streets. The drivers who work those streets want the council to say no.

The fight over D.C.'s robotaxi bill is already bigger than the bill itself

On Tuesday afternoon, dozens of Uber drivers, Teamsters, faith leaders, and 32BJ union members stood on the sidewalk outside the John A. Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Avenue and shouted a four-word chant at the windows above them: "Robotaxis don't vote. We vote." The D.C. Council was meeting inside. The robotaxi bill was not on the agenda. They came anyway.

That tension, a bill without a scheduled vote, a coalition that will not wait for one, is what makes the Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026 the most consequential piece of unfinished legislation sitting in the Wilson Building right now. The council did not vote on the robotaxi bill Tuesday, but a vote is expected before the end of the year. Every week that passes without one is a week the two sides spend racking up more lobbying chips, more ad buys, and more pressure on the 13 people who will ultimately decide it.

What the bill actually does

The bill, sponsored by Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, would pave the way for so-called robotaxis to operate in Washington by 2028. That is not a small thing. It has been two and a half years since Google's parent company Alphabet, which owns Waymo, began testing driverless vehicles in D.C., and under current city law, someone must always sit behind the wheel ready to take over. Allen's bill ends that requirement for companies that clear a regulatory bar.

The bar is real. The bill proposes a 180-day waiting period and a 250,000-mile requirement before any autonomous vehicle provider can begin offering rides, and would cap each operator at 200 vehicles until 2028. Companies would also pay a $1 million application fee and a $5 million permit fee, plus a $1 million renewal fee. It also establishes a vehicle-miles-traveled tax of 15 cents per mile, designed to discourage companies from sending empty robotaxis circling the streets and worsening traffic.

Allen has framed the fee structure as equity-forward. The bill requires autonomous vehicle companies to provide equal coverage to all neighborhoods in the city and offer potential discounts when connecting to public transit, and the per-mile fee revenue would be split between Metro and D.C. workforce development. Allen has said that no other jurisdiction has created a fund specifically to set aside dollars to help workers who may face displacement.

The bill would establish a commercial autonomous vehicle program within the D.C. Department of Transportation. Applicants would have to submit a first responder interaction plan and contingency plans for operational challenges including power outages and network failures. Allen told Axios when he introduced the bill in April that "I don't think D.C. needs to be the first, but I also don't want us to be the last" to allow robotaxis.

Who is against it, and why the list keeps growing

The opposition is not a fringe. Dozens of Uber drivers, union workers, and faith leaders gathered Tuesday outside the Wilson Building in a rally organized by a coalition that has been expanding for months. Teamsters were joined by members of Service Employees International Union 32BJ and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 at the July committee hearing, and they have not backed off since.

The National Urban League has come out against Allen's bill, with its president Marc Morial telling Axios of his opposition. The local SEIU union, which played a major role in Janeese Lewis George's mayoral primary win, has debuted an ad buy urging lawmakers to "Vote NO on Waymo." That last detail matters for the politics of this. Lewis George, who won the Democratic primary in June and is the heavy favorite in November's general election, will likely be sitting in the mayor's office when any robotaxi fleet hits the streets. The union that helped get her there is now spending money to stop the bill her council colleague wrote.

The drivers at Tuesday's rally were specific about what they stand to lose. One driver said she sometimes earns up to $1,000 extra a month driving for ride-hail services and fears that will all disappear if the bill passes. Autumn Weintraub, executive director of the 32BJ App Drivers Union, put it plainly: "We cannot let our income, our hard-earned money, go to Silicon Valley and replace us with robots."

The economic anxiety is not abstract. Jaime Contreras, executive vice president of 32BJ SEIU, said that without the right protections for workers and residents, "this will have a negative impact on workers and work in the district" and "would frankly take money away from not just workers but from local businesses."

What Waymo says

Waymo has been in D.C. for years. Its vehicles currently operate under a human-assisted testing program, limited to vehicles with a driver at the wheel. The company wants out of that constraint. Waymo told Axios it has committed tens of millions of dollars to service centers in Wards 5 and 7 and would hire hundreds of workers if the bill passes. It argues it will spend "tens of millions of dollars" on service centers and create hundreds of D.C. jobs if commercial service is approved.

