A bill that would have let driverless taxis carry paying passengers in Washington, D.C., stalled in a council committee on Thursday, Nov. 12. The D.C. Council's transportation committee met that afternoon to vote on it, and the six members voting, council chairman Phil Mendelson among them, split 3-3, so the bill did not advance, according to news reports. Under current D.C. law, self-driving cars can be tested on city streets only with a human driver behind the wheel, ready to take over.
Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the transportation committee, introduced the bill in May 2026 with Councilmembers Brooke Pinto and Matthew Frumin. The driverless taxi company Waymo said in March 2025 that its service would be ready for riders in Washington in 2026. It said then that it would work with policymakers on the rules it needs to run cars with no one behind the wheel in the city.
The version the committee voted on would first have required the city's transportation department to start issuing permits for testing with no one on board. A company could then apply to carry paying riders after at least 90 days in the city's testing program and 75,000 miles of testing with no safety driver in the car. It would also have needed a safe testing record and plans for working with police and firefighters and for power outages. Allen said the earliest paid rides could have started was October 2027, with early 2028 more realistic.
The bill would have capped each company at 200 cars and the total across all companies at 800. The cars would have had to be electric, and each company would have had to add wheelchair-accessible vehicles and spread its cars across all eight of the city's wards, its council districts. Companies would have paid 7.5 cents for every mile each car drove. That money, along with permit fees and fines, would have gone into a city fund. After the program's running costs, half would have gone to public transit, a quarter to services for people with disabilities, and a quarter to training for drivers who have lost or could lose work. After three years, the training share would have gone to disability services instead.
The bill would also have given ride-hail drivers the right to form unions and bargain together, along with contract workers who would repair the driverless cars and their charging equipment. Allen says these workers are often treated as independent contractors, who usually cannot organize under federal law. The council's own racial equity office said that letting driverless taxis operate would likely hurt the long-term economic prospects of Black, Latino and other residents of color who drive taxis and ride-hail cars for a living. It said the union rights would likely help those who form or join a union, and it called the effects on road safety and the environment unclear.
Allen, Christina Henderson and Mendelson voted for the bill, while Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George, Zachary Parker and Elissa Silverman voted against it, according to a news report. Parker said he was worried about how many people could lose their jobs. Days before the vote, he had written on X that he supports allowing driverless cars in the city but wanted a few more months to work with the incoming mayor and address concerns from firefighters and for-hire drivers. Lewis George said it was not the right time, pointing to reports from other cities of driverless cars ignoring stop signs or hitting people. Mendelson called the failure to move the bill forward an embarrassment.
Parker wrote on X that he looks forward to working with colleagues to pass a bill "we can all be proud of in 2027." Waymo said in a statement that it remains "ready to work with the Council" and that Washingtonians "deserve real solutions to the road safety crisis." NetChoice, a tech industry group, urged the council to take the issue up early in its next term.
Allen had said that a bill that fails in committee is dead for the year, and the council's two-year session ends with 2026. He said he chairs the committee until Jan. 2, 2027, and that there is no guarantee who will lead it after that. It is not yet clear when the council will take up driverless taxis again, or what a new bill would change.
Correction (Nov. 14): an earlier version said in its headline and first sentence that the bill failed. The council's own record still lists the bill as under council review, and the 3-3 vote comes from news reports.