Recording in progress.

Alright, good morning, everyone.

I'm Charles Allen.

I'm the Ward 6 Council member and chair of the Council's Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

Today is Monday, July 13th, 2026, and we're meeting both in room 500 of historic John A.

Wilson Building, as well as over the Zoom virtual platform.

The time is now 944 a.m., and I'm calling to order this public round table of committee.

Today's hearing is going to focus on Bill 26-684, the autonomous vehicle deployment authorization amendment act of 2026.

I, along with counselors Pinto and Freuman introduced Bill 26-684 on May 1st, 2026.

The bill is referred to the committee on May 5th, 2026.

The advancement of autonomous vehicles is a watershed moment in the world of transportation.

A V companies are offering rides in about 11 American cities, and you can bet that they all want to boast that they offer rides in the nation's capital.

Given the advancements we've seen, I don't think it's a question of if AVs are coming, it's when and under what conditions and how they would work for our local roadways and our local economy.

Despite what I see as the inevitability of this technology, I also don't want to rush the process by which these vehicles begin operating in the district just for the sake of it.

At the same time, if my tenure as chair of the committee has shown me anything, it's that many, way too many human drivers cannot safely operate a motor vehicle.

If there is a new transportation option that can save lives and prevent injuries, then we owe it to our residents to explore that option fully and with an open mind.

Today, I believe we'll hear proponents of the technology argue that AVs improve traffic safety and consumer choice in the district.

If structured the right way, AVs can also provide more equitable access to rideshare services as they can better accommodate some people with disabilities.

In our previous hearing on autonomous vehicles, we heard directly from people who are blind or have low vision about the independence and transportation access the autonomous vehicles have provided.

But the disability community is not a monolith.

In more recent conversations, I've heard from a lot of people who use wheelchairs or experience other mobility challenges about potential shortcomings of autonomous vehicles and the need for regulations to ensure better service for that population.

There are other legitimate concerns about autonomous vehicle deployment.

The deployment of AVs on district roadways could exacerbate traffic congestion or increase demand for limited curbside space.

It could draw riders away from public transit.

Commercial AV operations will also compete with existing taxi, ride share, and delivery workers potentially displacing those jobs.

Crashes or traffic violations involving AVs present novel questions regarding who's responsible for any resulting civil or legal liability, as well as potential privacy issues with reports of companies alerting authorities and observing rider behavior.

And some people are just simply skeptical that AVs improve traffic safety based on recent incidents, including a recent fatality in Texas involving a Tesla.

Other notable incidents include a power outage in San Francisco or reports of AVs driving into flood waters in Texas.

But to be sure, I could make a list of crashes, injuries, and dumb or dangerous human driver decisions as well.

Currently, the district only allows AV companies to engage in testing with a test operator physically present in the vehicle.

That is, the vehicle is operating autonomously, but the human can take over the steering wheel at any moment.

The District Department of Transportation has been tasked with developing a driverless testing permit for years now, but that progress is stalled.

Bill 26-684, the autonomous vehicle deployment authorization amendment act of 2026 would pave the way for deployment of commercial AVs through an iterative process.

Let me specifically walk through some of these provisions.

First, it establishes a commercial autonomous vehicle program within DDOT that will issue commercial AV permits.

Applicants must have a record of safe testing and must submit a first responder interaction plan that ensures law enforcement and emergency personnel can safely interact with AVs on the road, as well as a continuity of operations plan that explains how AVs will maintain operations or otherwise respond to challenges like power outages or network failures.

It also creates a phase timeline for the deployment of commercial AVs.

The bill sets deadlines by which DDOP must begin offering a driverless testing permit and a commercial AV permit.

Until January 1, 2028, commercial AV operators' fleet size will be limited to 200 vehicles.

After January 1, 2028, commercial AV operators can submit an on-demand vehicle network comprehensive plan that, if approved, will allow the operator to increase their fleet size.

The comprehensive plan explains how the operator will lawfully park and store their vehicles, minimize passengerless vehicle trips and the associated traffic congestion, ensure riders from all eight wards have equitable access to AVs and develop a user interface that allows people with disabilities to request a ride.

The bill also establishes clear rules for when an autonomous driving system can be engaged.

The bill broadly allows for the use of level one and level two autonomous driving systems, which are driver assistance systems that still require the human driver to remain in control.

The bill generally restricts the use of level three, four, and five systems except when an operator has received a permit for either commercial operations or testing.

To ensure the district is aware of vehicles with semi or fully autonomous driving systems, manufacturers of levels three, four, and five systems must also register their products with DDOT.

The bill also establishes a vehicle miles traveled tax.

The bill establishes a vehicle miles traveled or VMT tax for commercial AV operators of 15 cents per mile.

The VMT encourages AV operators to minimize passengerless operations and cirtuitous routing.

I'm hoping today's conversation will include some discussions of how we can strengthen the VMT, whether it should replace some of the existing surcharges, and whether it should be extended for other four hire vehicles.

The bill also improves public transit by investing a portion of the revenue collected from AV operations into public transit infrastructure and service investments.

The bill also encourages AV operators to collaborate with Wamata to develop a system that offers discounted fares for AV rides that connect to public transit.

We have a representative from OMADA that will be joining one of our panels, and I'm excited to learn more about how this technology could support, not pull riders from public transit.

It also supports existing taxi and rideshare workers by requiring the DDOT in collaboration with the Department of Foreign Hire Vehicles and the Department of Employment Services publish a report analyzing the impact of AV deployment on taxi and ride share industries.

The bill invests the remaining portion of the revenue collected from AV operations to support taxi and rideshare drivers through education, vocational training, and workforce development.

We're going to be joined by several labor leaders later today, and I look forward to learning more about their concerns and potential solutions.

And finally, the bill clarifies how existing traffic safety laws and liability rules apply to autonomous vehicles.

The bill provides guidance for when the human driver or the autonomous driving system should be considered the driver for the purposes of liability, tailored to the vehicle's level of automation.

This clarification will help litigants avoid lengthy product liability disputes.

Our third panel of the day includes several legal experts, including the law professor whose work on the topic helped inform those portions of the bill.

Now, if I have learned anything over the last several months, is that very few people are ambivalent about autonomous vehicles.

There are strong feelings both for and against AVs on our roadways.

I'm looking forward to today's conversation and hearing the recommendations on how the bill can be strengthened to achieve the goals that we want here in the district.

I do believe we're going to be joined by colleagues of the committee and counsel over the course of the day, and I'll turn to them for any opening statements they have at that time.

With that, a couple of quick comments on the format for today's hearing before we get started.

A and C commissioners that are testifying will have five minutes each.

Public witnesses testifying on behalf of an organization will each have five minutes.

Those testifying on their own behalf will have three minutes.

Now, if multiple witnesses are testifying on behalf of the same organization, only one will have the full five minutes, the others will have three minutes.

We have over 80 registered witnesses today.

That's great, but that means I'm going to be using a timekeeper to try to keep us all on schedule.

For witnesses that are testifying in person, please take a seat at the table when your name is called.

We've tried to structure our panels so that there are only four in-person witnesses per panel and everyone has a seat, but we may need to pull up a seat or ask a witness to make room for one more, so please be a little flexible with me.

For witnesses testifying virtually, you're going to receive a prompt via Zoom to accept a promotion to panelists.

After finishing your testimony, please remain seated or in the Zoom in case council members have questions for you.

And anyone who's interested in submitting testimony for the record, the committee will accept written testimony through the council's hearing management system at limbs.dc council.gov backslash hearings, and the record closes on July 27th, 2026.

Before we turn to our panels, I do believe Councilmember Lewis George is with us online.

So, Counselor Lewis George, if you had an opening statement, I'm going to turn to you before we call up our first panels.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chairperson Allen, and good morning to our witnesses joining us both in person and online.

I'll keep my opening remarks brief so we can get to our witnesses.

This hearing marks an important moment for the district.

Emerging technologies present tremendous opportunities, but they also reshape how our residents interact with the built environment and with one another.

We saw this more than a decade ago with the arrival of rideshare platforms like Uber, and we should keep those lessons in mind as we consider the potential deployment of autonomous vehicles.

DC is also distinct from the cities in which AVs have already been deployed.

We have unique public safety concerns, such as motorcades, and specific security measures that must be taken into care and consideration, especially because safety has to be a cornerstone of our unique city, given that we are the capital city of this country.

I will be listening closely today to how these issues will be addressed.

I'm interested in hearing all the perspectives from industry leaders, from technical experts, from advocates from the disability community, from our labor partners and workers, and many others about the deployment of autonomous vehicles and the legislation before us today.

Thank you, Councilmember Allen for hosting this hearing, and I look forward to a robust conversation and dialogue today.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for joining us.

All right, let's call our first panel, which is going to be a combination of folks that are here in person as well as online.

We've got Matthew Walsh, who's the regional head of state and local public policy for Waymo.

David Marginis, Director of Product Management for Waymo, Marissa Tuell, Senior Public Policy Manager with Lyft, India Herdman, Senior Policy Advisor with Tesla, and Harry Hartfield, Director of AV and AI Policy with Uber.

How many people do I have here in person?

I need one more chair.

Okay, I can make this happen.

Thank you very much.

The camera will catch everybody.

If we want to stay here, we just have to slide the microphone a little bit over, but otherwise we should be in good shape.

It's a nicer chair, so we'll make sure you have that.

All right.

Good morning to you all.

Uh Matt Walsh, we're going to kick off with you.

So when you're ready, if you'll just push the button so the red light comes on.

Good morning, Mr.

Chairman and members of the committee.

My name is Matt Walsh, and I'm pleased to be here today on behalf of Waymo, where I serve as regional head of state and local policy.

I'm also joined today by Waymo's director of product management, David Marginis.

We appreciate the opportunity to participate in this hearing as the council considers a comprehensive framework for the commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles in the district.

I want to thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for your leadership in restarting this important uh this incredibly important conversation.

This proposed legislation is one of the most robust AV frameworks in the nation and the first to focus on workers, transit, and equitable transportation.

We strongly support the bill's objectives, and we know from our experience that Waymo service can help accomplish them, making roads safer, creating new opportunities for district residents, and making ride hail more accessible and equitable.

Waymo currently serves the public in 11 major cities, providing 500,000 fully autonomous rides every week.

In DC, we have operated with professional test drivers in our vehicles for the past two years, as that is the maximum operating authority currently allowed by DDOT.

We have spent this time validating the technology across all eight wards of the district, autonomously driving more than 300,000 miles, 300,000 miles with trained professionals behind the wheel.

Compared to human drivers, the data shows we are reducing injury crossing crashes in cities where we operate.

With 220 million miles of driving, we've helped prevent more than 700 injury crashes, including nearly 50 that could have caused serious injury or worse.

At our current scale, that means we are avoiding about 13 injury crashes every single week.

Our technology alone won't fix all of DC's road safety challenges, but it will absolutely contribute to the safe systems approach outlined in the district's vision zero plan.

Waymo's automated driving system increases safety for all road users.

It is designed to follow traffic laws and travel at safe speeds.

Waymo can build upon the success that the district has made in reducing serious injuries and fatalities on its roadways.

In addition to safety, Waymo will bring new opportunities to DC.

Our commitment to the district is built on direct, large-scale investments in a local workforce and infrastructure.

Traditional ride hailing networks push heavy operating costs onto their drivers while taking more money out of their pockets.

We take a fundamentally different approach and recently committed tens of millions of dollars in wards five and seven to build service centers and charging facilities to support our fleet.

If the council can provide additional regulatory certainty, our current local workforce will grow from dozens of people today to hundreds of personnel who will provide day-to-day operational support.

The construction of our facilities will also create hundreds more jobs, and the maintenance of our fleet will bring more business to the local automotive supply chain.

And this is only the beginning.

If the district chooses to become a regional leader in this space, Waymo will match that vision with long-term investment and jobs needed to support it.

These investments are crucial for operating a robust service that addresses transportation equity challenges in the district.

Transportation is the gateway to employment, education, health care, and participation in community life.

Our technology does not consider a rider's race, income, disability, or destination.

We offer a safe space where people can feel inherently secured and a dignified option for people, including those who are blind or low vision, who still face illegal service denials and barriers to getting around every day.

A scaled AV fleet supported by significant investment in local jobs and infrastructure will offer predictable wait times and uniform service across the district, helping address the geographic inequalities that have historically impacted residents east of the river.

And we look forward to developing deeper partnerships with the district and community organizations to fill transportation gaps as we have in cities where we serve.

In Los Angeles and San Francisco, we're proud to partner with city agencies like LA Metro and community organizations, including the homeless prenatal program to provide subsidized rides to underserved communities.

In the Bay Area, we are exploring partnerships with major transit systems to connect our riders with bus and train networks.

We want to bring that same collaborative approach to the district.

We are optimistic about this legislation and we are eager to deepen our partnership with the district.

We consistently hear from thousands of Washingtonians who are excited to have the opportunity to choose Waymo alongside the other great transportation options available to them.

We are also proud to have the support of dozens of organizations representing a diverse range of Washingtonians who believe Waymo will be a positive force in their community.

These include the National Council on Independent Living, New Futures DC, The ARC, NFB of DC, and many others who I am proud to see in the room today.

If the district establishes this framework, Waymo is ready to deliver safer roads, remove transportation barriers for residents, and back it up with hundreds of local jobs.

We look forward to working with this committee, the Department of Transportation, and the community to get this right and build a safer, more sustainable, and more equitable transit ecosystem.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much.

Mr.

Marginis, attorney next.

I've yielded my time to my colleague, Matt.

All right, thank you very much.

All right, then uh Marissa Tuel.

Did I pronounce that correctly?

Tool.

All right, good morning, Chairman Allen, members of the committee.

That way we'll get it here.

Good morning, Chairman Allen, members of the committee.

My name is Marissa Toole, and I'm pleased to testify today on behalf of Lyft, where I'm a senior public policy manager.

Lift has operated our ride chair platform in the district for over a decade, and we also operate Capital Bike Share, giving us a unique vantage point on how new mobility technology fits into the district's broader connected transportation network.

We thank you, Chairman Allen and DDOT for the deliberate approach the district has taken towards autonomous vehicles, studying deployment in other markets rather than rushing to be first.

Today, 26 states have opened the door to AV deployment, and the lessons from those markets, including new business models, are now available to the district in a way they weren't just a few years ago.

That puts DC in a position to act from strength and to lead by example for the DMB region.

We support the bill's goal to bring AVs to DC and believe the best way to realize that goal for equity, resiliency, transit, and workforce is to make sure that the bill clearly accommodates hybrid network deployment structures.

On a hybrid network, human drivers and AVs operate side by side on the same platform, sharing supply and demand and reaching more people, more places, more of the time.

As introduced, the bill is silent on whether a permitted AV operator may dispatch through an existing rideshare platform.

This creates real ambiguity for companies like ours and risks foreclosing a hybrid network model from operating here.

We'd urge the committee to add clear, enabling language for hybrid networks and make sure the bill doesn't unintentionally rule out hybrid networks from operating in DC.

Lyft already operates this model.

In Atlanta, riders access AV rides from our plat our partner May Mobility on the Lyft platform, and later this year, Waymo AVs will be available for matching on the Lyft platform in Nashville, where our Flex Drive subsidiary is building a purpose-built AV depot and a driver-to-employee pipeline that's already created 70 local jobs, more than half of which have been filled by current or former Lyft drivers.

The district has been clear that it wants AV deployment to expand equitable transportation access.

AVs don't need to solve every mobility challenge on their own.

Like DDOT's own multimodal approach, no single mode fits every need.

A V fleets, at least in the near term, will be limited to specific service areas and a fixed number of vehicles, and situations like an extreme weather event could require them to pause service.

A hybrid network drawing on human drivers who can serve any ward and keep operating through those moments is well positioned to deliver consistent, resilient, and district-wide service from day one.

It also preserves choice for riders like older adults or those with mobility challenges who may prefer the assistance of a human driver, while also providing new options for riders who are excited about the benefits of AVs and don't feel like their needs are well met by the district's existing mobility offerings.

The disruption drivers feel from automation isn't new.

ATM's self-checkout didn't eliminate tellers and cashiers.

They gave customers more ways to bank and shop, with both options continuing to operate side by side.

We expect to see the same here.

AVs and human drivers coexisting and complementing each other to meet more rider needs than either could alone.

On early hybrid networks on another platform, the number of human drivers and their average earnings per hour have both grown year over year as AV scaled alongside them on a shared platform.

This transition also creates new opportunities.

A V fleets need fleet managers, technicians, stable skills-based roles that offer full-time opportunities, and that's the same pipeline we've already begun building in Nashville and one we look to replicate with A V partners here in DC.

We appreciate the committee's openness to building an A V framework that works for district residents, visitors, drivers, and the companies ready to invest here.

Equity, resiliency, transit connectivity, and workforce continuity are four benefits of the same design choice.

A framework that treats hybrid deployment as a core option, not an afterthought.

District is taking time to get this right, and we believe that patience puts DC in a strong position to lead by example.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next I have India Herdman.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Chair Allen, members of the committee, my name is India Herdman, and I'm senior policy advisor at Tesla.

Autonomous vehicles represent a transformative opportunity for DC residents.

I'm excited I was born and raised here.

AVs promise to dramatically improve road safety, create new jobs, and expand accessibility for aging and disabled Americans.

In June 2025, Tesla began operating RoboTaxi, our commercial autonomous ride hailing service in Texas.

Today, rides are available to the public in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and Miami.

Safety is our top priority.

Tesla's vision-based automated driving system, powered by an advanced neural network, is designed for superior safety, delivering deeper scene understanding, faster reaction times, and more reliable decision making.

The Tesla ADS is trained on over 11 billion miles of real world driving, including events that most drivers never experience in their lifetimes.

Tesla's ADS system performance is rigorously validated against a wide range of scenarios through on-road, closed course, and simulation testing.

AVs also represent tremendous economic opportunity.

Research shows that AV adoption could create 3 million new jobs in the United States by 2035.

Tesla, with over 100,000 US employees, builds AV technology in house to scale production and create high quality American jobs.

And AVs expand access for everyone, as my colleagues have mentioned.

Tesla robo taxi vehicles support service animals, screen readers, verbal location assistance, and information in 29 languages.

By removing barriers to mobility, AVs provide communities with greater independence and access.

While Tesla supports the intent of this legislation, we believe significant amendments are needed to ensure DC can fully capitalize on the economic safety and mobility benefits that AVs offer.

First, we urge the committee to strike the 180 day mandatory testing requirement and clarify that testing miles from other jurisdictions count towards the mileage threshold.

The combined 180 day waiting period and 250,000 mile requirement creates an unnecessarily burdensome barrier to entry.

Second, the proposed permit fees are extraordinarily high and out of step with the national market.

A $1 million non-refundable application fee plus a $5 million operational permit fee, followed by $1 million renewals.

This far exceeds any other U.S.

jurisdiction.

For context, Nevada caps its one-time permit fee at $500,000.

We urge the committee to substantially lower these permit fees to levels that are reasonable, proportionate, and aligned with national benchmarks.

Third, we urge removal of provisions in the bill's proposed reporting requirements that unnecessarily overlap with data already mandated and made public by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Fourth, Tesla opposes levying of 15 cent per mile vehicle miles traveled tax on AVs.

Any new tax deserves rigorous scrutiny, particularly one that adds a significant per mile cost to a technology specifically designed to provide more affordable transportation.

Notably, no other jurisdiction has imposed an AV-specific tax of this nature.

Finally, Tesla strongly opposes the litigation and liability provisions in the bill, which present a significant departure from established product liability principles.

Most concerning is the provision that imposes tort liability whenever the automated driving system is engaged without the necessity of pleading or proving a product defect.

ADS engagement alone should not absolve a plaintiff from the fundamental requirement of proving a product defect under applicable products liability law.

These provisions dramatically expand manufacturer exposure and risk chilling innovation by creating unpredictable and unlimited liability.

We urge the committee to substantially revise these provisions.

Tesla is committed to working with the committee to ensure that legislation promotes both the highest standards of public safety and continued innovation in AV technology.

We stand ready to partner with you to ensure safer roads, expanded mobility, and economic growth for the people of DC.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you very much.

Alright, and then I've got Harry Hartfield.

We support the extension of autonomous expansion of autonomous vehicles, and we appreciate the council's willingness to engage on this issue and ensure the district remains a leader on innovation.

AVs have the potential to make our roads safer, accelerate electrification, expand access to transportation, and lower costs.

As you very correctly pointed out, the question before the council is not whether autonomous vehicles should come to the district, it's when.

The question instead is how best to balance innovation in a way that benefits riders, drivers, and all Washingtonians.

We believe this bill gets that balance wrong.

The future of transportation is not a binary choice between human drivers and autonomous vehicles.

The future of transportation will be hybrid, human drivers and autonomous vehicles operating side by side, each filling different needs and making the overall transportation system more resilient.

Drivers provide capacity during peak demand, serve trips that autonomous vehicles cannot, and help ensure transportation remains available across more communities and operating conditions.

Public policy should be designed around that reality, not an AV only future that does not exist.

And future, unfortunately, this bill does the opposite.

First, it limits competition by requiring companies to build autonomous technology and operate the rideshare platform.

The bill effectively narrows the field to a small number of vertically integrated companies.

The result is a framework that's hostile to startups and small businesses and forces drivers to compete directly with autonomous vehicles rather than grow alongside them.

Second, it contains no requirement to ensure service reaches all eight warts.

Without any regulation, AVs will focus on well-resourced areas.

For example, in the Bay Area, AV operations have expanded in San Francisco's wealthiest neighborhoods while remaining absent from traditionally underserved communities in the East Bay.

The bill also does not provide a framework for accessibility, including requiring investments in a purpose-built vehicle for mobility disabilities, mobility disabilities, or a mandatory wave supply.

Accessibility cannot be an afterthought.

We also need to accept that this technology is still in its infancy.

Autonomous technology is learning how to manage situations that humans intuitively understand, like blackouts, rain, or large events.

When total failure happens with AVs, even if rare, the outcomes impact not just AV passengers, but residents across the city.

That risk is magnified in the district with motorcades and frequent unexpected road closures.

Finally, the bill largely ignores the workforce transition.

There are tens of thousands of drivers in the district.

Workforce disruption is not a reason to stop innovation, but we should be honest about the trade-offs.