Matt Walsh, Waymo's regional head of state and local public policy, told the council's Transportation and Environment Committee in July that "there is going to be tremendous career development and career opportunity with the expansion of the AV industry" and that reports project "the potential creation of more than 100,000 jobs" in the sector over the next 10 to 15 years. (Analysis: those figures describe a national projection, not D.C.-specific job creation, and the company has not itemized what it means by "hundreds" of local hires.)

Allen has also argued there is an equity case for the technology itself. He has pointed to residents in Wards 7 and 8 who face long waits or no-shows when they call for a ride, framing mandatory citywide coverage as a structural fix for a gap that existing ride-hail companies have never closed.

The political landscape heading into a vote

The legislation has not yet passed. The most recent formal action was a public hearing in July, and the Council did not vote on the bill at its Tuesday meeting. Councilmembers could still make changes to the legislation before any vote, and labor organizations and autonomous vehicle companies continue to lobby lawmakers as the council considers how, and whether, to expand commercial driverless vehicle operations in the District.

Tesla has already registered objections to the bill's financial structure. A public policy adviser for the company testified that Tesla opposes each of the financial hurdles and that testing in other jurisdictions should count toward the 250,000-mile requirement, calling the high application and permitting fees an "unnecessarily burdensome barrier to entry."

The council is not a monolith on this. When the parking enforcement bill passed Tuesday, Ward 8 Councilmember White and At-Large Councilmember White voted in opposition, while Councilmembers Lewis George, Parker, Felder, and Christina Henderson voted "present", a reminder that the body heading into a high-stakes fall session has its own fractures, independent of robotaxis. Lewis George's "present" vote on a different bill is not a statement on the AV legislation, but her political relationship with labor will be watched closely when the robotaxi question finally comes to the floor.

The bill's co-sponsors, Allen introduced the measure alongside Councilmembers Brooke Pinto of Ward 2 and Matthew Frumin of Ward 3, give it a base of support, but a majority means seven votes, and the opponents know that math as well as anyone.

Why this matters for ordinary D.C. residents

This is not a fight between tech companies and unions that will resolve itself somewhere above street level. If the bill passes, Waymo vehicles could be picking up passengers across all eight wards by 2028, two years from now. Every Uber driver who works D.C. streets, every Metro rider weighing whether a cheaper robotaxi beats a bus, every Ward 7 or 8 resident who has ever watched a ride-hail car cancel at 11 p.m. has a stake in what the council decides.

The 15-cent-per-mile fee would generate revenue for Metro at a moment when the transit agency is already pursuing an 11 percent fare increase. Whether that revenue is meaningful or marginal depends on fleet size, ridership patterns, and enforcement, none of which anyone can project with confidence right now.

The workforce displacement fund Allen describes is genuinely novel. No other jurisdiction, Allen says, has created a fund specifically to set aside dollars for workers facing displacement from autonomous vehicle expansion. Whether that fund would be capitalized adequately, and who would administer it, are details the bill has not yet locked down.

A vote before January is not guaranteed. But the pressure from both sides is accelerating, and the council that takes its first fall session vote of consequence on October 7 has a much harder question waiting for it before the year is out.

What D.C. Residents Should Watch

• The vote schedule. Council.dc.gov publishes the legislative calendar. The robotaxi bill has no scheduled hearing or vote as of today, but the Transportation and Environment Committee, chaired by Allen himself, controls the timeline. Watch for a markup notice.
• Lewis George's position. The mayor-in-waiting has not taken a public stance on the bill. The SEIU union that backed her primary campaign is now running ads against it. Her silence is itself a signal to watch.
• The 200-vehicle cap and the ward-coverage requirement. These two provisions are where negotiation is most likely to happen. If either gets weakened in committee, that is a win for Waymo and a loss for the equity argument Allen has been making.
• Tesla's fee objections. If the $5 million permit fee gets lowered to bring a second major operator to the table, the workforce displacement fund shrinks proportionally. The math is linked.
• The October 7 Council session. The parking enforcement bill that passed Tuesday was reported by NBC4 as a Council action today. Check the full voting record at dccouncil.gov for any other measures that moved quietly alongside it.

Sources: WTOP | FOX5 DC | WJLA (7News) | Axios D.C. | DC News Now | Washington Times | International Brotherhood of Teamsters | NBC Washington | D.C. Department of Transportation