Atlanta rideshare drivers are asking city and state lawmakers to slow the expansion of Waymo and other robotaxis, and to weigh what the technology does to their livelihoods over the long run. The group making the argument is itself a product of the last disruption: independent contractors who helped dismantle the taxicab model are now organizing against automation.
The Atlanta Rideshare Drivers Union says drivers have reported lower pay, longer waits between rides and fewer fares since Waymo's June 2025 rollout and subsequent expansion. Speaking to City Council members on Wednesday, ARDU's Liza Ramsey proposed a robotaxi impact fee of 50 cents to $1 per ride, with the revenue directed into a \"driver transition fund\" for job training, grants and programs supporting displaced workers. \"If corporations profit from replacing human workers with automation, they should contribute to helping those workers transition to the next opportunity,\" Ramsey said.
The group also wants city and Hartsfield-Jackson officials to bar robotaxis from picking up passengers at the airport — a dependable source of fares for human drivers — along with caps on robotaxi deployment and more data reporting from the companies.
Ramsey acknowledged a gap in the case: the union does not have aggregated data showing the income decline it describes. Members instead share anecdotes and screenshots of earnings in a WhatsApp group. She also allowed that higher gas, insurance and maintenance costs could be contributing to the squeeze.
Waymo is well past the pilot stage here. Its vehicles logged more than 5.4 million fully autonomous miles in Atlanta through March, and the company plans to launch its own app serving the market in early 2028. Much of what the union wants would require action at the state level, and Georgia law broadly permits autonomous vehicles.
The companies are not uniformly opposed to the premise. Uber has advocated for a managed system combining human drivers and autonomous vehicles, and supports creating a transition strategy for displaced workers; CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Fast Company in June that Uber is recruiting fewer human drivers in Atlanta and Austin partly to protect existing drivers' earnings, and said on the \"Invest Like the Best\" podcast that human drivers in those cities are making more money as a result. Waymo has offered to create a $20 million support fund for displaced drivers, and argues the technology will scale into a new ecosystem of jobs supporting autonomous vehicles.
Original reporting: Axios Atlanta (2026-08-28)