AVs can grow the pie when rolled out in partnership with drivers.

But we've seen firsthand the impacts when AVs and drivers compete directly.

In San Francisco and Los Angeles, where drivers compete with AV- only fleets, driver utilization and earnings declined last year.

One AV in California now performs the work of roughly four drivers.

Uber believes there's a better path forward, one that supports autonomous vehicles while preserving competition, ensuring accountability, protecting workers, and delivering benefits to every community in the district.

That's how the district can lead.

Not by moving first, but by getting the framework right.

Thank you for your time, look forward to your questions.

Great.

Alright, thank you all very much.

We've got a lot of questions for this panel, so thank you very much.

So bear with me here.

All right.

So I'm gonna start probably Mr.

Walsh with a few questions for you, but I'll sprinkle them across to the whole panel, I promise.

Alright, how many vehicles are currently deployed in your testing phase today?

Here in the district, you're right.

In the district.

Yeah, it's currently uh 25 vehicles.

Okay.

Um what is their level of automation right now using the SAE level system?

Uh that would be uh level four.

Okay.

All right.

And does anybody else have?

I don't think the answer I think is no, but just make sure.

Does anybody else have any vehicles testing currently?

Uh we're not testing level four, but we are doing data collection at level two.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Um, Mr.

Walsh, how many miles of testing have you performed in the district?

So over 300,000 uh miles in the last two years.

Okay.

Um, what is the breakdown of testing miles by ward, for example?

Um, I don't have the exact mileage breakdown by ward.

We can follow up with your office on that.

What I do know is that we have mapped the entirety of the district.

So all eight wards we have mapped and or tested in.

So there's there's not a single ward that we haven't been in.

Um and I think we've said from the get-go that our um commitment is to serve um the entirety of the district.

So we can follow up with your office on the specific mileage breakdown.

Should I hear that to mean that your test vehicles have driven every block of every road in the entirety of the district?

That is correct.

Okay.

And then obviously some blocks you've driven many more times over.

That is also true.

Okay.

When we think about a testing regime, should driving, for example, downtown over and over and over again is certainly gonna tell you something.

Um, but if I'm looking for a system that is across the whole city, should the legislation not just require a total number of miles tested in the district, but to have some type of geographic distribution such that any AV operator, you're obviously speaking for Waymo, but any AV operator should have to be able to show they've tested in every corner of the ward, every neighborhood, the unique characteristics that go with those roadways?

Uh, Mr.

Chairman, I think it's an it's an important question.

I think that um we would be interested in having a conversation with you and your team over the summer about exactly how is the best way to achieve that.

What I what I think is important is regardless of how we uh how we ensure that that testing is being done in every district, there has to be a commitment for AV operators that they're going to provide a service in every every ward of the district.

I think that is something that Waymo um has been committed to and continues to be committed to.

Um certainly we've shown that through the testing and mapping that we've done.

Um but I do think it's an important uh part of this conversation that all operators should be committed to providing an equitable service.

But we can certainly have more discussions this summer about how we should ensure that in the testing regime.

Okay.

Do you have a breakdown of testing miles by condition?

So if what I mean by that is by nate, by night, by day, by rain, by snow, by ice, to get a full testing experience of what the conditions would be like in the district.

Yeah, I think um over the last two years we have seen uh pretty much everything that the district has had to offer us in terms of weather and traffic conditions, and so we definitely have that.

Um again, I don't have those exact breakdown figures in front of me, but happy to follow up with your office on that.

I guess do you categorize your testing though by condition?

Like is that a you know, you don't have that at your fingertips, but is that a known answer that you could get back to us on?

It it absolutely is.

Okay.

Um we do characterize those and we seek to uh get as much of a variety uh as possible, just so that we when we do deploy um when we do start to scale, we are prepared for anything that a particular geography is gonna throw at us.

Okay.

Um have there been or how many collisions have there been during the testing phase with your vehicles?

Uh there have been a handful of collisions.

Uh most of them have been the fault of other human drivers, uh, from what I understand.

Um, and those have been reported to DDOT as required, but there has been no um sort of serious major collision that we're aware of.

Okay.

And does that report distinguish whether uh does it assign essentially fault of where the fault lied in that collision?

Um to the best of my knowledge, the report details the facts of the incident, but I do not believe that when we put that report in, we are not assigning fault from Waymo.

I think that there uh are generally accompanying police reports uh that NPD files that that may have some indication of fault in those reports, but we as Waymo do not assign fault in our reports.

Okay.

Um let me, and this will bring in a couple other folks on this.

I wanted to kind of pull the thread a little bit on understanding the um the app, be it a hybrid model versus um a vertical integration.

The legislation, as is, I think, as Ms.

Toole pointed out, is kind of silent to it.

We didn't legislatively specify um what the actual integration has to be.

Sometimes we're a little, we don't want to over legislate sometimes and be overly prescriptive because I can lock things in.

At the same time, if I understood, Ms.

Tool, your testimony, you feel the current language is ambiguous around a hybrid network deployments in such a way that it can be interpreted as to disallow that from taking place, which I understand your your argument is we don't want to disallow it.

Um does Waymo operate a hybrid network platform in other jurisdictions, or is it mixed based on which jurisdiction you're in?

So uh Mr.

Chairman, I think a better way to sort of is to zoom out and talk about the fact that I I think when we talk about a hybrid network, which has been said multiple times today as well in other hearings that your colleagues have had, um this idea of a hybrid network is uh is a problem in search of a solution.

It's it's it's not uh excuse me, a solution in search of a problem.

The reality is in the eleven major cities that we operate in today, there is an ecosystem of transportation options.

People can choose to take a Waymo, people can choose to take another one of the ride hailing apps, um, people can choose to take a metro transit.

So the idea that this legislation has to be specific in statute as to needing a hybrid network, I I just don't simply understand that.

I think that as written, there will be the same transportation ecosystem that operates here that operates in any other city that we currently operate in.

Um so I I just don't, I'm not quite sure, and I don't think um your colleagues also have understood what this hybrid network truly is.

Okay.

Let me use this chance to pull in Mr.

Hartfield and Ms.

Tool on this, because I think both of you kind of testify to this point.

Alright, uh, when I take an Uber, I pull up my app, and I have different types of choices of what type of vehicle I'm looking at.

It provides me with an approximate time and approximate cost, then I can make a choice.

But if I'm not gonna take an Uber, because actually I'm gonna go jump on a bike share.

Um I don't I don't go to my Uber app to get my bike share, I pull up my bike share app on my phone, same phone, seconds apart, and I take a look and say, okay, where are my bikes that are available?

Kind of prefer an e-bike, so let me check to see if that's close to me.

Like, why do I need a hybrid model?

Why do you think that's advantageous and you're advocating for that compared to I probably have all the apps on my phone right here, and I can choose which one am I looking for that best suits my transportation choice that I'm trying to make.

I'll give both a chance to respond to that.

Sure.

Um so today, if you open your Lyft app in DC, we have human-driven rides available, but we also have bike share available on that app.

Um, so you type in your destination and you're.

And your point lift is gonna be unique in my example, but you assess um how am I gonna get there based on wait time or proximity of a bicycle cost?

Um, when we bring AVs onto our platform, that will be a new added choice that we also believe will bring meet needs of riders today that see human-driven ride or see bike share ride and say, hey, my needs are not being met.

So that's the big opportunity for us there.

Okay, Mr.

Hartfield.

Yeah.

One quick clarifying thing, and I think that sounds like awesome.

Let's see it differently, but the way we review the bill is it actually wouldn't allow Uber or Orlift for that matter to have AVs on our platform because only, and again, happy to talk offline, but the way we read it is that only an A V developer manufacturer operator can get the A V permit to dispatch those vehicles, which means that Uber and Lyft couldn't get the permit, and so we therefore couldn't dispatch AVs on our platform.

So if we went to go work with a company with AVs to put on our platform, we wouldn't be allowed to do that.

I don't know if that we might just be reading it differently.

Right.

I don't just to be clear, I don't believe that would be the legislative intent, but that's also the point of hearings where we're able to hear the different perspectives and readings, and then we work on bills uh following the hearing.

Um I think zooming out the the benefit of the hybrid network is yes, I do think from a customer experience, you know, if I'm going to the airport, I might want an I might want a driver not an AV, right?

And it's nice to have that option in one app.

I think that's a positive customer experience.

But I think for for the city, for the district for drivers, um, the benefits are, you know, we run a fairly reliable rideshare network.

We can always be better, right?

And we should be better.

Um, but we don't need thousands of AVs to run a reliable rideshare network, right?

Hundreds of AVs can um help meet demand, they can provide reliability, they can sort of meet people where they are.

Um, but if you run an A V only network, you really need thousands, a thousand plus AVs to meet demand, or else your ETAs are too long, so nobody uses an AV, and then you don't have enough supply to meet demand, and sort of like a reverse flywheel, if you will.

A hybrid network allows you to scale slowly, it allows you to have a phase transition.

Drivers um sort of are to have a little more time to make an adjustment.

And I would say, you know, over time drivers will start to leave the platform, right?

There'll be less work.

That's what that's the nature of this, and not a reason to stop it, but it is something we should keep in mind.

And as drivers leave the platform, that means traditional ride share might be a little less reliable.

And when an AV can't operate or won't, isn't able to operate in a certain place, that means that the sort of fallback network isn't there the same way.

Um and so we think that a hybrid network allows you to scale better.

It also, you know, we serve all eight wards, and we did that on on day one, right?

I think you should have to serve all eight wards on day one.

You shouldn't say like I'm gonna serve this area, and then we'll get to all eight wards.

Um, because you know, AVs will be safer.

They have an incredible safety benefit.

We won't realize that safety benefit unless we're on all eight wards on day one.

Um I'm happy to keep talking about why the hybrid network is great, but I'm sure you have other questions.

Well, I also am over my time and I want to turn to my colleague for a round of questions.

I'm gonna come back for a second round.

Um I do think, and again, happy to work with folks after the hearing as we think in the weeks and months ahead.

Um, but I think part of what the legislation is trying to contemplate is that a company requesting the AV permit, we also want to be one that's directly managing the fleet.

And so um, I hear, and I want I'm gonna wrestle with this a little bit around what does the user interface look like in a way that is as consumer friendly for that choice as possible.

Um but I do think we also are trying to create a system that has the direct management of the fleet.

So we'll come back to that and keep working on it.

I want to turn to my colleague, Counselor Lewis George if she's got a round of questions now.

Uh, thank you so much.

I really appreciated the robust conversation around the hybrid models and uh so thank you all for that.

Um, Ms.

Tool and Mr.

Hartfield, um, how many drivers do you have on your app in the DC region?

And and how many drive more than 20 hours per week?

I don't have an official number in front of me.

I can say we have tens of thousands of drivers in the district, and and in general, about 80% of them drive less than 20 hours a week.

I'm happy to come back to your office with a more official number though.

Thank you.

I have this number.

About 87% of drivers on the Lyft network work fewer than 20 hours per week.

That is national, not DC specific, but it gives you an idea.

And how has this change in jurisdictions where AVs operate?

Yeah, I mean, we've seen in places where AVs compete with human drivers like San Francisco and LA.

Earnings for for drivers were down last year.

They were up in most of the rest of the country and they were down in LA and San Francisco.

There are a whole host of reasons for that.

I don't think we can say it was just one thing to be clear.

Um, but clearly there is an impact.

There's an impact on how many trips drivers get, and as you get fewer trips, you make less money.

Um, and we don't have great data yet on sort of the long-term impact on people who drive more than 20 hours or less than 20 hours.

Um, but we should expect that, you know, people who use this as a flexible way to make money, you know, the college student trying to work a little bit after school or uh a parent trying to make some extra money for for Christmas, those people who have a little less time and ability to work longer hours to make the same amount, are probably gonna see the consequences first.

Gotcha.

Thank you for that.

And Mr.

Walsh, um, and uh I wanted to come to you around can you speak in greater detail about the number of employees you have in other regions of comparable size, and what kinds of jobs um do you generally bring into markets with A V deployment?

Yeah, I appreciate the question, Councilmember.

Um typically we're seeing hundreds of jobs in similar uh larger uh metro markets.

These types of jobs range from things like uh our autonomous specialists who are there behind the wheel during the initial phases of uh testing and development.

Uh we also have fleet managers, we have vehicle technicians, um, we have individuals who are responsible for cleaning and maintaining the vehicles, charging the vehicles.

Uh, and then of course there's the broader automotive AV ecosystem that builds around that, right?

We will uh require suppliers for things like tires.

We go through an incredible amount of tires traveling 24-7 a day.

So um there's a whole ecosystem that's built around that, um, but those are the types of jobs right now that we see being created.

Okay.

Um and Ms.

Herm, Ms.

Herman Hermden, did I say right?

Same question.

Herdman, thank you so much.

Um, the same question for Tesla.

Can you can you speak to in greater detail about the number of employees you have in other regions of comparable size and what kinds of jobs do you all generally bring into markets with A V deployment?

Yes, um, very similar to my colleague at Waymo.

We hire for the same times types of positions to support fleet operations, including specialists, um, remote operations, in field rapid response teams, um, anything to do with the depot, charging, cleaning, all of that.

We're also unique in that we are the manufacturer of the vehicle as well.

Um, so we've hired thousands of people down in Texas um to support our manufacturing processes for our robo taxi vehicles, and we continue to um be hiring.

So uh please look at our website.

We're hiring a lot of jobs right now.

It's um a very, very competitive market.

And what are what are the wages for those positions, generally speaking?

Yeah, so all Tesla employees for Robotaxi are in-house, um, so they get full benefits, uh, depend the salary depends on the specific position.

They also get equity in the company as well.

All Tesla employees get equity.

And Mr.

Walsh, what about for Waymo?

What are the what are the wages for those positions, generally speaking, and what type of benefits do those employees get?

Yeah, I appreciate the question, Councilmember.

Um, again, I think uh a lot of those wages are dependent.

Those are uh different classification of roles and skills uh that are needed for those roles.

Um there is a mixture of both full-time employees, uh, both in-house at Waymo as well as through our partner vendors, but again, these are full-time employees with benefits.

Okay, and I guess how many I guess because one of the concerns is just making sure that our workforce remains within the district and there are jobs available for them.

Um, I know some of the jobs are temporary, but how many of them, the temporary jobs?

Because I guess the initial deployment versus individuals who then end up with long-term jobs.

What does that transition look like?

Yeah, I appreciate the question.

I think a lot of our uh autonomous specialists who are you know involved in the beginning phases of those uh of the testing and validation, they then transition into uh autonomous specialist trainer jobs where they they are going and training other autonomous specialists or they move into more fleet management roles.

So these are not just uh test driver roles, these are roles that really give people an opportunity for uh career development.

We've been uh really proud to be able to hire um uh a majority of our current testing and autonomous specialists that are DC residents, and I think we're committed to continuing uh that local hiring as our service grows.

The one thing I will just say, uh council member is that the size of our operation in here in DC is going to uh that is going to sort of dictate what the size of our workforce can be.

Right now, there's some discussion about vehicle caps in this legislation.

Um the larger an operation that we can have here in DC, the bigger that our footprint can be, and the more people that we're gonna need uh to support that service.

So I'm so eager to have that conversation with you and your colleagues.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Um as I've mentioned, DC is unique in its uh safety concerns.

Uh what have you all been doing during the testing phase to take into account some of those safety concerns?

And by that I mean as you know, we are home of many embassies and diplomats, uh, not only the president of the United States, but also many Congress uh men and women, uh, a lot of high security um traffic uh as well as well as our our uh on our roadways, and so what have you all been doing to take into account the unique security concerns that face the District of Columbia and what can be done to address the unique security concerns that face the district of Columbia as the capital city?

Um this has been part of our uh approach and thinking uh ever since we uh entered this area um and started uh driving with our autonomous specialists here.

We recognize the uniqueness of the district before we even entered here and coming in to validate uh and improve our software uh to be able to uh drive successfully in the district uh was a key part of our approach.

Uh what we have seen uh is that um uh our software generalized extremely well uh to the district, um, and there were great opportunities to observe uh these uh situations that you speak of, things like motorcades, things like unplanned road closures, et cetera, and validate that the uh more than 200 million uh fully autonomous miles that we had seen in our other cities.

Um translated well here.

Um, you know, when you talk about safety concerns, I think it's also important to calibrate on some numbers.

Um we transparently release uh all of our collision data uh through NHSA and the Standing General Order.

Um, and what we have demonstrated over a track record of 220 million miles is a 94% reduction in serious injury uh collisions.

Um, the other thing that I would mention that I think uh is unique to this district and that we've heard from uh other uh officials in our other districts is that the privacy that Waymo vehicles offer um is a key factor in them selecting their own transportation options because they are able to hold personal conversations in the vehicle and essentially extend it into a workspace because of the privacy that that offers.

Um so I think that the Waymo uh service is actually uniquely suited to the needs of the district, and we look forward to being able to demonstrate that through a scaled and methodical deployment.

Okay.

And if I can get one more question about that, what caused the autonomous vehicle to drive into the flooded roadway, prompting the recall of 3,500 vehicles.

Could you just talk more about NITS's letter you receive regarding ongoing issues AVs are having with complying with emergency and police situations on roadways and what you all are doing to address NITS's concerns?

Yeah, absolutely.

A couple of topics within that question, so let me try to tackle them all.

Um NITSA did release a letter uh uh emphasizing the importance of autonomous vehicles to be able to comply uh with uh first responders and essentially keep them moving on roads.

Uh, this is a position that we wholeheartedly agree with uh and something that um uh we have uh uh espoused since we started as a company over 16 years ago.

Uh we've worked with uh NHTSA throughout that period to make sure that they understand our technology and that we're taking feedback from them throughout.

So the content of the letter was certainly no surprise and something that we agree with.

Furthermore, just to calibrate on you know kind of the scale and size of operations and our level of performance, Waymo interacts with 68,000 active emergency vehicles every single week, and the overwhelming majority of those are complete non-events.

We're able to uh move to the side well ahead because we're paying attention 360 degrees.

Uh, we're able to reroute to get away from active emergency scenes, uh, et cetera.

And you know, the San Francisco Fire Department even went so far as to tweet out a video of a Waymo vehicle uh getting out of the way of an active fire truck and saying, you know, essentially to human drivers, drive more like this vehicle.

Um so I think our track record here is is generally excellent.

That being said, you know, there are always going to be uh opportunities for improvement and something that we continue to work with uh the departments and agencies in all the cities that we're at, including at the federal level, uh, to make sure that we continue to improve our software.

Thank you.

I'm over time.

If you all have an official, I don't know if you all did an official response to the NHSA concerns or if you're going to do that.

If so, if that's something you can share with the committee.

Yeah, we'll um we'll go ahead and follow up with you, council member.

Appreciate the question.

Thank you.

Uh Kira Allen.

Absolutely, thank you, Councilmember.

Um, let me stick on safety for a little bit as well.

Um so basically, I think every AV company we have heard from touts safety record.

Uh, we are going to be safer than a human driver.

So can you talk more about how you quantify the safety of the vehicle and how is it measured?

Because being safer than the worst driver on the road out there is not a very high bar.

Um, why shouldn't it be safer than even the safest driver that's on our streets?

Can you talk about how you actually measure and quantify what safer means and who are we measuring against?

Yeah, it's an excellent question, and and thank you for focusing on kind of the holistic uh approach here, right?

I think it's important to measure given actual results, uh, you know, kind of transparently reported rather than you know looking at kind of individual events.

Um to get to your question, um uh we have released our safety measurement methodology in a peer-reviewed white paper.

It's available on our website at Waymo.com/slash safety.

And so I'd encourage you to get the full answer there, but just to summarize uh for here, we take an extremely apples to apples approach in measuring our vehicle safety against human-driven miles uh in the same geographies and on the same types of roads uh that humans are driving on.

And that last piece is absolutely critical because if you are uh enabling your software or predominantly driving on one type of roadway, say a freeway, um, but then measuring against the holistic baseline, uh including, you know uh roadways that include you know many more pedestrians or cyclists or just vehicles generally, it's easy to produce a number that purports to be much safer uh without producing any safety benefit at all.

And that's why when we looked at our own methodology and how we were gonna measure things, we made sure that we were doing something that was truly intellectually honest and that could be shared with the world, which is why we've released that data and we release unredacted uh collision reports when they do uh happen.

Um, what we have demonstrated uh with that, and all of these numbers are available at Waymo.com slash safety slash impact, is that uh we enjoy a 94% uh reduction in serious injury collisions.

Um we also have numbers that show um the uh the performance of the Waymo driver as compared to the human baseline with regard to different collision types like within intersection or front to rear, head to head, et cetera, and also um against um uh vulnerable road users, which is which is an area that we take very, very seriously and where we see you know uh uh some of our highest impact numbers.

So hopefully that sheds some light on it.

There's a lot more uh in the papers, so I would encourage you uh to uh to take a look there.

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh Ms.

Herman, similar question for how Tesla evaluates this.

Um, obviously not testing in the district in the same way, but as you look at other jurisdictions, how is Tesla measuring?

Um is it similar, comparable, or what's unique about your system?

Yeah, it's very similar.

Um we have to measure against human benchmarks, otherwise everything is just imaginary.

So we have that uh collision reporting done by the US Department of Transportation, and then we can take collisions per miles traveled in our robotaxi fleet and um, you know, produce that data as well.

Um, just like my colleagues as well, we transparently submit unredacted um reports to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

So you can actually go in and read, um, since launching Robotoxi in June 2025, we've had 18 um events that necessitate reporting, 10 of those were uh fault of a human driver.

Um the remaining incidents involved um minor events with stationary objects like curb rash hitting a chain, um, nothing that has resulted in an injury or fatality from the Tesla robotaxi fleet.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Um following this thread a little bit longer.

Um so there was a forum about a week ago or so by families for safe streets on autonomous vehicles.

And during the forum, one of the um the folks kind of challenged us to think about what's what level of safety is a fair expectation or demand for autonomous vehicles.

Um, and they were talking about specific numbers.

Is it should we be saying that an autonomous vehicle is 10 times safer than humans?

Should it be a hundred times safer than humans?

Um given numbers of saying 94% uh fewer collisions.

Is there a measurement or a metric that exists to say an AV is 10 times safer than a human driver, 100 times safer?

And what would be a reasonable threshold to hold AVs to?

Yeah, it's a very interesting question.

