A SMALL GROUP OF DEMONSTRATORS gathered outside one of Waymo’s car depots in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon to denounce its presence in the city.
Members from several advocacy groups held a rally outside the exit of a fenced parking lot in the Bayview neighborhood, calling for local and state leaders to stop Waymo activities and introduce accountability methods for other robotaxi companies.
Steve Zeltzer with the United Front Committee for a Labor Party demanded that Waymo, an autonomous vehicle company owned by Google and its parent company Alphabet, halt all activities in San Francisco. He said major natural or man-made disasters could be made worse by autonomous vehicles that stop moving and block roadways or take up resources from first responders following the shutdown of telecommunication equipment.
“A major earthquake is going to happen in San Francisco and the Wi-Fi and the other infrastructure will shut down,” said Zeltzer. “[Waymo vehicles are] dependent on the electric facilities in San Francisco. We have to shut down these Waymo vehicles, and we have to demand that there be accountability, which there is not in San Francisco.”
A series of massive power outages in December left parts of San Francisco in the dark, turning off stop lights and other communication equipment. Waymo vehicles came under scrutiny from public officials when cars in the affected areas stopped moving and blocked roadways for other vehicles and emergency responders.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and several supervisors criticized Waymo for creating a safety hazard and pressured the company to adopt safeguards for future events.
Lurie initially welcomed robotaxi companies onto Market Street after approving the reopening of the central roadway to private ride-sharing vehicles in August of last year. He said it was part of a plan to provide more transportation to help revitalize downtown.
San Francisco Taxi Worker Alliance Board Member Mark Gruberg has been a taxi driver since 1983 and echoed the other protesters’ sentiments. He said he believed Waymo’s activities pose a risk to the livelihoods of transportation workers.
“Transport workers, cab drivers, Uber and Lyft drivers, truck drivers, bus drivers, shuttle drivers, we’re all in the crosshairs of this as these systems take over,” said Gruberg. “At a certain point the automatic systems are going to say, ‘We don’t need those stinking people.’”
Gruberg also said taxi workers can provide a more positive and comfortable experience than other forms of transit. He said Waymo’s accessibility network, a group of partners dedicated to help transport people living with physical, visual, cognitive and sensory disabilities, was ineffective.
“They’re really trying to sell people a bill of goods on this issue of disabilities, people with disabilities are far better off if they have an actual human driver,” said Gruberg.
Disability advocates back robotaxis
However, several disability rights organizations have praised the robotaxi service for its ease of use and what they say is a more comfortable environment for riders wary of being driven by other people.
Tony Stephens, assistant vice president of communications at the American Foundation for the Blind, said people with or without service animals have been illegally discriminated against by human drivers. He said robotaxis have brought a large sense of comfort to people like himself.
“Even for those who do not use a guide dog, but still can’t drive because of blindness or vision loss, it’s impossible to describe what that sense of independence feels like when your whole life, you have had to rely on the favor of others to drive you around,” he said.
Waymo continues to grow its operations across the Bay Area. The company received approval from its regulatory authority, the California Public Utilities Commission, to operate on select freeways and into San Jose’s airport.
Data reported to the commission shows how Waymo has exponentially grown in popularity across all the markets it operates in, from averaging 100,000 passengers each month in early 2024 to regularly moving over 1 million people by late 2025.
The company said it remains in constant communication with the communities they operate in.
“Waymo is on a mission to be the world’s most trusted driver, making it safe, more accessible and more sustainable for riders to get around,” said spokesperson Katherine Barna. “We serve hundreds of thousands of trips every week, offering a reliable transportation option to diverse groups of riders and improving road safety in cities where we operate. We remain committed to open dialogue with the communities we serve.”