It's not something I think that we've uh considered deeply, but maybe some of the considerations that you might uh incorporate as you uh you know consider the path forward here.

Um, you know, at Waymo, we have safety built into every aspect of our culture.

And one of the things that we talk about internally is that safety is urgent.

Forty thousand people die on our roadways every single year.

1.2 million uh uh internationally, um, and it is the number 14 leading cause of death amongst people.

It's the number two leading cause of death amongst our young people.

Um and so what Waymo is offering is a 94% effective cure, if you will, uh to that public health crisis.

Now, it's not a hundred percent cure, right?

There's still six percent left there, and we're working hard on uh on improving that, but if you're offered a 94% cure uh to uh that number 14 leading cause of death, I think that the approach should be to try and take that as soon as possible, because today right now, you know, somebody is going to experience an untimely death, uh, a serious injury collision that's going to keep them from being able to go to their job, play with their kids.

Uh it's gonna change their life.

And if we have the opportunity to prevent one of those, if we have the opportunity to prevent 10,000 of those in the future by acting faster, then I think that's an opportunity that we should take.

Um, all right, double's advocate, when we think about changing behavior to have safer driving.

So I've heard folks say, all right, uh, from an impairment standpoint, uh, this is a great option.

Someone has gone out, they've had too much to drink, they're impaired in some way, they can get home this way.

Most impaired drivers though, are driving because they don't think they're impaired.

Uh so folks that are gonna go to a bar or restaurant, drink too much, and then get back in their car and drive home.

Today they have the option in DC at least.

I could call an Uber or a Lyft right now.

Um so the Cynic would say, are you really gonna change behavior?

Uh to the 17-year-old kid who's gonna make a really dumb decision on a roadway, um, they could make a different choice right now.

So, how do you help answer that cynic that comes and says, I don't know if we're gonna really get that impaired driver off the road because they have options.

They are choosing to get behind the wheel for whatever the variety of reasons are, but they're making that choice today.

Why would they choose to get a Waymo?

It's an excellent question.

We um we approached this through a study that we did a number of years ago where we worked with the city of Chandler, Arizona, and uh examining accident reports recreated every single fatal collision that had occurred over a certain period there.

And then we used our extensive simulation capabilities to replace the actors in each of those accidents with the uh with the Waymo driver to see how well it would have performed uh in those scenes.

We did that both for the primary actor, so uh essentially the actor that was the cause of that accident.

We also did it for the secondary vehicles in that collision.

And what we found was that when the Waymo driver replaced the primary actor, 100% of those collisions were avoided.

When we pro when we replaced the secondary actor, in other words, the vehicle that was hit, more than 85% of those were avoided as well.

And so what we see is that the Waymo driver is able to prevent uh not only the primary cause of the collision, say, you know, that person making a better decision because Waymo is available in the district, but also the secondary uh collisions as well.

Um we have videos of what this looks like uh on our website again at Waymo.com/slash safety, where you can see the Waymo driver um, you know, swerving out of the way of red light runners or potential T-bone collisions, you know, drivers that just aren't paying attention.

Um, and I think that that would be demonstrative of the level of safety that the district would enjoy, even if we're not convincing that potential drunk driver uh to uh to take a Waymo instead of driving home.

Okay, that's a Ms.

Herman, did you want to jump on that?

Yeah, if I could just comment as well.

Um a lot of this burden is on the manufacturers to incentivize the behavior to call an autonomous vehicle, right?

Um the way that Tesla thinks about this is by providing the most affordable option for our vehicles.

Our goal is to get the cost per mile down to 30 cents per mile to the customer as we scale.

Um so you can see why I have concerns about the 15 cent per mile number, since that is half of what we would be charging as a fare per mile to the customer.

Okay, thank you.

Um, Councilor Liz George, I have a couple more specific questions on this thread, and then I'll turn to you for another round and give you a little extra time as well.

Um, one of the things that I think we've heard around arguments for the AV driver, um, is that we can program it to be safer.

Um is there any scenario where we would say that you can program an autonomous vehicle to exceed the speed limit?

Or should it the speed limit's the limit?

Uh it's not five miles per hour over it, it's not two miles per hour over it.

The limit's the limit.

Would we program our autonomous vehicles to operate at the speed limit and no greater?

Uh that is the way that Waymo's are currently programmed.

Uh Waymo's are designed to drive safe and compliantly.

That includes uh speed limits.

Uh they can uh for very brief periods uh exceed the speed limit only uh if they are uh attempting to avoid a collision.

Um, but that would be the only instance uh in which uh that occurs.

That's Waymo's approach.

Uh different uh autonomous vehicle companies might take a different approach.

Okay.

Ms.

Herbin?

Yes, our vehicles are designed to comply with local traffic laws.

Um the vehicle can go faster than the speed limit in the event of a safety critical um situation, as well as to keep pace with the um traffic surrounding it.

Um we found that there are actually additional incidents if a vehicle is going too far below the speed limit as well.

So we've done a lot of testing with with speed.

Okay.

But why would I allow it to go over the speed limit?

Because dangerous drivers are going around.

I understand for the safety incident.

That makes sense.

Um but flow of traffic, if there's a whole bunch of people are just driving dangerously above the speed limit, why would I allow an autonomous vehicle to do that?

It won't necessarily mimic the speed that the other drivers are going, but be within a specific margin between the traffic uh law with the speed limit posted as well as what's going around behind the vehicle into the sides of the vehicle in the in the event it needs to swerve, make an evasive maneuver.

Got it.

Um I feel the evasive maneuver, the safety response, a quick momentary piece.

I can wrap my head around that one.

I'd feel pretty strongly that we set a speed limit for a reason, that's the limit.

Uh we can't go over that.

So similarly, have a lot of conversation around how do you manage curbside, pick up and drop off, but also you can't park in a bike lane.

That's the bike lane's travel lane.

Um, so is the programming such that the vehicle cannot stop and impede the travel within a marked and designated bike lane.

Yeah, I think the discussion of curb usage is always a very interesting one in you know dense urban environments uh like the district.

Um the Waymo vehicle, the Waymo vehicle prioritizes you know safe and compliant roadway usage, uh, including the use of curb space.

Um, you know, generally I think that uh I know that the council has um has opinions about how to collaborate with autonomous vehicle players.

That's a conversation that we are excited to uh to have with you so that we can understand the district's needs uh as well as make sure that we're programming our vehicles to be able to take the most advantage of curb space, get people, you know, safely and rapidly where uh where they need to get to.

Ms.

Herbin?

Thanks for the question.

Um yes, the Tesla ADS is specifically designed to never stop in a bike lane.

Um curbs are super important for a variety of reasons as well, particularly for blind and visually impaired customers.

Um, so we need to be able to make sure that pickups and drop-offs are perfect essentially and be able to give that guidance in apt where the vehicle is located.

Um, another really interesting conversation that we're having with other jurisdictions is pick up and drop-off locations for extremely busy areas.

So I'm thinking, you know, U straight 14th Street, um, perhaps it makes sense to have a conversation with the the committee and DDOT about setting something like that up in the district as well.

Okay.

And curbside management is something that is really important, whether it's our A V conversation or anybody else.

Um, I will we're gonna continue to follow this after the hearing, obviously.

I think there is a healthy discussion to be had.

Um, when I take an Uber lift for example, and it's dropping me off at my house, um, it's not an unreasonable thing that it's gonna stop in the roadway, let the passengers out, and the driver makes a decision around that.

Um, I don't believe it should stop in a bike lane, but I do believe there are gonna be instances where there's a reasonable standard of I do that in an Uber and Lyft, and I I think that's not an unreasonable expectation that I'm gonna be able to walk out, get in that vehicle or not.

So this to me is an area where after the hearing, as we work over the next uh weeks and months, we gotta kind of fine-tune that.

But I do think safety around not blocking a bike lane is gonna be very important and for multiple stakeholders in the district as well.

But I can also understand we've got to find the reasonableness of when a vehicle is gonna drop me off, for example, uh outside my door, which is not an unreasonable expectation uh when I'm when I'm doing this.

Um I've gone well over though, Councillor Lewis, George.

So let me tack on plenty of extra time for you as well for this round.

All good, uh, thank you.

Um, my next one, I want to talk a bit more about infrastructure and how you all plan to manage the specific ways the districts is different from uh other jurisdictions.

These questions are primarily for the folks from Waymo as well as Ms.

Herdman, but all are welcome to respond.

Um in preparation for deployment, what will your companies do to set up infrastructure you need within the district?

Where would you look to set up depots with charging infrastructure?

I'm assuming those would be sites where jobs for district residents would primarily be located.

It's a great question.

Those are for both service depots as well as charging facilities, and we're excited to see those uh become open, hopefully in the future, and those again will be uh where uh district residents will be able to um have career opportunities.

The other thing I will just note, just tying back to the piece about equity is that what we have found is that the areas in which our depots are located tend to have a higher um rate of accessibility to the Waymo's.

There's shorter wait times, there's there's a more prevalence of Waymo's because they're coming in and out of the depots.

So specifically for Ward 7, we're excited about the possibility that those residents will have um unfettered access to Waymo, which I think is a pretty stark departure from their current transportation options.

Ms.

Hardman.

Thank you for the question, council member.

Um so outside of our hiring for our data collection operations in DC, we have not made any hard investments in the community yet.

Um transparently, it's kind of all about whether we'll be able to come here, right?

This is the purpose for this conversation.

When there is a clear deployment pathway for commercial operations, that's when you would see Tesla uh make investments in the community.

Got it.

Um, how do you all expect this infrastructure to impact our electrical grid capacity?

Rising electricity rates are a top of my concern for our residents and for us as leaders, so understanding these impacts are really critical for us.

Thank you again for the question.

Um, yes, we as you know, Tesla manufactures a range of products outside of vehicles, including solar um equipment and utility scale batteries.

Um we think about this question a lot, so we need to be very diligent about what times of day we are charging to avoid high usage times during the day, um, as well as investing in our supercharger network.

Uh Tesla operates the largest uh charging network in the world, and we understand that those continued investments are really important.

Um I actually spoke with your office prior to this hearing, and I'm gonna come in and talk to you about our battery management systems so that we can talk chat further about what we can offer.

Um Waymo is also proud to uh operate a 100% battery electric fleet.

Um as uh America continues its transformation towards electrification.

Uh, the types of questions that uh you just asked um are absolutely coming up.

Um we've had extensive experience uh doing this in uh other uh metros that we've been operating in.

And we also recently introduced a program that takes the batteries out of vehicles that we have retired uh to add to the grid and supplement grid level storage so that we can uh reduce uh usage during uh peak times.

Um that said, this is a challenge um, you know, uh broadly that the industry, I'd say the the automobile industry, not just Waymo, is uh facing.

And we look forward to you know working with you in your office uh to understand DC's unique challenges uh and make sure that we are uh building towards that, you know, more electrified future that I think we're all pushing for.

Yeah, how can your your companies?

Um, because I'm hearing a lot about how you can plan to offset, but can you speak more about the way the grid itself is impacted and how your companies can offset the cost and how you all can help us as a district meet our our uh clean energy goals?

Um, because we do not have commercial operations in the district.

Yeah, I'm not extremely familiar with the child.

That would be for you more so.

Okay, sorry about that stuff.

It's all good.

I I I can't speak to that.

Um, I'm happy to follow up with your uh your office and uh give some more information on that.

Okay, I appreciate it.

Councilwoman, do you mind if do you mind if I add something?

I apologize, you might if I add this is Harry from Uber.

Um I think getting back to something we said before, like under the current version of the bill, a sort of a network, I think Councilman Allen, you're saying you you want the world where the manufacturer also operates the fleet.

And by necessity, that means multiple depot, like Waymo needs a detail, Tessa needs a depot, neuro needs a depot, wave needs a depot.

Everyone needs our own depot pulling from the grid individually.

Um in a hybrid network, you might have two or three depots, but there's multiple companies pulling from the grid at the depot.

So you're reducing your footprint, you're potentially reducing your your grid usage, which again, I I know I keep coming back as another uh a long-term benefit there.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um Mr.

Walsh, thanks for speaking to the locations in wards five and seven.

I'm wondering how you see that impacting traffic patterns coming in and out of the district.

Uh, the roadways that run through these wards are extremely congested and represent high traffic areas.

How will Waymo adding vehicles along these routes change these patterns and what are you all doing to uh help support those those issues that are unique to Ward 5 and 7?

Uh appreciate the question.

So, council member, long before we uh finalize any specific site location, we are going through an extensive review process of not only the site but the surrounding community.

Um traffic uh assessments are being conducted uh well before we move forward with our plan.

So um I think right now uh of the sites that we are uh moving forward on, we feel very confident that the addition of uh the Waymo facilities will not negatively contribute to traffic congestion.

Um the other thing that we have implemented in our facilities is our staff are constantly aware of making sure that the flow of vehicles um is smooth and efficient.

Uh certainly we don't want those vehicles um blocking any of those streets, and I think if you look at the facilities that we have in other markets, you will see that these uh these facilities are um fairly seamless operations.

And so uh the other last thing I'll just say is that uh as those facilities uh begin to uh near uh further stages of completion, the Waymo team will be um interacting with the surrounding communities, engaging with them so that they have an understanding of what these facilities look like, what they can expect.

But lastly, and probably most importantly, um, what can those uh members of the public and local businesses do if they need to contact Waymo about any concerns with these facilities?

So I'm looking forward to engaging uh with the communities deeply uh in the coming weeks and months.

All right, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um I wanted to the district is also unique also in being such a bounded area.

We are surrounded by multiple states, counties, and cities on all sides.

As we think about this legislation, how do you all see the varying laws and those jurisdictions impacting deployment?

Do you expect deployment here to align with deployment in neighboring jurisdictions?

Uh yeah, a really good question.

I think the the regional aspect of this has been part of the conversation from the early days uh two years ago.

So where things stand right now, I think that the district is in a position to be a leader on this subject, and so uh should this legislation move forward?

Waymo uh, their initial service will be operated within the confines of the district.

Um Virginia and Maryland are in different stages of their sort of legislative development on this uh policy area.

Um while we are incredibly proud to be able to hopefully be the first AV operator here in the district, we also understand the realities of ride hail and transportation patterns.

A service that begins and ends at the border of the district is not going to be able to uh efficiently serve um people here.

So I think we are actively um involved in in conversations both in Virginia and Maryland.

I am very optimistic that both uh state legislatures will act uh in 2027 to uh catch up with the district, and then eventually we will have some type of broad policy across the DMV region so that people can use AVs to get to um all of their uh um destinations.

Okay.

Yeah, I you it my question really is like do we have to move as a region given the unique nature of the city and what um as in or are there can one one piece of the region move forward without the other pieces being aligned, or if this is a we have to sort of move together as a region on this issue for it to be successful?

I I would say that I think the district is well poised to uh to continue this this legislation.

Um of course I think there's gonna be some future conversations over the summer, but I think Washingtonians are excited about having Waymo as an option uh and we're certainly ready to to make the investment.

I I don't I would not want to see the district wait uh for the other jurisdictions to act.

I think that you all have um certainly taken a strong interest in this in this policy area and we look forward to uh you know keeping things moving here in the district.

Uh I'm I am uh currently the chair of uh Office of Disability Rights, Disability Services.

So I do want to end on questions around accessibility when deployment takes place.

Um how will your companies ensure equal access to those services and what will your deployment plan be to ensure that service is available for disabled residents, um uh residents who are from our deaf, deaf, line, and hard-hearing community, um, individuals with mobility aids, how have you all been able to meet and and you will hear from our ODR um director, we will hear from them at the end, but I just wanted to get a sense of how you all can and will respond to accessibility issues, especially for uh our disabled residents um and uh across the district.

Um appreciate the question, council member.

I I think that um you're gonna hear a lot from individuals today uh who are from the disabled community that are um that use Waymo and and are looking to use Waymo here in the district.

So I don't want to get ahead of uh of them, but what I can say is that the um we have long developed our product in partnership with members of the uh the disability community.

I think particularly those in the low vision or blind community um use our service every single day, and quite frankly, in a lot of cases it represents the first time that they have had fully independent mobility.

And so um I am certainly uh personally incredibly proud of that product that and that fact that we can give that mobility to people.

Um in the cities that we operate in, um in several of those cities, we uh we offer um a fully wave accessible option.

I think as we look to uh future cities where we're going to be deploying, we're actively trying to um figure out what those options will look like.

Um currently, you know, we are a technology company, so we're in active discussions with vehicle manufacturers um to identify future vehicle platforms that may meet uh better needs.

But of course, I think serving all riders is has and continues to be a priority for Waymo.

Um thank you for the question.

This is a super important part for Tesla.

Um for our current fleet using Tesla Model Y vehicles.

Um there are many accessibility considerations for blind and visually impaired folks, um, but we know that doesn't go far enough.

So we are also in development um for a purpose-built wheelchair accessible autonomous vehicle.

Um we know that you know paratransit can be very difficult, and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely.

Um so that is an active product being built um by Tesla in Texas.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Chairman Allen.

I will follow up uh with this panel witness for any additional questions and meetings so that we can uh gain further clarity, but I really appreciate the expertise that uh you all provided.

Yeah, thank you very much, Councilmember.

Um one of the great things about having a smart colleague is they ask a lot of the same questions that I had prep, but I'm gonna pull that thread a little bit further because I was gonna go right to accessibility as well.

So I appreciate Council Blue George covering some of this.

Um so for our DC taxi fleet, for example, we recognized we did not have enough wheelchair accessible taxi cabs, and we said we have to use the power of our legislation to say this is how many we have to have in our fleet.

Now I will probably hear from folks who say, even that's not enough.

It's you know, that we don't hit the threshold that even is is in law.

We put it there to start creating the incentive and a little bit of the carrot on the stick to say we gotta make sure we have this fleet.

Why should we not treat our autonomous vehicle fleets the same and say there needs to be in statute be a certain number, whatever that percentage is, have to be a wheelchair-accessible uh vehicle?

Uh I appreciate the question, Mr.

Chairman.

I think as I said, at the uh from the Waymo perspective, we we are a technology company.

We do not develop our own uh and manufacture our own vehicles.

So I think it from a certain uh part of this, we are restricted by the vehicle platforms that we can source.

And to date, it is my understanding that we have not been able to identify an electric vehicle platform that um is fully wheelchair accessible while also meeting the very sort of unique specifications that we need to retrofit that vehicle with our technology.

Now, I don't want that to sound like a like a cop-out because I don't think that that is, and I think the reality is we are trying to find that vehicle platform.

What I do think there is opportunity for here is though that the Waymo vehicles as they exist today may be able to take other rides, uh, for example, within the paratransit program that do not require wheelchair accessible vehicles that can lessen the burden on the fleet of wheelchair expensive vehicles that does currently exist so that those vehicles can go and do uh more rides for people that necessarily need them right now.

But as far as whether to require those in legislation, I think that's uh an area of discussion that we should have and to make sure that we find that right balance while not restricting certain operators, but also ensuring that there is uh a commitment to offering wave service in the district.

I think having been here back in some of those conversations, our taxicab fleet, um, we heard similarly, um there's just not it's hard to source that those vehicles, it's hard to find them.

Um, and the legislation kind of acted as a way to say, yeah, I think we can.

Um now, I don't think we're hitting our marks in terms of being able to make sure we have the wheelchair accessible fleet within our taxicab, but the legislation can be a pretty strong uh incentive to say we gotta find that and work toward a solution.

So um just want to flag this as something I want to continue to work on.

I appreciate the purpose-built um kind of concept that we have to work on.

Mr.

Hatfield.

One thing I'd also add is I think Hartfield, sorry.

Uh, you know, AVs can tremendous deliver tremendous value for for individuals with accessibility needs.

But I'd also say I think we should broaden how we think about accessibility here, right?

Because today, whether you get a taxi or an Uber, if you need help getting in and out of a car, there's somebody there who can help you in and out of a car.

If you think about my parents are a little older and they just don't always want to walk to pick a point or they just have difficulty getting out of an SUV.

Um that obviously doesn't exist with an AV, and so making sure we have some way to ensure if I need a person, um, I continue to have that service.

Yeah.

I I think that speaks to why the um the choice is an important piece for what the rider needs and what they're looking for.

Yeah.

Um let me move on to a couple other topics I want to make sure we cover.

Um, one of the things I've heard globally, um, there have been concerns around racial bias that exists in sensing.

Um, and what I mean by that is uh I think it's well documented and true in technologies like facial recognition, for example.

The technology that is used, both in cameras, LIDAR, radar, what has been the intentional testing to look for, examine and ensure there is not racial bias in the data that comes back into the vehicles and systems.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um we looked into this a while ago with our own sensor suite uh and did not find any evidence of systematic um uh issues in detecting pedestrians uh based on uh based on race.

Um, for a little bit of context, uh we employ three visual sensors uh in our vehicles.

Uh we use cameras.

We also use LIDAR, which is a technology that uh uh bounces uh laser points off of objects to measure how far away they are.

It brings its own light source, so it doesn't rely on the sun or street lighting and works you know uh equally well in perfect darkness as it does during the day.

Uh and then radar, uh which is critically important for being able to see through things like fog uh and rain.

Um our uh perception system on the car uses all three of those uh to do uh detection of all objects.

Uh pedestrians are some of the most important objects uh out there uh to be able to recognize.

Uh and um we look for any sorts of deficiencies that might cause us to not be able to recognize uh pedestrians uh and um uh to date, have not found any uh any sort of bias uh related to race.

Okay, um, and Ms.

uh Herman?

Uh similarly, we have not found any um anything that would indicate that our vehicles are discriminating on the context of race.

And in fact, we go out of our way to make sure that our neural network is trained on a generalizable data set, both across states, cities, and the world.

So when we're talking about keeping a vehicle safe and ensuring that we're delivering for our riders, there is nothing to indicate that the Tesla ADS would discriminate on those grounds.

Okay.

Sticking with that for a little bit, another concerns I've heard related to imaging and data privacy.

So I'm walking on the sidewalk, I'm in the crosswalk in front of one of your vehicles.

There are images, radar, LIDAR being taken of me as I walk through.

I've heard some people say, is this similar technology to when I'm in an airport getting scanned?

And I don't want those images shared around or being held.

Can you talk about what if I am a person who is having an expectation of walking on the sidewalk and not having images too close to me?

What images are captured?

What is the data that is held and what are the privacy protections in place?

Yeah, thank you for bringing up that important topic.

Privacy for our users and really all users of the road is uh paramount to our goals.

Um it's something that we have uh espoused ever since our founding, um, and something that we take very seriously.

Um I mentioned our three visual sensors.

Um let me first talk about uh the non-camera sensors.

Um, and one of the benefits of those is that they are essentially already anonymized.

Um looking at a LIDAR scan or a radar scan, you can't tell who a person is.

Uh, you can tell that they are uh a pedestrian.

Um, and so that's a technology that already enjoys that benefit.

But um we don't stop there.

Uh on top of that, we automatically blur uh all of our images of pedestrians' faces and license plates uh as we uh as we drive by them as a nod to privacy and to make sure that you know even our engineers who are working on uh analyzing events or our logs are not able to tell uh who a particular individual is.

But is it is it recorded or is it blurred?

And what I mean, so let's say um let me give a hypothetical.

Let's say there's a uh a crime takes place right in front of a Waymo.

NPD comes to you and says, Did your cameras capture a license uh the tag of that vehicle?

We were trying to help investigate this case.

Was it recorded, or is it no?

Our camera blurs it intentionally, so we can't we don't have that.

Well, there are many different levels to consider here, right?

So uh the perception system on board the vehicle doesn't blur its own images, uh, be fighting with one hand tied behind its back.

Um and so it uses um uh all of those pixels uh in its own driving.

Um we have uh blurring protections that occur at the point of uh offloading and processing uh those logs.

And then the vast majority of our driving um that data is just thrown away or not even offloaded uh off of the car.

Um the reason for that is that we simply generate way too much data for our system uh or for any system for that matter to be able to handle.

Um and so uh generally that's thrown away.

Um, if there was no reason to record uh the crime uh that you refer to in your hypothetical scenario, um it's reasonable to suspect that the detailed data from that might be thrown away.

Um in other cases, if the crime um uh impacted the Waymo's driving, right, then it might have been logged.

But uh I think to your broader point, uh Waymo also makes sure that it would only uh you know reveal the existence of that data or turn over that data to a law enforcement uh department only in the presence of a lawful subpoena uh for that data.

So once again, you know, we take those privacy protections very seriously, both at the technological level uh as well as at the legal level.

Okay, thank you.

Ms.

Herbin?

Yes, the Tesla ADS does automatically blur the surrounding imaging, um, although you do not have a reasonable expectation to privacy when you're walking along the sidewalk.

That's the choice that the developers make.

Um Tesla is also unique in that all vehicle computations are done on the actual vehicle, so nothing goes into the cloud on a given drive.

Um, and Tesla itself accesses that data upon lawful request or a legal event that would trigger accessing that data, such as a crash or um, you know, an attempted carjacking of a Tesla Robo taxi vehicle, for example.

We take privacy extremely seriously.

The actual vehicle controls are hidden in two different command and control centers that you would have to have double encryption keys to be able to access, as well as we are never selling our data to third parties ever, regardless of the Tesla product, whether it be robo taxi or otherwise.

Okay.

I think you brought up a good point of the win in public reasonable expectation of privacy.

I think that's what I heard from folks saying.

I'm walking down the sidewalk.

I can't have a reasonable expectation to being in a public space.

But I do have a reasonable expectation that the technology you're using isn't seeing through my clothes.

Like that, that's I think what I'm hearing from folks saying, I need to understand what level does this LIDAR and radar technology impede upon, what I think is reasonable versus what you can't have as a reasonable expectation of privacy.

I mean, just to address that point directly.

No, it cannot see you through your clothes.

Okay.

It is an actual question I've gotten many times.

Absolutely.

So I think it's actually helpful to go ahead and just state it out loud.

Hopefully, it's helpful to give you a definitive answer.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

And also definitive, because you said you anticipated one of my questions, you do not sell data to any third parties.

Do you sell any data to third parties?

We don't sell data to third parties, but we um did recently uh announce a program where we are sharing um some ancillary data that we collect to cities in order to help them.

Uh so uh we have recently started uh releasing data about where potholes uh exist uh in cities uh through the Ways for Cities platform.

Uh and uh this is a way that cities can get some additional benefit from all of our vehicles driving around, understanding where potholes are, where new ones may have been developed, and that's something that we are seeking to expand to provide additional benefits to cities.

So uh I know you're the spirit of your question was in a very different direction, but I think that there's a lot of benefits that can be created from that data that is being collected.

I appreciate you take the advantage to lob that one in there.

That's good.

All right, um, couple more questions, and then I want to make sure we move to some other uh panelists.

Um counselor Lewis George talked through a couple of my questions I was gonna ask around impact on workforce.

And I don't think it's an if it is.

There will be an impact to workforce.

Um, and it's important that we not pretend that there that there isn't somehow gonna be an impact on workforce.

There will be.

So as we think about how we prepare for that impact, part of what the legislation has attempted to do is both say, let me have our Department of Transportation, Department of Hiring Vehicles, and our Department of Employment Services work together to help write a report and guide us in saying this is what we think the impact is gonna be in here strategies and how we're gonna be able to affect that.

The legislation says, Let me take some of the fees that are coming in and say, again, how do I use these fees to help transition a workforce, help train a workforce, help uh help with that impact?

Um, so there's intentionality that we have within the legislation to recognize this.

What are the ways?

Um, and I might actually start with Ms.

Tool.

I think in your testimony you talked about a transition of some of the lift workers into a different space.

What are some of the intentional ways that you recommend if the district's gonna move forward this legislation?

And let's be very clear, even if we pass this legislation tomorrow, there will not be commercial operation of AVs the following day in DC.

So there still is an on-ramp time.

But what are some of the ways that you think the district needs to be very intentional about workforce training, workforce transition, and support for workers who will be impacted?

Yeah, and I that is basically why hybrid network is so important to us, because um, on the one hand, we have not brought fully driverless vehicles onto our platform yet, but we're seeing what's happening with hybrid networks in places like Austin, Atlanta and happening to the impact to ride share drivers in cities where AVs operate in competition with human drivers.

We see there's you're growing the pie, like Harry said earlier.

Um, we're when you can bring more demand and supply into one network, it can help improve driver earnings opportunities on that same network.

At the same time, a lot of our drivers are in this earnings opportunity because it's flexible work.

They potentially are driving on the weekends or at night to earn to save towards a house, to save towards tuition.

A lot of them have also told us in our annual surveys, they don't see themselves driving for the platform this time next year.

This is a temporary flexible job.

So I think there's a big opportunity here to take the skills that a ride share driver has around hospitality, around vehicle, and put them in that pipeline and prioritize them in hiring for these A V depot roles or AV support roles.

And we're really excited about that, and something we've been able to do in our first A V hybrid market in Nashville, where we've already hired 70 staff to work at the depot, and our hiring team moved any Lyft driver to the front of the line when it came to interviewing for those roles.

There are definitely skills from the ride share driving role that are directly transferable and should be celebrated and promoted into that pipeline.

And were those types of efforts, were they legislated?

Were they parts of an agreement with a jurisdiction or a city, or were those practices that just lift said we're gonna put this in place?

Yeah, so in Nashville, we are the operating partner for Waymo.

So we handle all end-to-end fleet management.

And that was a Lyft-specific practice that we put into place around hiring.

And we also, leading up to the launch in Nashville, we've been hosting Lyft driver autonomous driver forums where we meet with some of our five-star drivers regularly to hear what they're excited about when AVs come to market, like the potential to even just try one on their own, but also what they're concerned about.

And there's obviously concern around impact on their earnings opportunities.

And we've been able to talk through too the what we are seeing again, small markets where there's hybrid, Austin and Atlanta, but the potential opportunity to actually improve their earnings opportunities and help them choose the rides that they want to take, and an AV can take other rides.

Okay.

All right, Mr.

Walsh.

Yeah, um, appreciate the question, Mr.

Chairman.

I think workforce has always been uh a huge component of the conversation around AVs in every city, but certainly particularly here uh in DC.

I think on the proactive sense, um, Waymo has been committed to uh expanding our workforce development programs.

We have scholarship programs across the country through Tech United.

Um we have developed first of a kind uh community college vocational training programs like the ones that we've just established in on New York.

Here in DC, we have begun conversations with UDC and DOES about how we can build out uh that pipeline.

I think that um the reality is right now we have not seen uh that direct job loss that is being is being sort of illustrated today.

And I think you're gonna hear from other people today that are gonna talk a lot about the loss of driver earnings as a result of the arrival of AVs.

Um in the long term, will there be job losses with like with any other technological shift?

I think the answer is likely yes, which is why I think that the workforce fund that you have put in this legislation is an important one that Waymo supports in terms of the funding mechanisms and how much uh funding goes into that.

I think that's a conversation we're eager to have.

But Mr.

Chairman, in the near term, if we want to talk about driver earnings, I think we would be remiss if we did not point out the fact that there are companies seated at this table today who control how much earnings drivers take home.

And we have seen reports as of recent that these companies are taking nearly 40% of those earnings for the company and leaving the driver with less.

So if in the near term we want to talk about improver driver earnings, then I think the companies seated at this table should engage in that.

But again, we're we're committed to expanding workforce opportunities here in the district.

Thank you, Mr.

Hartfield.

Yeah, I'll start by saying drivers in the district make more than $30 per hour onutilized time.

There are tens of thousands of them.

I think the depots to their credit is a hundred plus people, so that's about 9,900 people who you know could stand to lose access to work.

Um people work on their own schedule on our app.

If you work at a depot, you're a full-time employee.

So if you want to go on your app to make some extra money to pay for school or get gifts for your kids at Christmas time, that's not really an option to go work at a depot.

This is very valuable work to a lot of people.

I'm happy to talk about the insurance when it comes to uh a tape grade.

I don't think that's really important here.

Um these are also people who who live in the district, right?

If you work on our app and you live in the district, you pay tax in the district, you go to your local restaurants, you go to bars, you see your friends.

Um, if you give money to to Tesla or Waymo, both great companies, that money ends up in in Texas or California, right?

There's no, you don't, they don't, that's where their headquarters are.

And so we should be honest that depot jobs, I think there's 20 scholarships they're they're working on, 20 scholarships and a hundred depot jobs is not a replacement for tens of thousands of people who who drive on our platform and enjoy the flexibility.

That's not a reason not to have AVs, but it is a reason to be thoughtful about how we do a workforce transition.

I think you know, in general, reskilling and training programs haven't always delivered the value that workers really need.

Um I think we should be transparent that you know there will be, especially, you know, we see in California, drivers make less money, and one AV takes the work of four drivers.

And that's real, and we should expect that in 2028 there will be thousands of AVs in the district, and that will mean less work for a lot of drivers in the district.

Well, I'm gonna try to keep us constructive.

I'm also gonna try to keep us since we we are sliding behind schedule, but this panel has been a lot of expertise that we needed to tease out and flush through.

Um, I was here when Uber came into the marketplace.

Um, if we were to pretend we didn't see a loss of earnings for taxicab drivers, we wouldn't be honest, right?

That doesn't mean that having Uber and Lyft come into a marketplace and be a disruptor, but in a way that created more choice and more options for ways to get around my city, at the end of the day, it's a net benefit, I think, to my transportation choices in the city.

Um, but I can't say I didn't see people who had earned a living as a taxi driver see their income diminished, right?

So when I think about this, we're not gonna do right by the city or by our workers if we say there might be an impact, I don't know.

There will be an impact.

There will.

But now we have the opportunity to also be very intentional in trying to think about what does workforce transition, what does workforce uh loss mitigation, what what are the different strategies we can use to help think about that?

It doesn't mean we say no to innovation and technology, but it does mean we have a responsibility to think about what this looks like to do right by the men and women who move our city around.

Um that's kind of been my approach.

I think it's probably consistent with what most of the council wants to look at.

Um, and so I'm really grateful that we're gonna continue this conversation in the weeks and months to come to really try to think about how we do this and do it right.

Um that said, this panel has been great, been about I think over two hours though.

So I know I have a lot of witnesses I want to make sure I get through today, so I want to thank all of you for your testimony today and look forward to following up with all of you.

So thank you.

All right, I'm gonna move to our second panel of witnesses now.

I have Jabari Cooper, who's the director of state and local government affairs with the Chamber of Progress.

I have Sean Townsend, the president and CEO of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.

Daniel Flores, who's the vice president for regional engagement with the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

Crispus Gordon, Vice President of Government Affairs of Monumental Sports Entertainment.

Engineer Hubbard.

Ms.

Hubbard, we have you signed up as public witness, but I'm not sure if that's right.

Okay, all right.

Ms.

Hubbard is with the Chamber of Commerce.

And since we had five chairs last time, Ms.

Hubbard, we're gonna just make five chairs work this time too.

So please come on up.

All right.

Um it is still morning, so good morning to all of you.

Uh Mr.

Cooper, we'll start with you.

Good afternoon, Chair Allen, members of the committee.

My name is Javara Cooper, director of state and local government relations for the Chamber of Progress, a tech industry association supporting public policies to build a more inclusive society in which all people benefit from technological advancements.

We strongly support this legislation with four targeted amendments that we believe will help the bill better achieve its own goals of safety, equity, and successful deployment.

Chair Allen, after four more than four years of delay, you've developed the district's first serious framework for commercial autonomous vehicle deployment.

And that leadership deserves real credit.

Autonomous vehicles are already demonstrating remarkable safety performance, recording 94% fewer serious crashes than human drivers across more than 220 million rider-only mouths.

Meanwhile, the district recently experienced its highest traffic fatality rate in 16 years.

Every year we delay deploying safer technology has real human consequences.

Our recommendations are intended to help this bill succeed.

First, the vehicles 200 vehicle fleet cap.

The bill requires service across all eight wards.

Yet a 200 vehicle cap makes that goal difficult to achieve.

Operators will naturally concentrate limited vehicles where demand is highest, likely downtown and not in Ward 7 and 8.

Where nearly half of households do not own a vehicle.

For those communities, autonomous vehicles are not just about innovation, they're about experiencing expanding access to reliable transportation.

We recommend replacing the CAP with a performance-based expansion tied to measurable safety and equitable service milestones.

Second, the Pearl Mile tax on empty rebalancing miles.

Those trips are essential to moving vehicles between neighborhoods and providing citywide service.

Taxing those miles on top of the district's existing 6% TNC tax will discourage service to underserved communities, reduce ridership, and ultimately shrink the very fund the bill is designed to support.

Third, deployment model neutrality.

The bill's definition should accommodate all autonomous vehicle business models, including hybrid networks, so companies can compete on equal footing and the district isn't locked in to a single approach.

Finally, the arbitration provision.

As drafted, it is likely to likely to conflict with the Federal Arbitration Act, creating unnecessary litigation that could delay implementation before a single passenger is served.

Riders are already well protected because the bill makes AV companies legally responsible whenever autonomous drivers or systems are engaged.

Chair Allen, we believe this legislation can make the district a national leader in autonomous vehicle deployment.

These amendments don't change the bill's vision, they help ensure it succeeds.

We respectfully urge the committee to adopt these targeted amendments, and we have submitted more detailed ret more detailed written testimony that goes into more detail on more of four of those points.

Thank you again.

Thank you very much.

Uh next, I was going to Mr.

Townsend is going to follow the order here.

Thank you.

Good morning, uh Chairman Allen and uh members of the committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

I'm Sean Townsend, I have the pleasure of serving as the president and CEO of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.

For more than a hundred years, RMW has represented more than 1,500 restaurants and hospitality businesses across the Washington region, from neighborhood favorites and family-owned establishments to local restaurant groups and national brands.

Before joining RMW, I served as the district's first director of nightlife and culture.

And even earlier in my career, I worked part-time as an Uber driver to earn extra income.

Like so many people in hospitality, I picked up additional work to help make ends meet.

Those experiences give me a unique perspective on how transportation, economic opportunity, and public safety all have interests.

That's why I believe good transportation policy is good restaurant policy.

For our industry, transportation is economic development.

The easier it is for people to get to our restaurants, the more likely they are to dine out, explore new neighborhoods, and support local businesses.

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to remove some of the biggest barriers customers face, including traffic, parking, and the hassle of getting around the city.

Reliable transportation is just as important for our workforce.

Restaurants operate early in the morning and late into the night, often before metro opens or long after it closes.

Thousands of hospitality employees rely on rideshare services to get to work and home safely.

Expanding transportation options isn't simply about convenience, it's about making these jobs more accessible.

I've also had the opportunity to see this technology firsthand.

Early this year, I toured a Waymo operations facility in Phoenix to better understand how autonomous vehicles are deployed and managed.

I came away impressed by the company's focus on safety, training, and operational oversight.

I know there are some concerns about how this technology may affect existing jobs, and I don't want to minimize those concerns or debate them today, but I do think it's equally important to recognize the jobs this industry is creating.

I've learned about the wide range of positions needed to support autonomous vehicle operations from fleet operations and vehicle maintenance to charging infrastructure, logistics, customer support, and safety specialists.

These are good paying jobs that include training and career advancement opportunities.

As this technology grows in the district, those employment opportunities deserve to be a part of the conversation as well.

We support the overall framework of this legislation, including the creation of DDOT's commercial autonomous vehicles program and the phase deployment process tied to DDI approval and safety oversight.

It's a thoughtful and responsible approach that allows innovation while maintaining accountability.

Our primary concern is the proposed 15 cent per mile vehicle miles travel tax.

As drafted, that tax would apply to every autonomous vehicle trip, including trips that help someone get home safely after dinner or help a worker get to work before sunrise or home after a late-night shift.

Those are exactly the kind of trips we should be encouraging and not making more expensive.

If our shared goals are improving mobility, reducing impaired driving, supporting workers, strengthening our local economy, and encouraging innovation, we should be careful not to create financial barriers that discourage people from using these services.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

RMW looks forward to working with the committee as this legislation moves forward and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Mr.

Flores, attorney next.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to submit testimony.

My name is Daniel Flores, Vice President of Regional Engagement for the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

The Greater Washington Board of Trade brings together leaders from across business, government, academia, and the nonprofit sector to advance policies that and partnerships that support economic growth, innovation, and opportunity across the Washington metropolitan region.

We are committed to a district that is safe, competitive, and prepared for the future.

The Greater Washington Board of Trade supports the bill's central purpose.

It is creating a clear pathway for the responsibility for the responsible deployment of commercial autonomous vehicles in the district.

Autonomous vehicles technology is no longer a distance possibility.

It is an operating in mayor American cities under structured regulatory frameworks and jurisdictions that provide clear, predictable rules, are positioning themselves to attract investment, research partnership, and the jobs that accompany emerging mobility technologies.

Greater Washington has the assets to participate in that growth, a region's strength in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, logistics, research, and advanced technology make it well positioned to lead in the next generation of transportation systems.

As the region works to strengthen and diversify its economy, transportation innovation is part of the broader competitiveness conversation.

The district should help shape the future of mobility rather than wave for the benefits of that innovation to accrue elsewhere.

At the same time, safety must remain central.

Concerns about recent incidents involving autonomous vehicles are understandable, particularly in a city with dense streets, significant pedestrian activity, major events, emergency operations, and the complex transportation network.

New technology requires clear expectations, public accountability, and safeguards that build confidence among residents, first responders, businesses and policymakers.

We believe those concerns can be addressed through throughout thoughtful policy but not delayed.

The district should establish a framework that holds operators accountable, protects public safety, and gives the city the ability to respond when standards are not met.

It should also create an environment in which responsible companies can enter the market, test, learn, and grow.

As the bill moves forward, we encourage the committee to ensure that it is final requirements remain balanced and workable.

A framework intended to authorize deployment should not impose cost, reporting obligations, or operational restrictions that make the district an outlier among peers jurisdictions, or discourage responsible investment before it begins.

Requirements should protect the public and recover appropriate administrative cost while remaining proportionate, predictable, and aligned with established national standards wherever possible.

The district also has an opportunity to shape deployment in a way that supports the entire transportation ecosystem.

Autonomous vehicles should complete complement public transit, public transit, improve access and mobility, and fit within a regional approach to transportation economic growth.

The district's decision will not occur in isolation.

Businesses, workers, residents, and transportation systems, move across DC, Maryland, and Virginia every day, and the region will be a better place served by policies that recognize that reality.

The greater Washington appreciates the commitments, leadership, and thank you for the opportunity to testify and for the consideration of this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Flores.

Next let me turn to Mr.

Gordon.

Morning, Councilmember Allen, Mr.

Chairman, and members of the Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

My name is Christmas Gordon.

I serve as the Vice President of Government Affairs for Monumental Sports and Entertainment.

I'm here to present testimony on Bill 260684, the Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026.

And I'm thrilled to be on a panel with illustrious individuals like Sean Thompson, whose board I serve on, Daniel Flores, my member of the Board of Trade, and China Hubbard, my name is also a member of DC Chamber of Commerce, and Mr.

Cooper as well.

The District of Columbia has always been a place that shapes the future and embraces technology and supports innovation.

The same should be applied to autonomous vehicle technology.

Autonomous vehicles represent one of the most significant leaps in urban mobility in a generation.

They offer for those who cannot drive due to age, disability, or economic circumstance, a safe, affordable, on-demand vehicle to get to various places.

As an anchor for downtown, we want to see as many people have the ability to attend the 200 plus events that take place at Capital One Arena.

This will continue to bring DC residents and visitors who are in the city to the many restaurants and retail establishments that support our local economy.

We desire to ensure that all of our fans, no matter where they live in a district, have accessible ways to attend CAPS Games to see Ovechkin, Wizards Games to see AJ, or come to various concerts.

We believe that autonomous vehicles will be a part of the overall renaissance of downtown that is still recovering.

DC cannot afford to be the last major American city to embrace autonomous vehicles.

The talent, the investment, and the economic activity that follows this technology will flow to cities that welcome it.

The autonomous vehicle deployment authorization amendment act of 2026 creates a clear, accountable path for the future to arrive here in DC.

The DC Council should pass this legislation in earnest and give the district a competitive advantage over its surrounding neighbors.

Thank you, Councilmember, for introducing this legislation and holding the hearing, and I'm available to answer any questions that you, the committee may have.

Thank you very much.

And Ms.

Hubbard, we'll turn to you.

And while you are a public witness, you are also the president and CEO of the DC Chamber of Commerce.

So I want to make sure I know that.

That's all right.

Thank you so much, Chairman Allen.

Members of the council and staff, my name is Chinyati Hubbard, president and CEO of the DC Chamber of Commerce.

Thank you for pointing that out.

On behalf of our 1,000 members across all eight wards, employers, large and small, I thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

I am pleased to appear on behalf of the district's business community to express the chamber's strong support for the proposed legislation enabling autonomous vehicles in Washington, D.C.

And we appreciate, Mr.

Chairman, your support and leadership on this bill.

It represents a transformative opportunity to strengthen public safety, improve transportation, reliability, and stimulate economic growth across our neighborhoods and commercial corridors.

And the DC Chamber's support for this bill is grounded in four areas.

First, safer DC streets.

As you heard from the previous panel, autonomous vehicle technology has been shown to reduce severe crashes by 94%.

Pedestrian industry injuries by 93% and cyclist injuries by 84%.

And for Washington, DC, this means safer commutes along corridors like Georgia Avenue, Benning Road, and Pennsylvania Avenue, and greater confidence for residents in all eight wards.

Second, mobility and equity.

For many district residents, the ability to get to work on time, attend a doctor's appointment, or access essential services really depends on reliable transit options.

And when transportation is unreliable or unaffordable, it becomes a barrier that limits opportunity and deepens inequities.

Autonomous ride services offer a consistent, safe, and inclusive option, a driverless alternative that supports local businesses and offers residents, especially women and vulnerable populations, a safer alternative to traditional ride hailing.

This technology can be a powerful tool in advancing equity for those who have historically faced transportation challenges.

Strengthening access to jobs, retail, and services across the city.

And when people have another trusted way to get around town, they go out more, stay out later, and spend more money at local DC businesses.

Third, proven readiness.

Waymo's extensive experience, including mapping mapping every ward, driving hundreds of thousands of miles here in the district, and operating in 11 major U.S.

cities with more than 500,000 rides weekly, underscores the technology's reliability and readiness for deployment in the District of Columbia.

And fourth, economic development.

Waymo's investment in local infrastructure and job creation and vehicle maintenance and fleet operations aligns with the DC Chamber's mission to foster workforce growth and expand opportunity in the district.

Notably, this investment is happening happening even before official authorization to serve the public here.

And it will only grow as Waymo expands.

Autonomous vehicles won't eliminate jobs.

They'll create them.

These fleets require technicians, as we've heard, vehicle maintenance specialists, fleet operators, and safety monitors.

Each role represents a pathway into stable, high-demand careers that align with the district's workforce development priorities.

And while the chamber supports the bill, we do recommend three adjustments to ensure it delivers maximum benefit for all Washingtonians.

First, a fair tax structure, the bill's high per mile vehicle miles travel tax layered on top of DC's existing fees, would make the third the service 30% more expensive for the before the first ride even starts.

Replace it with a modest per-trip fee to keep rides affordable for residents and visitors, especially those who rely on the service to get around.

And second, fleet expansion, remove the restrictive cap of 200 vehicles, along with the city's permanent authority to impose new caps later and allow expansion based on safety milestones.

This ensures reliable service across all wards, including underserved neighborhoods east of the river.

And third, a timely launch.

The bill bans paid rides until January 1st, 2028, even though the city is required to establish rules and permits within months.

Eliminate this delay and allowed paid rides to begin as soon as safety and operational standards are met.

The district shouldn't wait years to benefit from safer and more reliable mobility.

Autonomous vehicles are important and opportunity to make Washington, D.C.

a more connected, economically vibrant.

The DC chamber urges the council to adopt this legislation with the recommended modifications so that our city can lead the nation in innovative, equitable transportation.

Thank you, and I look forward to working together as this legislation moves forward and happy to answer any questions.

Excellent.

Thank you all very much for your testimony.

Let me work through a couple of questions here.

Um, Mr.

Flores, let me start with you.

The Board of Trade works regionally, correct?

So uh we heard a question earlier, which I think is correct.

If I wanted to catch an A V, let's go and assume we've flash forwarded and it's in operation right now.

Um I want to catch it to go to National Airport or BWI.

I can't.

Um, and it's not gonna just let me out at the state line, that trip's just not gonna exist, won't be an option once I plug in my destination.

What is the Board of Trade doing in terms of reaching out to colleagues in Maryland and in Virginia?

In other words, how much do you think the eyes are on DC to set the tone for the region around what this looks like for our neighbors in Virginia and Maryland?

Yeah, thank you for that question.

Definitely is something that we have looked in the past, but also is up to the elected officials to make sure that something like this can go across jurisdictions.

And like you uh mentioned, if you take a taxi to go to uh the airport, you can't take one back, or that taxi can't pick up a fare back into a city, which I think is for a lack of a better word, a waste in uh a loss opportunity because right now in talking to some folks that work late at night in the uh restaurant or or similar industry.

Sometimes it's difficult to get across jurisdictions because of that similar um uh problem.

But yes, it's something that we would like to see that you know, buses and metro just get around well, but we have different bus systems that we would like for them to work together to make sure that we serve everybody, not only in Maryland and Virginia, but also in the district, and make sure that it's a seamless connection from one jurisdiction to the next.

So that's a very good question.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I think it's important that you'd be able to move regionally eventually.

I've yet to be able to write the laws of Virginia and Maryland, maybe one day.

Um but I also want to make sure I give a shout out to my friends at Wamata, of course, which is the uh fastest and most affordable way to get to any of the airports is through Wamata.

It is, yes.

Um let me work through a couple of the uh issues that you highlighted as well, though.

Uh Mr.

Cooper, the the 200 cap, um you brought that up.

So the way the legislation is crafted right now uh is kind of a tiered approach to essentially continue to show proof of concept.

This is new technology, it is going to be something that is uh um disruptive in some ways, but also innovative uh in a way that comes into our market, right?

So the idea behind it is let's start with 200 cap.

It also says, which is about 10 times the number of vehicles we have right now for testing with about 25.

Um, it also says you've got to make sure your wait times across the city are uh are relatively equal, which is an important part.

I think what I hear you saying is not too convinced that you're gonna be able to achieve that with a cap of 200, and so should that cap go up to be able to better accomplish our policy goals.

I think that's worthy of debate.

We're gonna kind of wrestle with that as we go.

I don't believe we should just eliminate a cap, but I think that's a fair point to say, are you gonna reach your policy goals of ensuring that equitable reach across the city with a 200 cap?

Is that kind of the way I should hear your testimony?

Yeah, I think that's a great uh encapsulation of what we're kind of trying to emphasize here, and I think that the 200 cap is just I think we're trying to work at with like performance-based caps as well.

I think that's kind of like what you're kind of like getting at as well.

And I think we just want to make sure that this policy kind of just gets off the ground.

And so I think we would be able to work with, you know, 200, but we're trying to kind of increase and um want to make sure that all wards are served by the uh by the policy.

Yeah, because the legislation requires every ward to be serviced to the same level, but I think what I'm hearing you say is you should really think long and hard.

Are you gonna be able to accomplish that in a meaningful way at 200?

Or should it be upped a little bit, show that proof of concept, then continue.

Okay.

All right.

Um, I think you also testified about the hybrid network.

We heard about that in the first panel.

Um, on one hand, we do want to create a structure that the autonomous vehicle permit holder is directly managing the fleet that they are responsible for, that we're holding them to these standards.

I think um one of our witnesses testified about would that preclude, for example, shared resourcing of a of a hub, right?

I I don't read the legislation that way, but we can that's the type of that's why we hold hearings, right?

It's kind of explore that.

Because I don't think being able to have separate AV permit holders get into a, let's say they get into a contractual relationship where they share one site and they have their charging infrastructure and all the different pieces there, but they take advantage of multiple uh companies kind of pooling into one resource they're all going to draw draw from.

I don't think the legislation prohibits that.

It's really more about the direct management of the fleet, but we'll that was really good testimony from our first panel.

You kind of brought it up too, so we're gonna kind of work on that too.

Yeah, I was gonna say I kind of really thought that was a great job done on the first panel, kind of highlighting the need for the hybrid model.

But um, like I said, it's really just about making sure that we're DC is like making it accessible for all types of models and this as it relates to AVs and not just kind of uh just making the certainty.

I think it's more the legislative certainty that is uh looking for within this legislation.

And like you said, we want to continue to have these conversations and make sure that certainty is there.

And I did provide more written testimony that kind of goes into more depth about um kind of the specific provisions within the legislation.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Um, I'm gonna pick on one thing.

Mr.

Flores, you said you don't want DC to be an outlier compared to other cities.

There's only 11 other cities where this operates.

For now.

Correct.

But I would reframe it.

I don't want us to be an outlier, I want us to be a leader.

Um, we're not just any other city.

We're the nation's capital.

Everybody is watching to see what do we do with this legislation.

I guarantee you, whatever this council passes, if the council passes legislation, whatever version of it, other cities around the entire country are gonna be looking at what we do.

Because we all know, because we live it every day.

Sometimes we're the district of Columbia, sometimes we're the nation's capital.

This is an example where we are the nation's capital.

And what we do will set precedent for a lot of other cities and jurisdictions.

And I'm I'm glad you brought that up because we are looking for the district to be a leader and for other uh jurisdictions, states, counties, whatever it is, to copy what the district did and how they did, how well they put it together.

So let me go into one of the recommendations you had, um, which I respectfully disagree with.

Um, VMT.

It is an important component of the legislation.

Why, so right now Waymo operates an all-electric fleet, which means they don't pay a gas tax.

Every other vehicle that would be operating that's not electric is paying a gas tax, which helps us pay for our roads and goes back into supporting our roadways.

Why would I exempt them from that?

Why would I why would I exempt them from other fees and surcharges?

Um, a VMT is one of the ways we make sure there is an equitable charge coming in.

Second point.

Um, if I were to move to a per-trip charge, I'm not getting at mind with my other policy goals, which is I want to reduce deadheading and I want to reduce the amount of time that a vehicle is adding to congestion.

So if I do a per trip, that's absolutely just gonna be a fee assessed to the rider and it increases the cost.

I don't assume that a VMT gets passed on to the rider.

Why should it?

The companies that were at this table, Tesla was sitting in that seat, Zooks, owned by Amazon, uh, chose not to show up, but they're submitting testimony.

Waymo is owned by Alphabet, which owns Google.

These are not benevolent nonprofit organizations.

Like they're here to make money and a profit, right?

So why would I be concerned that somehow they just wouldn't be able to absorb a fairly modest charge to make sure that we're achieving our policy goals?

Because I'm gonna wager none of you are gonna tell me traffic is great in DC right now.

So none of us want to see more congestion added, right?

So we can use policy ideas to try to help manage the impact on congestion, as well as make up for we're not gonna get a gas tax on a vehicle like that.

So why should I exempt them from a VMT from that type of surcharge?

Is not that it's being exempt from BMT, but is something that the federal government has been looking at it because we are having more electric vehicles and more of electric vehicles will grow into the population that come into the city as well that they're not Waymo's.

Waymo is gonna be a very small number of uh electrical vehicles that the ones that come into the city.

What keeps you from taxing other ones that come in here?

There you go.

The federal government is the one working towards this because we need the Transportation Trust Fund to stay to have funding for us to fix infrastructure.

But the way it is coming right now that it's going to be piecemeal, I will say, but if you look into that, I think it will be a good thing to reconsider how you approaching that and how the federal government will come with that number.

I think all these fleets thus far, and I think it's a trend that will continue, are electric, right?

Ums are all electric.

Zooks, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, are all electric, obviously Tesla electric.

That's what the fleet we're gonna see, right?

So they're not gonna pay a gas tax.

Um I do agree with you.

Let's, for the sake of argument, pretend we keep the 200 cap.

Um 200 vehicles is not even remotely, it's a fraction of a fraction of our fraction of the total number of vehicles on the roadway.

But it begins to start the conversation, which we do need to have, frankly, as we are seeing greater and greater uptake of electric vehicles.

We are gonna have to have more of VMT conversation at some point around how do you create parity between those two because uh of that.

Anyway, I I think that the legislation is very important from the standpoint of working with um innovation and technology, which the district needs to be, should be a leader on.

I don't think of 15 cents VMT is a deal breaker for being a place of innovation.

And in fact, I think that it actually is a smart policy choice that helps us achieve some of our goals.

Because again, I know everybody at this table cares about making sure that we reduce congestion in our roadway, that we help make sure people get around.

So that's that's part of what I think allows us to uh help create a financial disincentive to adding to that uh that deadheading and that congestion.

Um we're gonna certainly take the feedback from today's hearing, keep working with stakeholders around it.

Um, but that is one where I I think a lot of the points, and several of you kind of hit on some of the same recommendations.

Um there's several of them that I think make some sense.

We're gonna work with you on that one.

VMT one, which will be very transparent, probably not gonna agree on that one.

Um, because I do think it's an important policy goal that we're we're trying to achieve with that.

Anything else that you wanted to add on that regard?

No.

Okay.

Um Mr.

Gordon, one of the things you're you're a huge hub.

I mean, Monumental and Cap One Arena, like you said, 200 plus events per year, crucially important.

Sitting right on top of Metro, which is great.

Um, but for those that aren't, what do you what are the types of things you would think about as monumental around we talked earlier about curbside management?

Um I asked earlier to the first panel as a as someone who's gonna jump in an Uber or a Lyft, it's a fairly reasonable expectation in my experience that the vehicle, the driver is gonna stop.

It's not gonna always have a curb space to pull over to, and I'm gonna be able to hop out quickly.

Oftentimes that driver's actually helping keep look the mirrors and kind of check and be like, yep, you're safe to get out, or like, don't go on that side, get off on this side.

Um, what would be your expectation or maybe your desire from a curbside management for autonomous vehicles?

Do you want to see dedicated curb space just for AVs to be able to pull pull up to?

Like what would what would help make that work for you at Monumental?

Sure, sir.

One of the first things that we do is just to walk back.

Um, the original original point is we encourage ride share and metro for everyone who's coming to um a concert or or a game.

And reason being is first to reduce congestion in downtown.

The second is our parking garage, as you know, is very limited, and even do our renovation for all those who don't know, we can't expand because of the old metro building next door and the money train line.

We get to that later.

Uh our we would want to work with a department for vehicle hire agency to make sure that we have a dedicated space.

And we do that right now for Uber and Lyft and other ride share.

Um, if you try to get an Uber or Lyft to Capital One Arena, it can't drop you off on F Street, it can't drop you off on Sixth Street.

They may try to do it and be just violate rules and we have people out there to enforce that.

Uh, but a dedicated place for ride share, which I think is important for curbside management.

So it doesn't create that long line of cars stopping in the middle of the street, people trying to get into the arena, but this will all fit in with the arena transformation by 2002.

So that's our our outlook for you know what AV vehicle is, AV is to have a dedicated space along with other other ride sharing.

Do we from your experience, or maybe if you've talked to colleagues in other cities that have started to implement some of those, the 11 other cities so far?

Um do we do those have a main venues?

Do they create that type of um I may not be using the right terminology, but kind of geofencing of kind of your uh Ubers and Lyfts?

That's what we use, yes.

Do they geofense also autonomous vehicles into the same space, or would it make sense to have autonomous vehicles geofenced for pickup and drop-off in one location on the curb?

Yeah, you're asking a very good question.

And I need to talk to like our folks at Chaser Chase Center in San Francisco to see how they how they do it for Golden State.

But from our you know, just experience just looking with the ride share here at Capitol One.

I mean, like I said earlier, we're a unique city.

We're not New York City, we're not San Francisco.

So the approach really is like Apple's the orange.

But I I would check with our our our team, our colleagues over on the West Coast, see how they manage it.

But from here, maybe a dedicated place because you're just a you're just set up differently than maybe another.

It would be helpful if we can if you're able to.

I actually um utilize Waymo for the first time going to Chase Center uh in San Francisco for an all-star game a couple years ago.

It was much more vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and I use Uber to get there.

Um, the drop-off zone was completely different from um where I had to meet the Waymo uh vehicle at to leave.

So completely different um uh zones, but it was um it was it was easy to get to.

Okay, yeah, I'd be curious if we as we learned maybe some other places, um, what are the pros and cons versus either mixing your Ubers and Lyfts and autonomous vehicles in one drop-off space, or is it actually make a little more sense that you have them in two separate spaces uh to manage that a little differently?

Okay, that'll be helpful.

Um then from a workforce perspective, any um any recommendations that you have, like for example, should we be saying that a certain number of jobs have to be DC residents?

Um, certain number of jobs have to be transitioned from previous drivers.

Um, what are some of the recommendations you have?

Not just about saying here's a uh an investment and innovation that's a good thing for the district's business economy overall.

But when we think down to the workforce, are there any recommendations you have about how we uh ensure those are DC jobs?

Um, those are careers.

Um you heard um I think Mr.

Walsh was talking about the outreach with UDC, for example, to create some training programs.

Um, how about I know you work a lot trying to think through how you mix that business and workforce?

Anything you wanted to add in that regard?

Yes, absolutely.

As a especially as a DC resident, I do believe that uh we should work together on strategies and workforce transitions and ensure that DC residents are uh there are a portion of jobs that are allocated for DC residents.

Um, you know, as we try to embrace this next generation of mobility and create a tech hub here in DC, attract new businesses, retain businesses.

Um I do think it's important for businesses of all sizes to um this will help strengthen I think our value proposition, but workforce is a huge part of that, and ensuring that DC residents are um are assured a jobs or at least even uh considered as transitions maybe from other rideshare companies uh for uh opportunities with Waymo.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Um I know you mentioned, took a note here about timeline.

Um we'll certainly take a look after the hearing at this.

I'll just share, you know, if we assume um uh best case scenario.

Legislation passes sometime uh in the fall.

Let's assume it's signed by the mayor, it's then gonna have to go through congressional review, it doesn't take effect really until even the spring of 2027.

Um then there's the other continued testing and other pieces that have to happen.

So the reason why I mean January 2028 maybe feels like a long way off.

I think from the legislative calendar and the steps necessary, it's it's somewhat reflective of just the reality of the timeline it would take.

Part of what I was hoping to do, and we'll go back and take a look at this legislation.

We also want to give some certainty to companies that are thinking, am I gonna invest here?

Is this the investment I want to make in the district, creating the hubs, creating the workforce, creating the jobs?

And so part of the legislation using timelines is trying to give some certainty to folks where I think the last couple years have been defined by uncertainty.

And so I think that's that's a little bit of the goal there.

We'll certainly take that feedback and look at it.

But that's one of the legislative goals here is to create some certainty in a space that has just felt like nothing but a couple of years of uncertainty, which I think has been very difficult to then attract people who want to make that investment in the strike.

Exactly.

So I appreciate everybody's testimony.

Thank you all very much, and we'll make sure we follow up with more questions too.

Thank you.

Alright, let's look to panel number three.

Let me call Will Hubbard, Christopher Nace with the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, DC.

I've got Drew.

Lafromboise.

Drew, I mispronounced that.

President of the trial lawyers, Catherine Chase, president of advocates for highway and auto safety.

And Drew, I apologize, I mispronounced your last name.

Can you say it for me again?

I'm sure you have.

With a last name like Alan, it's pretty boring.

I moved her up last minute.

Okay.

We had called Catherine Chase, but I don't think Catherine Chase is here, but we can always come back to Catherine Chase later if she's able to join us.

Alright, so uh Will Hubbard, we'll start with you.

Uh good morning, Chairman Allen, members of the committee.

My name is Will Hubbard, and I'm a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

My academic research focuses on legal aspects of innovation, including the regulation of AVs.

I'm here in my individual academic capacity, and I thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I support the passage of the act and want to highlight two key points today.

First, as an innovation scholar, I applaud DC's continued efforts to support the deployment of new technologies like AVs.

AVs have great potential for making our roads safer, expanding access to convenient transportation, and reducing driving hassles.

Second, I want to highlight and support one aspect of the act: the definition of driver to be applied to AVs.

This is a critical issue.

Every jurisdiction, including the district, has enacted numerous laws that ensure that motor vehicles are operated in a safe, predictable fashion.

Many of these laws, like speed limits, are familiar to anyone who drives.

Importantly, these laws often target the conduct of drivers.

For example, DC law states, quote, drivers of vehicles proceeding in opposite directions shall pass each other to the right.

End quote.

These rules of the road both establish legal standards for operating motor vehicles and identify a person who is legally responsible for violations.

The driver.

It is the driver who gets a ticket for speeding, and it is the driver who can be sued when there's an accident.

Naturally, this system encourages drivers to operate their vehicles in compliance with the law.

Unfortunately, the meaning of the term driver is unclear when applied to AVs.

The whole point of AVs is to relieve humans of many of the tasks we think of as driving.

Consequently, updating the meaning of the word driver is a crucial step in developing effective laws for AVs.

The Act addresses this issue into provisions.

For commercial AVs, the act defines the driver to be the entity that has obtained a commercial AV permit.

For private AVs, the drivers, the manufacturer who has registered the AV model.

In my scholarship, which I have linked in my written testimony, I've explained why defining the driver of an AV using a permitting or registration system should be considered a best practice.

This approach ensures that DC's laws regarding drivers apply to AVs and clearly identifies who will be legally responsible if those laws are violated.

In fact, similar approaches have already been adopted in at least three states Arizona, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania.

For these reasons, I support the Act's definition of driver.

In my written testimony, I also highlight one looming problem with the Act's implementation regarding private AVs.

But in the interest of time, I will stop here.

Overall, I support the act in its current form, largely because the other issues can be addressed down the road, so to speak.

Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Alright, thank you very much.

Next, we have Chris Bernays.

What do you want Drew to go first?

All right, sure.

All right.

Good morning, Chairperson Allen and members of the committee, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today on Bill 26-684, the Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026.

My name is Drew Laframbois.

I'm an attorney who has practiced and resided in the District of Columbia for more than a decade.

I'm testifying today in my capacity as president of the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., or the TLADC for short.

The TLADC is comprised of more than 500 members, all of whom advocate for victims of negligence and civil wrongdoing in the district, including those injured on DC roadways.

As an organization, the TLADC's top priority is ensuring that victims of negligence and their families have fair and equitable access to justice through our court system and appropriate recourse when they suffer loss at the hands of individuals and corporations who act unlawfully and unsafely.

We start from the recognition that autonomous vehicle technology is here.

AVs are present on our roads today, and we strongly assume, and I think safely assume that this technology will become more and more commonplace.

In the face of this rapidly advancing technology, we believe that it is the responsibility of this body to ensure that strong protections exist for all road users, drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians alike through public policy.

Chairperson Allen, we've worked closely with your office to ensure that this bill provides appropriate avenues of redress for victims of AV involved crashes, and we sincerely appreciate your commitment to this critical public safety issue.

In addition to ensuring that victims and their families have proper recourse, the bill needs robust and clear standards for determining when and how autonomous vehicles can take to our streets, and what guardrails should be in place to reduce instances of injury or death on DC streets.

For the purpose of determining civil liability for an AV involved crash, the TLADC has consistently held the position that the bill must make clear who is responsible for the behavior of an autonomous vehicle.

Public policymakers, researchers such as Professor Hubbard, and national groups such as the American Association for Justice agree, in order to ensure accountability when an autonomous vehicle violates the law and injures someone, AV companies must be considered drivers under the law.

In this bill, the autonomous driving system manufacturer is considered the driver of an AV for such purposes, a best practice that we fully support.

But from a public safety perspective, the TLADC believes that the bill is in need of some improvement.

And we want to point out two primary areas.

In the first instance, autonomous vehicles should be required unequivocally to follow all traffic safety laws to operate in the district.

It is crucial that the bill is explicit about this requirement.

To that end, the law should not settle for AVs being merely as safe as, quote, the human driver of average competence, unquote, an ambiguous standard that the bill references when defining what constitutes an unreasonable risk to public safety.

To set the bar so low is to normalize the high volume of crashes, road deaths, and serious injuries that we have today in the district.

It is to accept much less than the promise made to us by AV companies themselves, and such a standard needlessly puts human lives at risk.

We ask that the committee reconsider this language and make much clearer the safety expectations that we have for AVs in our community.

On the back end, a safety enforcement mechanism should be indispensable to this bill.

In our view, this legislation lacks appropriate enforcement and escalation for those AV companies that violate traffic laws in the district.

In the event of unsafe AV behavior, we recommend the creation of an escalation structure that provides clear warnings, opportunities for remediation, and ultimately cancellation of permits for those who refuse remediation or whose remediation is insufficient.

Specifically, we recommend an enforcement and accountability framework to include one, a formal review by an independent regulatory agency when violations cross a certain threshold or when serious violation occurs.

Two, suspending the permittees authorization when violations go uncorrected.

And three, revoking authorization when suspension fails to produce improvement.

My colleague Christopher Nace is prepared to testify about some of the TLA's TLADC's additional positions with respect to this bill, particularly with respect to the bill's liability framework.

In the meantime, I thank you again for your dedication to this issue and your work on this legislation.

I look forward to answering any questions you have.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Mr.

Nase?

Good afternoon, Chairperson Allen and members of the committee.

My name is Christopher Nase, and my law firm in town, NACE Law Group is a D.C.

based small business.

But today I'm here testifying as uh co-chair of the DC trial lawyers legislative committee.

Our organization represents attorneys who advocate for injured people and their families in the district's courts.

But in reality, our voice is for citizens of the district and victims of negligence.

We come to testify on matters that affect the safety of district families, and the issues before the committee today certainly impact safety.

So I want to be clear at the outset.

Our comments are limited to entirely to the liability framework that's in this bill.

What happens after an AV hurts someone?

When a human driver injures someone, the victim knows who to sue.

We have a license plate number, insurance card, you can get a police report within a few days.

AVs sort of remove uh the human from that equation.

And this bill needs to replace those basic building blocks of a lawsuit with equivalent or better tools.

In several respects, it does do that, the bill as it's drafted now.

Uh real insurance floor, a ban on forced arbitration for commercial riders and for privately owned AVs, a direct claims process against the manufacturer with a data-based presumption of engagement and no need to plead an uh awfully expensive product defect claim.

The framework that's contained in Section 3J, in other words, is what I'm referring to, and we think it does most of these things quite well.

I also want to talk about data transparency.

Attorneys who represent victims who have been injured through autonomous vehicles in states throughout the country where AVs are operating have reported spending years trying to access crash data because those states didn't include something that would require it at the time that they pass legislation.

This bill should require AV companies to submit the full unredacted federal standard general order data made available to the public.

Each vehicle should also carry a separate read-only sensor recorder capturing at least 30 seconds before any crash that can be retained until extracted by appropriate agencies and available to plaintiffs in litigation.

Third, insurance.

We are glad the bill sets a $5 million floor, but permit holders should also be required to carry $5 million in uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, since many AV riders don't own cars of their own and don't have any other policy to rely on.

Finally, data privacy and passenger safety.

A vehicle that collects this much information about where people go and what they do needs enforceable privacy protections.

We heard some questions and answers on this earlier today.

So that's something that we want to make sure is remains at the forefront of the committee's thoughts.

In some, the promise of AVs is still just that.

It is a promise.

We've heard similar promises before from other technology companies that eventually succumb to market pressures.

If the district is going to let autonomous vehicles operate, this committee should make sure the liability rules hold companies to these promises that they're making.

And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Excellent.

Thank you all very much.

Let's see here.

Professor Hubbard, let me start with you.

You actually joined one of our roundtables a couple of years ago on the same topic, and you talked about my recollection is right.

Resolve, how do you resolve the legal uncertainties regarding driver within the law?

So from your testimony, it sounds like this legislation largely is successful in resolving those issues.

Is that a fair characterization in terms of defining driver?

So the short answer is yes, and that's why I think that this is an act that should be enacted.

There is a looming problem with uh uh implementing the bill regarding uh private AVs, and that's because the enforcement mechanism heavily depends upon the SAE classification of the level of the vehicle.

But uh the problem is that determining the SAE level is fraught with all kinds of challenges.

Um to start, the SAE level cannot be determined through technological testing.

The same J 3016 standard that defines the levels also says uh, quote, as a practical matter, it is not possible to describe or specify a complete test which can be applied to a given ADS feature to conclusively identify or verify its level of driving automation.

In addition, a single AV might be level two in one context, like high speed traveling on a highway, and then level three in another context, like uh driving in a parking lot.

And that's why the SAE classifications refer to features, but the act refers here to the ADS itself as having a single level.

So it's not clear for the purpose of the act how you would categorize this.

Now, the act suggests that um AV manufacturers might self-certify, self-identify the SAE level of their vehicle.

And I think sometimes this will work very well.

When there's no human sitting behind a steering wheel, there's generally gonna be no dispute that this is a level four, level five vehicle subject to the regulatory regime of the act.

Where it gets harder is distinguishing between level two and level three.

So AV companies might assert to regulators that these privately owned vehicles in particular are only level two, thereby avoiding the regulatory structures of the act.

But those companies can then advertise those vehicles to consumers with uh terms that imply greater levels of autonomy, like self-driving or autonomous, something like that.

So, this this problem has been dubbed in the literature the level two loophole.

Uh now the act does limit the loophole by imposing fines on AV companies that do not register level three AVs, but the act doesn't address how D DOT would know which vehicles to go after for failure to register.

So additional provisions might be added to uh to address this problem.

For instance, California has a law that prohibits an auto company from marketing uh vehicles in a way that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the vehicles are AVs.

A similar provision could be added to the act.

Alternatively, the act could empower D DDOT to come up with regulations for identifying when a vehicle must be registered.

But to your initial point, despite these concerns, I think the act is um is like frankly like like groundbreaking, and I think it's an excellent piece of legislation.

I know there's a lot of moving parts that make it hard to identify whether it should be enacted as it's currently stands, but that core issue of liability, I think you've you've done a good job of.

Okay, thank you.

And I to your point then around private vehicles, then would the California, I don't know if you'd go as far as to say that's a model legislation on that, but that's it, I guess.

One, is there a model that you point to, or two, you would just point to the California example as just one way to get at the issue around um how a private AV is going to be advertised to a consumer.

Sure.

There's I think there's two ways I know of addressing this.

One is the California way.

Now, the California way might be um something that you can't simply redeploy in other jurisdictions, because what California law says explicitly is that uh marketing a conventional vehicle in a way that suggests to a reasonable person that it's an AV violates California uh consumer protection laws regarding uh deceptive advertisements.

So it it enlists a whole legal regime, and we would have to look to see if there's similar legal regimes in different jurisdictions to know whether or not that could be brought to uh the district.

Okay.

Another approach would be to focus on the substance here of reasonable beliefs of consumers.

You could simply cut through it and say that when there's a reasonable belief by a consumer that a vehicle operates as an autonomous vehicle, then it is subject to the required registration uh described in the act as level three or higher.

Okay.

And then complicating even further, um, there aren't that many car sales that actually take place in the district.

There's some, but the a good number of car sales to DC residents actually takes place in Virginia and Maryland, and as we've discovered, I can't write their laws.

Um let me turn, Mr.

Lafram Boys.

The we heard earlier testimony that uh criticize provisions in the bill banning forced arbitration as a condition of service.

If we were to knock that out, what would happen?

Why would that be bad?

Uh Mr.

Chairperson, I think that that would be deeply problematic.

I mean, it would effectively close the courthouse doors on victims of uh A V involved crashes.

And of course that's what um these companies seek to do.

They seek to limit their liability exposure here.

If there is forced arbitration, of course the uh the victim of negligence or their families, um, they are forced into a binding arbitration procedure.

Um they are uh they don't have the, they don't have access to the course, they don't have access to juries.

Um they get potentially limited discovery, if discovery at all.

Um, it becomes a much harder road to hoe in terms of um obtaining the equitable damages.

And we have the jury system in place for a reason.

Um, and it's a uh an evisceration in our view of the Seventh Amendment of the US constitution.

So we think, I mean, we if you really want me to do a full deep dive into the problems with mandatory arbitration, I can, but in in this particular bill, we think we got that on the record.

Right.

We we think it's we think it's fundamental that it uh that uh mandatory arbitration be um stay out of the uh the text.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Just want to make sure we got that on the record.

That's helpful.

Um you'd also testify that you felt like we needed to have clear language around the uh traffic safety laws have to be followed.

Um what I mean by that, and I think you were here, I asked our first panel for example, um, do you ever allow the autonomous vehicle to be programmed to exceed the speed limit?

Um, and I think both answers were, well, no.

Sorry.

Waymo said no, uh, except for in a safety-specific response.

Uh Tesla said, which was more concerning to me, um, depends on the flow of traffic.

Uh if people are going faster around it, it can exceed the speed limit, which seems like it's entirely counter to the purpose.

Um how do I draw the uh the reasonable if there is a uh safety maneuver that needs to be moved, right?

So the vehicle is trying to make the safest decision possible for its riders, passengers, or others, and it may need to have that temporary uh acceleration.

Do you have any feedback about how you draw or how do you write that in a defined way to allow for that discrete example, but also say at all other times, you cannot exceed the speed limit, or you have to follow traffic safety laws?

I uh Mr.

Chairperson, I think it's a a tricky uh tricky issue.

We're certainly happy to work with your office over the coming months on better defining um the the precise language.

I will say though, um, to the broader point, we see no reason why an autonomous vehicle outside of potentially an evasive maneuver to avoid injury or death would need to exceed the speed limit under any circumstance.

Agreed.

Um and and I did hear the uh the Tesla representative's testimony on that, and it it struck me as odd.

Um so um, but as to your more precise question about evasive safety maneuvers, um, first of all, and I don't have the DC traffic code in front of me, but I if if there's a maneuver to avoid um injury or death, um it may very well be in compliance with the law, um, as a as a practical matter.

But um beyond that, you know, like I said, I'll reiterate that we're we're more than willing to work with your office on on digging into that issue and coming up with some some really good precise uh definitive language on that.

Yeah, obviously uh we still have some work ahead of us uh in the weeks to come, but it we want to be as precise as possible.

For example, I said earlier, you can't just stop the AV in the middle of the bike lane.

Um at the same time, there's gonna be a reasonableness that we have to try to figure out because I think it is actually fairly reasonable that the vehicle would stop in a travel lane on a residential street in front of my house, uh, in the same way that I don't think twice about it if an Uber driver stops to let me out or let me in.

Um so fine-tuning that to where the reasonableness works, but also the legislation is precise enough to say what isn't isn't allowed, because technically uh double parking to uh out there in the middle of my residential street might not be uh in compliance with the safety law, right?

So, like we're gonna we're gonna have to spend some time working on that.

Um Mr.

Nase, you also talked about the full, say a little more about this full unredacted data.

Uh I think you were talking about uh an event of a collision or crash.

That's right.

We just want to make sure that when in fact there is an event or or a crash, uh, that victims have access to that data, that they don't have to jump through uh unbelievable hoops and and uh you know over hurdles to find out what the vehicle knows about that crash.

We know the data is collected, we know it's there, it shouldn't be held back.

Uh this also ties in a little bit with the question about um about arbitration and all the data collection in general.

The vehicles, we've heard testimony that they're you know 10 times safer, right?

90 94% safety.

Okay, then if that's the case, when there is something that goes wrong, let's share that information.

Uh and it should certainly be available to the victims, the people who are hurt in an accident, but by putting something, and this is the the arbitration part of it, arbitration proceedings are not open forums like court proceedings are.

So when we have uh the technology companies coming in and saying this is safer than people, this is safer, it's gonna make people safer, okay, fine, but when something may go wrong and does go wrong, and that's six percent of time, everybody ought to be able to have that data and information as to why and how, and then looking more globally, how often things are going wrong, how often people are being hurt.

So I just think that data sharing is one of the ways, and transparency is one of the ways you gain confidence in these vehicles.

Yeah, okay.

That's helpful, I appreciate it.

Um this round, but I want to note we've been joined by counselor Christina Henderson.

So, Councilman Henderson, let me turn to you, and um, we'll certainly tack on some additional time as well if you have an opening statement you'd like to make.

Um thank you, Chair Alan.

Um I don't have an opening statement.

I've been listening.

Uh I don't think you saw me before.

So you've asked a lot of the questions that I had for this group, but I I want to thank everybody for their testimony.

Um Mr.

Nase, I think it was you, or either it was either you or um Mr.

Lamfrombozi um who said that you felt like the bill was good, but that there were some things that were missing.

Um can you say a little bit more about that?

I don't think I heard you say like what were the two or three things additional that you wanted to see?

Uh council member Henderson, this is uh Drew LaFramboise.

It was actually um me who um raised those two issues.

And and I'll just briefly um restate both of them.

You know what one issue that we think um needs some some better uh precision um is um defining explicitly that or stating explicitly that AVs are required to comply with all traffic laws in the district, which goes to that's what I think.

Yeah, and specifically, if I may specifically that we have a problem with the definition of an unreasonable risk to public safety, which is used throughout the throughout the bill.

Um, and that is defined as um something lower than quote the average driver of the huge I'm sorry quote the human driver of average competence.

That's what's used in the bill to define an unreasonable risk to public safety and and that's really that that definition is really so vague as to kind of be without meaning.

Um, and we don't know how you would apply it in the first instance, but also we should expect more out of our AVs.

Um, that they not just be better than the average driver um or the average competent driver or whatever the the term is, but that they comply with all traffic laws.

And if they don't, there need to be repercussions.

Um so that is really that that's the first issue.

And then on the back end, we we do think there needs to be a better uh and clearer tiered enforcement mechanism to make sure that when um AVs fail to comply with traffic laws and there should be a record of all of those failures, that there be um that there be uh repercussions.

Um and we've put out, and and this is in my written testimony as well, but we've put out kind of a a three-tiered framework for what that might look like, and we're certainly happy to work with the committee on on more detailed uh language.

So when you say repercussions though, so so for instance, right, we have automated traffic enforcement.

So if there was a situation where you had an A V that ran a red light or happened to be going over the speed limit, they would the company would still receive a ticket, they have uh a license plate.

You're suggesting something more than what a um typical driver would face?

Certainly uh under this technology there should be no reason that the AV runs a red light.

There does they should be designed not to run a red light.

So if they're running a red light, that shows us that something is is wrong with that AV.

Um and I think it's incumbent on the district to figure out what that is.

So what that would mean is um a formal review um to figure out what happened immediately, a suspension of that AV on DC roadways, and if there is determined to be a significant problem um or a systemic problem with that A V or that A V company, a potential revocation of the permit.

Got it.

Okay.

Um Councilmember Allen or Chair Allen rather, um, I know that uh we're running a little bit behind.

So those are all the immediate questions that I have uh for this panel.

Thank you, everyone.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Councilman Henderson.

And I think to that last point, part of the we can sort of take a look at it, because the legislation uh in many places, we're trying to figure out where does the legislation become very prescriptive, and then where do we try to give discretion to the Department of Transportation to lay out what that looks like.

And there's some elements where a AV permit, obviously, based on safety track record, can be suspended and can be uh uh essentially revoked.

But we'll we'll take a look at this afterwards to make sure that if the language again is as precise as it can be.

Want to give some flexibility to the agency to be able to set their parameters and not be overly prescriptive on on some elements, but we'll work on that too.

So thank you all very much.

Uh I appreciate everyone in this panel.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, let me turn to our next panel of witnesses.

I have Kelly Mack, who's a member of the DC Multimodal Accessibility Advisory Council.

Heidi Case, the co-founder of the DMV Disability Senior Community Meeting.

C.T.

Tyson, Government Affairs liaison with the Disability Rights education and defense fund, CEO Brady, executive director with the National Council on Independent Living.

And Coffee Ato, public witness, and I apologize if I mispronounced that.

All right, so I see that Kelly Mack is here.

Heidi Case, I'm sorry, what's your name?

All right, CT is here.

Is Theo Brady or Okay, Theo's online?

And then Kafu Atoa.

Also online.

Okay, great.

All right.

So we've got three people in person and two on Zoom for this panel.

So Kelly Mack, we will start with you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

My name is Kelly Mack.

I am a disabled DC resident who uses a power wheelchair, and I'm a member of the Multimodal Accessibility Advisory Council, or MAC, which advises DC on improving transportation accessibility.

Like the majority of disabled people, I do not drive, and I rely on publicly available transportation services, including cabs and ride chairs.

For years, I have spoken about the many persistent problems with on-demand wheelchair accessible vehicle or wave service and recommendations for improvements.

Disabled people are generally enthusiastic about the potential for transportation safety and accessibility promised by autonomous vehicles.

However, we must learn from the example of ride share deployment in DC more than 10 years ago.

That bill had no wave minimum requirements, and when ride chair operators entered DC, the already limited number of waves declined even more.

Unfortunately, there is no example in history where an entity has voluntarily offered to make their transportation services accessible.

The only approach that has ever worked is through mandates, either legislatively or through costly and lengthy litigation.

Federal and multiple DC laws already support the legal standard of full accessibility and equity that is yet to be experienced by disabled people seeking on-demand transportation.

Following years of persistent outreach from disabled advocates, there's no credible excuse for AV companies to say they were unaware or unprepared.

What has been missing is the will of A B companies to adopt inclusive design practices that would accommodate all customers, including those with disabilities.

A V companies will not voluntarily adopt accessibility, so it must be mandated.

The MAC sent a letter advising that any legislation permitting A V deployment must include accessibility requirements and warned against permitting referral to another service.

Essentially, AV companies are asking they be allowed to violate existing law and refer disabled customers to the same exact providers that their business model aims to replace.

The growth of inaccessible waves will lead directly to the destruction of the already meager number operating here.

The MAC recommended two concepts be included in the AV legislation.

A requirement for compliance with non-discrimination laws that specifically names disabled people, and a requirement that all AV service operators must provide accessible service directly, including wave minimums that scale up over time with enforceable milestones.

The MAC also recommended DC agencies granted oversight, regularly engage with disabled stakeholders, and that legislation explicitly permit and encourage pilots of automated transit buses and shuttles.

To achieve comprehensive AV accessibility for disabled people, four categories must be added to the bill.

One, wheelchair accessible vehicles for loading and secure.

Two, installing accessible human-machine interfaces.

Three, detecting and responding appropriately to diverse disabled pedestrians, and four protecting the safety of disabled riders and pedestrians.

A more comprehensive list was included in my written testimony.

Disabled advocates are rightfully concerned about legislation allowing AV service without baseline accessibility requirements because it is repeating the calamitous historical mistakes that have resulted in slow or no adoption of transportation accessibility.

To be blunt, 36 years following the Americans with Disabilities Act, separate and unequal transportation service for disabled people is just not acceptable.

DC council has a vital role to play here, and we welcome further engagement and discussion to make this legislation optimal for our city's needs.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next let me turn it to Heidi Case.

Good morning, council member Alan and Henderson and NADU staff.

My name's Heidi Case.

I'm a person with a disability, and part of my story, like many people with disabilities, is I particularly moved in to a DC and cities, people with disabilities do because of the accessibility options that cities provide, particularly around public transportation.

Even a uh DC is even a greater hub for that because the federal government for such a long time has employed so many people with disabilities and the equity that uh is required around that, so there is an even higher population of people with disabilities in cities.

Part of my work is I did that as a disabled person to ensure as I came here and realized I have been a member of Metro's Accessibility Advisory Committee during the period of time when transport DC accessible taxi programs.

I have been a part of the DFHV Accessibility Advisory Committee for 10 years, chaired it on and off, and I have chaired the MAC for several years also.

So this is my work and what I do and reiterate some of Kelly's point.

Clessy versus Ferguson over a hundred years ago said separate but equal was okay.

It's not coincidental that was about public transportation in trains.

Civil rights legislation has gone through the public transportation, the bus boycott in the 60s, all of that.

And the I was part of the initially named defendant against the Uber lawsuit.

Unfortunately, this is deja vu all over again with what happened when TNCs came into DC and there were no accessibility requirements on them, that Uber legis uh lawsuit, and they did exactly what Waymo is suggesting referred to taxis, and they lost that lawsuit because testing proved that people wait paid twice as much and waited five to six times as long.

Sorry, resolution to that lawsuit was has required Uber under their own company, under their app, they provide wheelchair accessible vehicles and hire staff to drive them.

That's a way they provide equity, and that way you can match time, weights, costs, et cetera.

So let's avoid all of that and put some of those requirements in legislation.

At this point, separate but equal ain't and never has been.

Exactly what the history and DFHV has the data to prove.

As we had such robust wheelchair accessible taxis after transport DC TNCs came in, and ever since then, number of wheelchair taxis on DC streets has dropped and dropped and dropped.

They're required to provide monthly data on how many.

Now, yes, there was legislation about a percentage, and you question them.

Here in DC, that was 20%.

The thing is, do you allow that 20% to be met by taxis sitting in garages with no drivers and never on the streets?

So that actually, if you want a percentage, I was in New York City for Pride.

United Spinals sued them 50%, or wheelchair taxis.

I hailed a taxi on the street.

They have a wheelchair symbol on the front of the taxi.

You can see when it's coming, and be able to do that.

So there are some models to make this better.

I will have to put in my that the disability community, the ADA is history of the blind and wheelchair drivers and wheelchair communities disagreeing on curb cuts and quickly blind said.

Well, all of them were going to end up in the street and die.

Wheelchair says we have to have it.

The bump, what I call bumpy domes was the solution.

There are solutions where both our communities win and have access and safety.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much.

Next, let me turn to CT Tyson.

Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to testify on the eve of the 36th anniversary of the American Disabilities Act.

My name is CT Tyson.

I am a white person with short hair and amputee and a crutch user.

I am the government affairs liaison for the disability rights education and defense fund, or DREDIF.

I am also a former chair 2014 to 2016 of the Department of Ford Higher Vehicles Accessibility Advisory Committee.

So here during the early Uber years, and a proud ward for district resident.

DREDF is a national civil rights law and policy center directed by individuals with disabilities and parents who have children with disabilities.

Our mission is to advance the civil and human rights of all people with disabilities.

My colleagues are based in the Bay Area in Los Angeles, so we have extensive experience with AVs and AV policy.

Dr.

F demonstrated an early interest in the development of A V policy and its drafting of the 2015 National Council on Disability Report, self-driving cars, mapping access to a technology revolution.

We've participated in three days of AV accessibility workshops in 2019, hosted by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an organization preceding the Alliance for Automotive Innovation with government, industry, and disability stakeholders and U.S.

Department of Transportation and US Department of Labor listening sessions and an entire year of the US DOT Transforming Transportation Advisory Committee.

Policymakers in the AV industry have acknowledged and discussed the need for AVs to be fully accessible for more than a decade, though little progress has been made.

In 2022, DREDIF published a brief on addressing disability and ableist bias and autonomous vehicles.

There has been modeling and anecdotes of AVs failing to stop when they encounter a wheelchair or service animal user.

AV software is trained to detect people outside the vehicle with sets of data that are often not inclusive, as was mentioned earlier, of uh people with darker skin tones, but also of many people with disabilities, including wheelchair users.

We urge this committee to consider the following in a future version of the bill.

First, and just because this was said on the previous panel, we fully support uh mandatory or forced arbitration appearing nowhere in this bill.

Please, I see it.

I work on federal policy and transportation.

It just doesn't work.

It's not good for our community.

Please do not do that.

Um clear accessibility requirements and standards for A V operators in the district should be set, including minimum numbers of wheelchair accessible AVs in an operators' fleet in the future.

To qualify for a permit, because I understand this is a tiered sort of system, operators must adopt zero tolerance anti-discrimination policies, citing the DC Human Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act.

This is already acquired for TNCs.

Commit to providing equitable, safe and accessible service to all district residents and visitors, have in place wheelchair accessible service options, report to DDOT and the Department of Four Hire Vehicles documenting the numbers of accessible ride requests, rides fulfilled, wait times, and days of time for each, as well as comparable data for inaccessible rides requested to ensure equitable service is provided.

Report to DDOT and DFHB crash and near crash data involving people with disabilities, including damage to mobility devices and repair efforts, and provide proof of successful testing for detection and response to a variety of people with disabilities.

At the outset, while they're here, to qualify to increase their fleet sizes.

Operators should include them their comprehensive plan that includes safety and equity already, when and how they will ensure the human machine interface in their vehicles is fully accessible for all people with disabilities, and the required number of vehicles are accessible for wheelchair users and automated securement provided.

Regular reporting to and interactions with the DFHV Accessibility Advisory Committee and the MAC, response to recommendations, requirements, and ongoing consultation.

Failure to comply with these policies and their provision of equitable service should result in suspension of a permit.

In addition, tech companies providing transportation service still require are still required by law to ensure equitable service is available for all disabled people.

They should not be rewarded with partnerships with MATA.

They should not be rewarded for cherry picking and providing service to the easiest people to serve.

I see I'm out of time, so thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony.

Thank you very much.

Next, let me turn to Theo Brady, who's online, I believe.

I'm not able to come off camera.

There you go.

There we go.

We can both see and hear you whenever you're ready, sir.

Awesome, thank you.

I do appreciate the fact that you all made these accommodations for me to provide comment.

I'm providing comments and support of the uh 260684, the autonomous vehicle deployment authorization act of 2026.

My name is Steel.

The O W.

Braddy.

I'm the executive director of the National Council on Independent Living.

Uh my video description uh for those who might need it.

I'm a black man with a bald head with a salt and pepper beard blue glasses, and I'm a seafool clause of collegic who uses a complex or rise wheelchair.

Chairman Allen and members of the committee.

I am here again to support this legislation.

Uh the National Council on Independent Living, the oldest national cross Disabilities Grassroots Organization representing people with disabilities, and a nation network of Centers for Independent Living and statewide Independent Living councils appreciate the opportunity to submit comments in support of this particular legislation.

For people with disabilities, transportation has never been simple about getting from one place to the other.

It's about independence, employment, health care, education, civil engagement, and the fundamental civil rights to participate fully in community life.

But that case, inaccessible or unreliable transportation, has remained one of the greatest barriers to achieving the promise of the American with Disability Act, 36th anniversary coming up.

We believe this legislation represents an important step towards removing those barriers.

The National Council of Independent Living supports the bill through thoughtful approach to creating a commercial autonomous vehicle program within the district.

The phase deployment of autonomous vehicles combined with requirements related to safety, emergency response planning, continuity operation, equitable access throughout the eight wars, and accessible rider interface, demonstrate a commitment to ensuring that the innovation and the public safety advances together.

These provisions provide a strong framework for responsible deployment while recognizing the importance of accessibility from the onset.

Autonomous vehicle technology has the potential to transform transportation for millions of Americans.

It can be a game changer.

No doubt about it.

Waymo's existing services has already demonstrated in other states meaningful benefits for a broad cross-section of the disability community, including people who are blind, low vision, people who are deaf, hard of hearing, individuals who use and can walk, use canes, walkers, crushes, and other walking aids, and many other disabilities that traditionally transportation were very difficult or inconsistent or inaccessible.

Many riders, autonomous transportation providers, something that cannot be measured simply in miles travel.

It provides freedom, dignity, privacy, and predictability.

That is so important to people with disabilities.

The District of Columbia is uniquely positioned to become the national leader in accessible autonomous transportation.

Washington is not only home with federal government, but also serve as the main national center for disability policy, advocacy, civil rights leaders, leadership, and so forth.

Every year, thousands of people with disabilities travel to the district to participate in Congress, meet federal agendas, attend medical appointments, engage in national organizations.

In addition, Washington hosts a national disability conference that we put on every year that bring in thousands of people with disabilities, including policymakers and international guests from out of this country.

Reliable, accessible, autonomous transportation has the potential to dramatically improve the experience of these visitors.

Nickel also recognized, and this is important, that Waymo's commitment to engaging directly with disability communities throughout the development of services.

Waymo has established an accessibility advisory network made up of individuals with diverse disabilities who provide ongoing feedback regarding accessibility, usability, rider experience, and continuous improvement.

Nickel believes that this proposed act provides an opportunity for the district to build upon this model successfully.

Accordingly, Nickel strongly recommends, and I I can't say how important this is, that the council include language directing the district department of transportation to establish a permanent accessibility advisory committee to advise uh DDOT and other commercial autonomous vehicles operators on accessibility issues related to the autonomous transportation.

Now, you will hear from local individuals with disabilities today, just like you have just heard from Carol Tyson, providing much needed comments on who should be invited to be a member of this essential local advisory committee.

I can't employ you enough.

How important to have that kind of feedback?

I have heard many of you participants here today, use the term all.

It's a major effort, uh, uh Councilman Allen.

But one of the things we cannot do is to continually to leave out folks who are wheelchair users and motorized wheelchair users.

Yeah, thank you.

It is just too important.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, and next let me turn to Kafui Atoa.

And if I mispronounced that, please correct me.

It's Cafe, but I'm I'm used to it.

So um, so good good afternoon, uh, Chairperson Allen and members of the committee.

Um, first, let me say thank you for the opportunity to offer this testimony.

Um, my name is Cafe.

I am a professor of urban studies at the City University of New York, and for more than a decade, along with my colleagues Katie Wells and Declan Cullen, who couldn't be here.

Um, my research is focused on the relationship between urban platforms, transportation, and how cities govern emerging technology.

So, this very issue.

Um, this research, just uh to do a shameless plug, has yielded two books, disrupting DC, the rise of Uber, and the fall of the city, um, as well as rights and transit public transportation and the right to the city in California's East Bay.

Um, I should start by saying um that I do appreciate the effort that has gone into crafting this legislation.

The bill reflects in some ways a thoughtful attempt to regulate an emerging technology.

With that said, however, I urge the council to reconsider to go back to it.

Um the question is not whether autonomous vehicles can be regulated, but whether their commercial deployment advances the district's public policy goals.

Uh the district should first be cautious, and um this was already covered by um uh uh CT Tyson and Kelly Mack about claims of accessibility.

Well, uh AVs are frequently promoted as expanding the mobility options for older adults and disabled people.

Accessibility is of course more than the ability to request a ride, true accessibility requires reliable wheelchair accessible vehicles, affordable services, equitable geographic coverage, and the integration with existing paratransit and public transit systems.

The district has yet to demonstrate that commercial AV operators can meet these obligations at scale or that they will improve upon existing ADA services.

Accessibility should not be assumed simply because a vehicle is autonomous or because a company claims uh as much.

More broadly, we question whether autonomous vehicles are really the answer to the district's broader transportation priorities.

These priorities include improving metro reliability, expanding bus service, building safer pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and ensuring equitable transportation access across all eight wards.

Commercial autonomous vehicles address few of these priorities directly.

Instead, they risk diverting public attention, and this is the bigger issue, and regulatory capacity toward a technology whose principal beneficiaries may be private firms rather than district residents.

Of course, we've seen this movie before, and it's actually a movie we've written about in our book Disrupting DC over a decade ago.

Ride hailing platforms transform the city.

But since then they have fulfilled few of their early promises to reduce inequality, solve transit issues, or serve all wards.

As autonomous vehicles emerge, we should not uh repeat um the same cycle in which technological change is celebrated while its economic and social costs are externalized onto workers and vulnerable communities.

Um the question, therefore, is not whether autonomous vehicles can be safely introduced under a permitting framework.

The question is whether commercial deployment by one of the largest tech firms in the world is sufficiently aligned with the kind of broader goals of equity, accessibility, and democratic accountability and sustainability to justify authorizing their operation at this time.

Um I and my colleagues, um, you know, we uh uh I still need to be persuaded.

Um, once commercial deployment begins, uh the district streets, and this is a topic I think that came up in an earlier uh panel, um, discussion, uh, become part of a privately operated mobility platform where owners have proven like Google have proven to be less than politically scrupulous.

It is not hard to imagine how AVs could be become roaming surveillance systems, um, and under the current um political climate, that's incredibly scary.

Um, the district has every right and indeed every responsibility uh to ask whether this technology solves problems that its residents actually face before opening its streets to commercial deployment.

Um, so I'll end my comments there.

Um thank you for the time and I'll submit the the written record into into the um written uh testimony into the record.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it and thanks to everybody on this panel.

Um, let me go through a couple of questions.

Um I might start Kelly Mack and Heidi Case and CT Tyson with you since you're just right here in front of me.

Um, when I asked the question to the earlier panel of our AV operators, so um uh Waymo in particular, the distinction that was interesting, I thought was Tesla talked about well, we're working on a purpose-built vehicle.

When I talked about ensuring greater uh wheelchair accessible vehicles, Waymo's answer was, well, we're the technology company, we don't actually make the vehicles.

Um I don't disagree, like they're they don't make the vehicles, but we wrote into law a requirement around taxicabs.

The taxicab driver didn't make the vehicle either.

Um, so I'm not sure that's good enough of a reason to say, well, we you can't say you've got to have a better representation within your fleet.

Um, what were your reactions when you when you heard that?

And do you see parallels to the conversations and the fights we had previously around accessibility with our taxicab fleet?

Yes, it is a direct parallel.

I can't believe I have to live this again.

Please, can we have a different response by the district?

I am begging you.

I think Heidi can attest.

I was in the motion to dismiss uh hearing during the Uber lawsuit where Heidi was the plaintiff, and now Supreme Court Justice Kotenji Brown Jackson was the judge.

And they said the Uber lawyers said we are just a tech company, and uh you we provide Uber Eats.

We should never have to comply with the ADA.

I have never been more happy to see a judge's jaw drop.

It was amazing.

And I was a fan ever since.

But it has been shown in court that that's not gonna hold up.

And I'd ask you to please require them to do it because otherwise it's putting the onus on my community to have to litigate.

And we we don't have the money, we don't have the time, and we're getting beat up on all sides by the federal government and now just feeling very left out and invisible in all of this.

So yes, no, they absolutely have a responsibility.

It's in law.

They know it, it's been litigated in the courts.

We have been talking about this in rooms with them, as I mentioned, for a decade, and they have admitted that they are obligated.

So that's my not short answer.

Exactly.

I mean, that's exactly what TNC said.

We're technology, not that, and there hasn't been a single court case where that stood up.

DC is not the only place that has taken Uber, for example, to court to force this.

And as I mentioned, the option then is yeah, the settlement of that is they are buying wheelchair accessible vehicles, paying drivers, and that's part of their whole service.

But sending it to another is simply not, and the biggest thing just to say again, the problem is Kelly said it beautifully, they're taking the jobs from the accessible vehicles.

Wheelchair drivers, we uh their whole, they're for the job to be viable, then they take people who aren't, and AVs and TNCs took those jobs away.

And that's why it limited, they're actually it doesn't stay the same, even what we have, and that's the concerning thing.

Okay, thank you.

Um, this question is my own ignorance.

Um, is there a are we aware of a wheelchair accessible vehicle where it does not require a human operator?

What I'm getting is I've I've had some people say, Well, um, you want to have a uh a driver because that driver can help assist with getting in and out of the vehicle, um, if the uh the wheelchair or other devices need to be stored in a certain way, an autonomous vehicle doesn't obviously have the other person there.

Is there just my own ignorance?

Is there a vehicle that anybody is aware of where that doesn't require another person?

If it may.

Okay, go ahead.

So I would look to uh May Mobility.

Uh they provide they have provided sort of shuttle A V service for folks quite some time, and and they're I hold them up as a standard of a company who um recognize their need to uh commit and provide accessible service.

So they do have A B shuttles that um that don't require a driver and are wheelchair accessible.

Um a purpose built versus retrofitted, that that's been the ongoing conversation for decades, including in the taxi in the TNC space.

Um we'd love to see a purpose built.

Companies, various operators have committed to, and then we've seen the plans fall apart when leadership or accessibility teams have changed or left over and over again.

So I think it re it's gonna, as Kelly said, it's gonna have to be required for it to actually happen.

Um we might have one company that says like Tesla, like we have something in the works, but that doesn't mean that any of the other companies are gonna do it.

So it's it's really important.

And um we do.

I know uh Heidi talked about our experience in New York City.

We know we have accessible taxis and THCs in Europe.

Um so it is it is possible, it just it really has to be required and force them to put the money into it.

And then Mr.

Brady, I'm gonna come to you just one second.

I see your hands up.

Um, one other question, and then I'll we'll pull in Mr.

Brady here as well.

Um from your perspective, does the vehicle, would a vehicle have to be autonomous, or is it more that the fleet operator has to have a fleet of vehicles that could actually be a subset of their vehicles, have a human driver in it, and the uh is providing that wheelchair access vehicle.

Like, like is that a distinction without a difference?

Like we curiously.

There is a distinction, and we need both.

We need the first and the outset, the human direct, because they don't have a wheelchair accessible AV right now with the automated secure, and there's a secure red coalition, and I believe somebody is gonna be testifying about that later today, so you can ask Kent more when he talks.

Um, I don't I don't want to steal his letter.

Um so that if the companies are coming, they should be required, absolutely required to provide at least the the driver wheelchair accessible service with the driver.

They can't come in and provide an accessible service.

That's just it's um they're violating the law, quite honestly.

Um, but they need to be at least doing that.

But whether or not AVs are equitable, we'd say they're they're not.

Um if you are, and this is why we're really asking you to get them to report on the wait times and service availability, because if they're the relying on a drive a driver, is that gonna be available 24-7 like you would with an unmanned AV?

I'd say probably not.

Um are the wait teams gonna wait times gonna be the same?

Probably not.

But if AVs are also supposed to be safer, safer for people outside the vehicle, safer for passengers inside the vehicle, then why are we not requiring that for wheelchair users as well?

Um, I really hope that the district will take this opportunity to ensure that same level, that same quality of service across the board.

Okay.

And let me turn to Mr.

Brady before my time runs out here.

Mr.

Brady, yeah.

Uh thank you.

Um I do agree with what we just said, it it's gonna require both.

But I was working with a company called Cruise, and they they stopped work on a wheelchair accessible vehicle simply because uh it was a regulation that required uh a steering wheel, uh, and they couldn't get past that.

Um but they had developed a uh uh wheelchair accessible autonomous vehicle.

Uh and because it had so much problem in DC in regard to regulations, and we got to that one particular thing, and we got to have a steering wheel missing, um, but they ran into roadblock.

I will add to this.

Uh uh autonomous vehicles are coming, whether we we want to admit to it or not.

And it's important for us to do it to do it the right way and be on the right side of history.

I see so many times be people being on the wrong side of history when it comes to this.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Um and then uh uh Mr.

Brady, one more question for you.

It's possible I didn't hear your testimony the right way, but I think I heard you recommending that DDOT needs to have a permanent advisory committee on accessibility issues, and I guess I was kind of trying to understand we have the Mac, and is were you recommending something different than what we have?

I just wonder I didn't quite follow what your recommendation was there.

Yeah, if you write into it that they should use the Mac, then that I'm pretty sure that was what be okay, but it gotta be in it.

You gotta get feedback from the people that these programs and company are desired uh design to use.

That's helpful.

I didn't understand that I now I understand what your recommendation was.

I didn't I don't think I followed it the first time.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um thank you very much.

And then Ms.

Case, you pointed out even though we have a law that says uh what the percentage of vehicles needs to be, we uh you're flagging for us that doesn't mean that's the number of vehicles that are in the fleet in operation on the street that could count as a vehicle that's just in a garage somewhere, right?

Yes, the way it is.

If the company has to have that many vehicles, and it's only required of companies in the legislation, by the way.

I wanna add also about service hours are much more limited.

You can get a a wave during the day, but say you go out to dinner on a show, good luck.

So I think that's another thing as far as service requirements that we need to be looking at for AVs, that it's the same hours, the same wait times, that kind of thing.

All right.

So you didn't buy the argument that um Waymo's or autonomous vehicles are gonna free up the other accessible vehicles.

That's not what happens.

The drivers leave because they can't make the money, the trip limits.

That is a 2013 argument.

It's quite dated.

Okay.

I mean, this is a space where we have a lot of work to do.

Um, I think we've got some uh some time, obviously, in the next couple of weeks to and months to kind of really work with you, work at the Mac, work with others.

Um I know, and thank you for hosting the conversation um just last week that uh my committee director was able to join.

Um, so we'll stay engaged on that as well.

So thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Council member chairman.

I just I had this to bring.

I brought with it, I have it on my own.

It's a be fear sticker, and in these days with big money's impact on policy and politics.

I call for all of us to be fierce, and I would like to give that to you because you are and have been, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

All right, I'm gonna uh call our next panel of witnesses.

Just give us a moment too as we transition over the witness table.

But for our next panel, I've got Connor Cummings, who's with the ARC of Northern Virginia, Claire Stanley, who's the director of advocacy and government affairs, the American Council of the Blind.

Kent Kaiser, a policy fellow with the United Spinal Association, Scott Thornhill, executive director with the American Council of the Blind, and Anna Torres Davis, Executive Director with the National Council on Disability Independent Federal Agency.

All right.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Uh Connor Cummings.

Okay.

We've got to have you uh go first, and then after that, we'll go to Claire Stanley.

And then after that, um, do I have Kent Kaiser here?

Might have a couple of folks that are online too.

So uh Mr.

Cummings, we'll start with you.

My name is Connor Cummings.

I am a self-advocate, proud to be autistic, and I representing the Ark of Norbert, Virginia.

I fought a lot of this with my mom, an autonomous vehicles.

Here are some main reasons why this technology is so important to me in my community.

I am so excited for an AV as we match up your needs for understanding the unexpected surroundings and responding quickly and appropriately.

One, better mobility.

People like me who can't drive will be able to get around much easier.

Two, predictable and competable.

Many autistic individuals will feel far more comfortable inside a vehicle where we don't have to share space or change your driving them free, broad benefits.

A Vs won't just support people with disabilities, they will also be a lifeline for seniors who can no longer drive.

Four, greater independence.

This technology will provide massive independence for people who are blind, as well as those with night blindness who can safely navigate the day, but lose their freedom after dark.

Five, new opportunities.

Personally, I will feel an incredible sense of independence because an AV will give you the freedom to go anywhere I want.

Six safety first, autonomous cars will get me to my destination safely.

Seven, no fear of getting loss.

I wouldn't have to worry about losing my way or getting disoriented.

Eight, fewer human errors.

I truly feel AVs will be safer for regular cars because they eliminate drunk driving, human errors, and not an unpredictable driver, my emotions.

Ensuring implementation, mentioned under safety first.

This autonomous vehicle opens a feature for so many of us.

I also have a few final thoughts and suggestions or develop developers should consider.

AAC integration.

Would the vehicle understand augmented and alternative communication?

Well, many individuals use apps or devices to speak.

The vehicles interface and the passenger's AAC device must be fully accessible and compatible with each other.

But AV can listen to a person in a vehicle, no matter how we speak with AAC typing over mouth, also include wheelchair accessible vehicles.

Environmental impact, because they are these are electric cars, they will provide cleaner air for our communities.

Communicate community training.

My mom and I can even how train.

Please and thank you, Connor.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Cummings.

Next, let me turn to Claire Stanley.

Yep, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here this afternoon.

My name's Claire Stanley, and I'm the Director of Advocacy and Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind.

The American Council of Their Blind, or ACB, is the nation's leading uh member driven organization of and for individuals who are blind or have low vision.

Founded in 1961 and comprised of over 65 state and special interest affiliates, ACB strives to increase the independence security, equality of opportunity, and to improve the quality of life for people who are blind or have low vision, including our thousands of members.

Our national office is located right here in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, and we routinely travel to Washington DC to carry out advocacy work on Capitol Hill Hill or with the numerous federal agencies.

Transportation remains one of the biggest barriers for persons who are blind or have low vision.

Because our community cannot drive, we're dependent on alternative forms of transportation.

If a person does not have access to transportation, they can't perform essential tasks like traveling to work, accessing medical care, or engaging in community activity.

Imagine if you needed medical treatment, but you couldn't access it because you had no way to get there.

But autonomous vehicles will offer an invaluable form of transportation for persons who are blind or who have low vision.

This form of transportation will help to erode the access barriers that so many of us face because of transportation issues.

Many members of the disability community applaud the metro system for being one of the most accessible systems in the United States.

However, its reach is limited.

There are still portions of the district that the Metro Rail does not reach to.

Additionally, the hours of operation are limited.

Access to autonomous vehicles around the clock and in all parts of the district will be another form of transportation option.

The more options we have, the more mobility we can have.

Additionally, blind persons who use guide dogs to travel around the city are repeatedly denied access to rideshare companies.

As a person who has a guide dog myself, she's right under their table.

Excuse me, access because of my guide dog.

Both federal law and rideshare policies prohibit such denials, but regardless of the laws.

And I was repeatedly denied rides by the drivers.

One of the most ironic and hurtful rideshare denial took place right in front of the Supreme Court of the United States.

But with autonomous vehicles, there's no driver to say no.

I can travel confidently in an autonomous vehicle, knowing that no human being can say no and violate my rights to ask access transportation.

To learn more about my experience, you can read the Washington Post op-ed that was published on December 5th, 2025.

Finally, the freedom offered to persons who are blind or have low vision through autonomous vehicles cannot be understated.

As an adult who could never drive, the first time I took an autonomous vehicle in Phoenix, I experienced freedom.

I was in a vehicle all by myself.

I had an I had autonomy.

I did not have to deal with drivers who would deny me because of my guide dog.

I did not have to drive with the deal uh driver who made me uncomfortable because of the things he said to me.

When AVs come to the district, I will have the resource that will give me autonomy, freedom, safety, and peace.

Blind individuals will have more transport transportation options, and the more readily available we have with different tran uh options will be uh more safe and likely to uh and likely not to receive ride denials, excuse me.

I urge you to uh approve this legislation that will bring a visa to the District of Columbia.

The more options a blind and low vision community have to access trans accessible transportation, the more involved we can become in the our community.

This is a tool we can use to be more independent and engage in the essential activities of life.

So please move forward with this legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Miss Stanley.

Uh, next we're turned to Kent Kaiser who's joining us online.

After that, we'll turn to Scott Thornhill.

Mr.

Kaiser, if you can hear me whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, Council members.

The United Spinal Association represents our nation's 5.5 million wheelchair users in their quality of life issues, like transportation.

We fully support autonomous vehicle deployment, the testing, even the deployment of commercial operations.

Every A V mile travel adds to the body of AV safety knowledge.

We take it as an article of faith that wheelchair accessible AVs are earnestly being developed by industry.

We are speeding up that day with our Secure Ride Coalition's work on automated wheelchair securement, which we would be happy to share with you in greater detail.

We urge you to consider including the following components in a future version of the bill.

Please incorporate zero tolerance anti-discrimination policies, citing the DC Human Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

As you know, the district is not an island until itself.

We urge you to work in tandem with Virginia, Maryland, and the Council of Governments on our community and our community to ensure seamless regional AV legislation for the DMV.

As a decades-old commuter myself from Northern Virginia, almost 20 years as a wheelchair user, there are only two things I don't like about the district.

Getting there and getting out of there.

AVs can change that.

And with the district's challenging street configuration, the DMV is a proud location to demonstrate to the world how AVs can improve people's lives.

Those challenging streets also mean that safe, accessible, reliable, and on demand pickup and drop off drop off spots need to break ground well in the last decade.

And please forget the idea that accessibility is just for wheelchair guys or folks with disabilities.

Accessibility serves absolutely everyone.

Conduct the needs assessment with AD operators, tech companies, and us on accessible infrastructure and public rides away, such as sidewalks, curb cuts, and pickup and drop off spots.

The place I'm almost always dropped off or picked up at our office on L Street Northwest is the entrance and exit of a parking garage.

How safe is that, considering the district has almost 37,000 people with ambulatory uh difficulties, respectfully, you have more work to do.

Sorry.

That's okay, take your time.

Okay, thank you.

The district must build an infrastructure to address the statistic that wheelchair users are approximately 36% more likely to die in traffic collisions compared to the general pedestrian population.

Importantly, when our AV arrives, we must be able to safely identify it and communicate with it.

Once we are moving, we require complete access to any features available to the able bodied, the human machine interface.

And in the event of an emergency, there must be redundant ways for us to be safely evacuated.

In fact, require AV operator access and safety plans.

And at a minimum, and prior to major deployment, establish a program that's transparent for the public on how any incidents with an AV entering or harming disabled pedestrians or riders and/or their service animal, mobility devices, wheelchairs or scooters, et cetera, will be processed, compensated, and a time frame for doing so.

In lieu of the current lack of wheelchair accessible AVs, please help ensure separate but equal is in fact equal.

Okay, we know that's impossible, as we've heard this morning, but please help make it as equal as it can be right by requiring key data to be religiously reported at a minimum.

Please require AV operators to regularly report DDOT and the Department of Uh for Hire Vehicles.

The reporting should include the documenting of the numbers of accessible ride requests, rides fulfilled, wait times, days and times for each, as well as comparable data for inaccessible rides requested to ensure equitable service is provided.

Please know that I'm not reducing my brothers and sisters to a data set.

Just like the able bodies, a minute uh waiting for a pickup or a drop-off time is time and money wasted.

Thank you also for remembering the value of our drivers in the bill.

Experienced drivers are a vast treasure house of knowledge about when, where and how traffic moves.

They are a human transportation asset that can drive circles around the best transportation tech out there.

Given the opportunity, they can assist AV operators tremendously.

Please track their job transitions and fully report uh the efforts to assist them.

Thank you very much and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Uh next let me turn to Scott Thornhill.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Uh Chairman Allen and fellow members of the council.

Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

My name is Scott Thornhill, and I am the executive director of the American Council of the Blind, a national membership organization representing individuals who are blind or have low vision.

I'll begin with a confession, Chairman Allen.

Like most teenagers of my era, uh I could not wait to drive a vehicle.

Unlike most teenagers of my generation, I was losing my sight.

It was due to an eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa or RP for short.

I did sneak behind the wheel a couple of times.

I don't recommend that for people who are losing their sight.

And thankfully, it didn't become a habit.

The point is this: I never qualified for a driver's license due to failing the eye test.

For most people in the district and across the nation, driving represents independence.

For those of us who are blind, transportation is always dependent on the options available to us.

Driving represents independence.

For those of you who are blind, transportation is always dependent on those options available to us.

I use ride share regularly.

Both have expanded opportunities for people who are blind, and I value them tremendously.

But independence is not created by having one way to travel, it's created by choices.

The American Council of the Blind has long advocated for those choices for people who are blind.

We view autonomous vehicles as the next step, important step in expanding those choices.

For many people, autonomous vehicles are just another way to get from one place to another.

For people who are blind, that represents something much more significant.

They have the potential to expand access to employment, education, health care, community activities, and countless everyday things that other people take for granted.

And because Washington is our nation's capital, this extends beyond the district's residents.

Every year, millions of people who are blind travel here for work, for advocacy, for other visiting for tourism, enjoying the monuments and the museums that belong to all of us.

Expanding accessible transportation helps make the district more welcoming and more accessible to those visitors as well.

Most people don't plan their day around transportation.

They plan transportation around their day.

Those of us who are blind often have to do the opposite.

We think about whether a ride will be available, whether transit schedules line up with our plans, or whether we need to ask someone else for assistance.

Transportation shapes many of the choices we make before we even leave home.

Autonomous vehicles will not replace public transportation or ride share or taxi services, but they can become another important transportation option, one that gives people with disabilities greater flexibility, independence, and opportunity.

Autonomous vehicles won't change the fact that I am blind, but they can change what blindness means when it comes to getting around.

They have the potential to give people who cannot drive something many others rarely think about the freedom to choose how and when we travel.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Thornhill.

And then last on this panel, let me turn to Anna Torres Davis, who's joining us on Zoom.

There we go.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can, whenever you're ready.

Um, Chairman Allen and members of the committee, my name is Anna Torres Davis, and I'm the executive director of the National Council on Disability, NCD, an independent federal agency that advises the president, Congress, federal agencies, and state and local governments on disability policy.

I am here today to share information from our 2025 report, which examined the current state of ground transportation for people with mobility disabilities, particularly wheelchair users, and offer recommendations to ensure that the needs of this population are addressed in this AV bill.

In our report, titled Ground Transportation for People with Mobility Disabilities 2025, challenges and progress.

NCD found that wheelchair users that require wheelchair accessible vehicles with ramp access, which I'll refer to as waves, have been consistently left behind in the ability to use the most common transportation options available, like ride shares and taxis.

While most people can get a ride within minutes of using an app and benefit from this convenience, wheelchair users requiring a wave are largely not benefiting from the advances in transportation.

In our report, we examined the accessibility of taxis and Ubers in DC, and we found that there is a substantial shortage of waves, and that this shortage has been longstanding and has negatively impacted residents, visitors, and workers in the district.

The inability to access common on-demand transportation puts this population at a significant disadvantage in life.

The result is isolation, the inability to meet employment responsibilities and educational goals, to attend family functions and recreational events, to reach medical care, in short, the ability to live a full life and meet the obligations that come with it.

Instead, they are often left waiting or left without any transportation at all, upending plans and even putting them in danger.

NCD's report discusses the promise of autonomous vehicles for to expand access to transportation for all people with disabilities, and the critical need to ensure that that access for wheelchair users is at the forefront as AVs are developed and deployed.

When you introduce this bill, you observe that AVs could provide more equitable access for wheelchair users.

We agree that this is true.

But to do this, it must be inclusive of wheelchair users, while certain portions of the disability community, as we've heard from today, benefit and concurrently access and benefit from AVs.

Wheelchair users who require waves are not being served by this technology.

The businesses that currently provide transportation to the public in fully autonomous taxis like Waymo are using small vehicles that do not have any waves.

Instead, they rely on local providers with limited non-autonomous waves, like they do in DC, like Uber does in DC.

To the extent that AV companies plan to rely on existing non-autonomous waves provided by local providers to offer accessible transportation in the district, we found that this model worsens wave service because it relies on a limited local supply of waves that's already overstressed.

An example of this already exists in DC.

Uber does not provide waves.

It revert refers passengers who need a wave to local providers, often DC taxis that are accessible.

Due to the small number of waves in DC and the limited hours that they are in service, wheelchair users experience long waits if a wave is available at all.

Avoiding adding hundreds of inaccessible ABs to the roads with no option but to call local wave providers will do nothing to help provide better wave service in DC.

The DCAV law should require A-B companies to provide a percentage of their own waves when they begin serving DC, not rely on the supply that is already overburdened.

And I would love to be able to respond to the questions that you asked the previous panel because there are options available now for autonomous vehicles that are accessible that also have a safety driver as CG Tyson mentioned, May Mobility, and this is a company that can easily be contracted with to bring vehicles with these autonomous fleets into the district so that they're adding waves to what currently exists in the city rather than relying on what is there now.

And my time is up and I will leave it at that, but happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you again for the opportunity.

Excellent, thank you very much.

Thanks to everybody on this panel.

Let me jump in with a couple of questions.

Especially Mr.

Cummings, Ms.

Stanley, and Mr.

Thornhill.

I can I hear your testimony with a little bit of enthusiasm about autonomous vehicles.

They can help restore travel independence to people who are blind, have low vision, individuals with autism, like those are some opportunities, right?

Despite the advances, are there any gaps that you would identify as we look at the legislation, not just to create a pathway for their eventual commercial operation, but um in your support for them, are there also recommendations you have that we should uh be keeping an eye out for, be thoughtful about what what is necessary to make sure that they can fulfill the promise that I think you're certainly hoping that they can do.

Ms.

Miss Stanley?

Yeah, um, yeah.

Um so of course, we always want to make sure that as new forms of autonomous vehicles come out on the streets, um, they are made accessible for the blind and low vision community.

Um we have had the opportunity to work with all of the what I'll call mainstream um autonomous vehicle companies that have actually been on the road in cities, such as uh Waymo and Zooks, and we thus far have had wonderful experiences with seeing how the apps for the the apps themselves have been accessible with screen reading software, um the vehicles themselves putting out things like audio sounds so we can locate them independently.

Um I myself have taken them without a single person, just me and my dog um using the accessible functions and features put in both the app itself and then the car.

I've been able to do it independently.

So of course we would love and be happy to see that language and the bills ensure that those kinds of things have put into place.

But we have knock on wood thus far had wonderful opportunities with the main companies out there that we've seen um that the zooks and wamoes have put those into place.

Mr.

So Mr.

Yeah, sorry, I want to make sure you you know, um uh there's always a balance um as you've been seeking here today and and being here and listening to the previous panels.

Um and in this case, you ask about gaps.

So you ask about that.

Um I think the balance of of safety uh safety and functionality or ease of use, uh, whatever terminology we put to that.

Um I think certainly uh you know, as as we've helped advise and and helped work and we are willing to continue that uh in terms of an advisory uh network or advisory council for sure, any work that would be done in the district.

Um uh certain things that that I can speak to specifically with with Waymo, having ridden in Waymo's several times now, um, that uh the features that uh Ms.

Stanley spoke about in terms of how to locate the vehicle and while you're inside the vehicle and doing that, you know, that that balance of safety in terms of where you're dropped off, like you mentioned earlier about your residential street, for example.

I will, you know, um how that's done, what we expect today from an Uber or a Lyft and those kinds of things, right?

Um uh double parking, quote unquote in certain cities is is is not uh uh not feasible.

So there'd be pickup at corners and things along those lines.

And so being able to navigate to the vehicles, for example, for us is crucially important, not being able to see where they are.

Um, and so being able to do that, and then of course, you know, where you get dropped off at the end of the ride, and so that balance of that functionality of of making sure that that we're at a place where we can navigate navigate well, and then the safety of where those vehicles would be allowed to drop off and pick up is going to be something that we're gonna be uh wanting to follow closely.

Um but the gaps as they exist today, I believe are the things that everyone would would be aware of.

Um and it would uh they've done so much work in navigating the streets and gathering information that it that it feels like the gaps now are fine-tuning some of those some of those elements we're talking about.

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

Cummings, anything you want to add to that about gaps you might see on the sure.

Um I just wanted to say the autonomous being safety.

Autonomous speed goes to a not only be safer safer and have more freedom for uh also blindness or the elderly, and of course those autism and disabilities, but they'd be able to be s but maybe provide cleaner few because they're electric cars, medic cars.

And I'm well my communication style is uh I time my words when they read them.

That's why I kind of process I can happily respond later to with you to you.

We've written words, so thank you for a combination.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Um, Mr.

Kaiser, um online, did you have any uh thing you wanted to add to what we've we've already heard?

Um well, guess that we would uh as wheelchair users enjoy the same freedom um because if it is now, um, when we um write, uh we have to be secured by another person, uh that person has to be trained and competent.

So we're in the hands often of strangers.

Um, supposedly trained strangers, but uh that doesn't always go well.

So that's uh um removing that human element is is a modicum of safety that we would enjoy as well as the freedom on the road.

Yeah.

And Miss Torres Davis, you would uh I I think you might have run out of time and you were looking to share some additional information you had around AV options, um so I want to make sure I gave you some extra time if there was anything you were trying to help identify uh different alternatives.

I think you were identifying a couple different models that could be pursued, just want to make sure you had enough time for that.

Thank you so much.

Yes, in our report, we examined uh a lot of the AV companies that are um providing rides to public right now and working on uh new models.

And um one of the things that we found that was a very bright light um was a company called May Mobility.

I'm not here to promote May mobility, I did not work for May Mobility.

Um, but what we found was that this is a company who um contracts with uh cities, municipalities, localities, they uh they modify Cienna vans and uh for accessibility with ramps, and then they provide services um to cities specialty services just to pick up people with disabilities, then it's on demand, uh just like an Uber would be.

Um, and the this company um is doing it now on small scale, um, and so uh like CT Tyson mentioned earlier, this is probably one of the a really good option um for companies like Waymo, who says, Well, we are a tech company, not a developer of the vehicle.

You don't have to be a developer of a vehicle, you can use what's out there now, right now.

What we're aware of is mameability.

I'm not sure if other companies have joined um in producing or um deploying that type of um of a ban.

But uh my my bigger point is to that if Waymo, for example, comes into the city and they bring 200 vehicles, it would be great if there was a requirement that they bring with them a percentage that are accessible by contracting with an outside vendor and not using what we have here in the city, which is already so very limited as we have heard from the advocates uh today.

Alright, thank you very much.

Um, Miss Stanley, one more question for you.

Uh trying to also make sure I understand kind of the world as it is today.

So you mentioned some of the challenges of navigating for higher vehicle service options today with a guide dog.

How do you typically communicate the need to have a vehicle that allows a dog to join you?

Is that even an option?

Are you kind of rolling the dice to see who shows up and if you can have a conversation?

Is it kind of a flag on your account so the driver of the account knows?

How does that work today?

How long do you have?

Um there's been many discussions about this issue.

Um the long and short of it is there's been much debate in the blind and low vision community, and I'm sure persons who use service animals for all other disabilities, whether you want to disclose, disclose or not to disclose.

Um currently with the two major rideshare companies, Uber and Lyft, they have developed a policy where you can identify if you want to ahead of time, and there are different what I'll call layers of identifying, whether that be before the driver picks you up or just having it in your profile.

So if you're denied a ride, then it kind of pings that you have a uh a service animal and they can start the process.

This is totally optional, and there's a lot of opinions out there.

Um some people don't want to identify at all because they are afraid that if they do, the driver will say no ahead of time.

Some people like the idea of um identifying because it's just gonna get you know the elephants in the room anyway, so it's gonna get it out there.

Um and some people just like the idea of having it on their profile so that when undoubtedly they are denied at some point.

Um I've lost count how many times I've been denied, at least it's in the system, and um the the ball can start rolling more quickly as far as denying the ride, the uh processing the dial denial.

The jury is still out on all of these.

Which one works the best?

We don't know.

We've had great relationships with Uber and Lyft.

They're counting the data, they're they're processing it, but all of this is still fairly new, and so whether it works or doesn't work, I can't definitively say yes or no.

And so as a result, if you ask any blind person if they like the idea of getting in a car where they don't have to deal with somebody saying you can't have your dog, every blind person I know has with who uses a dog has said yes, please, because it's such a burden burden that all of us face on a daily basis.

Yes, sir.

I'll share real quick about so Ms.

Stanley and I would you know, work together quite a bit at the American Council of the Blind work uh travel conferences, things along those lines.

Um we have literally at times been in a situation where to avoid her being denied with her uh guide dog, um, she would wait behind me.

The the ride share would pull up, for example.

Um, I would greet the driver, get the door open, and then she would quickly join me at the vehicle uh in hopes that by sort of overwhelming them in the vehicle, she would not be denied.

And so it becomes at times, right?

If you miss that ride and you wait another 11 minutes or whatever it might be for some meetings, doctor's appointments, whatever it might be, right?

And so it it is um a no-brainer for us that we would prefer not to have our members across the nation, including our affiliate guide dog users international, not have those denials on a daily basis.

All right, that's incredibly helpful, and thank you for sharing that.

Um, all right.

I uh we move on to our next panel public witnesses, but really appreciate all your testimonies today.

Uh, and look forward to following up as well as needed.

All right, I'm gonna go ahead and start to call our next panel of public witnesses.

I have John Pear, public witness, Sandra Nuzil, or Newsle, public witness.

Olivia Norman, public witness, I think is joining us online, and Sean Callaway, public witness, also joining us online.

All right.

All right.

Um, Mr.

Pearr, why don't we start whenever you're ready?

You called on me.

Yes.

All right.

Uh good afternoon, Chair Allen.

Thank you for having me.

My name is John Peret.

I'm the executive director for advocacy and policy at the National Federation of the Blind.

In the spring of 2001, I lost my job due to my blindness, in part, it was in many reasons, but in part due to lack of transportation.

I did uh later get a job and became the ex uh with the National Federation of the Blind and became and worked my way up to executive director where I am now.

Last week I was at our national convention in Austin, Texas.

Uh, and interesting on July 4th, uh, was with a group of blind people, and uh one of them ordered a Waymo, and um, in that case, you can indicate that you uh hope to get an autonomous vehicle.

We checked that box, we did get an autonomous vehicle.

Um, I guess, because there you order it through Uber.

So that's why you have to indicate the preference, uh, but then it was satisfied with the Waymo, just to give you that detail.

Uh and the three of us rode, I rode in the front seat, front passenger seat, and the two of them rode in the back, and we had an exceptional ride, and maybe just that it was just like any old ride.

Um, I felt very safe, very confident in uh both getting to the vehicle, the ride, and at the destination, uh our hotel.

The um we, the National Federation of the Blind, uh really support autonomous vehicles.

We're very excited about autonomous vehicles, and we support your legislation.

There are two uh want to comment on some of the things you've heard today to maybe add a little bit more color.

One of the things on um many, well, all blind people that have a guide dog who have ever used ride share, most likely have experienced their ride share denial.

One thing to make sure it's clear it's absolutely illegal for a driver to deny somebody with a guide dog.

It's in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The ride share companies, Uber and Lyft would say that's in violation of both the law and their policy.

There's no disagreement on that.

Uh it's the just the US Department of Justice, Department of Civil Rights, would say on the with the current under the current minute administration would say it is a violation of the law.

In fact, they've sued Uber over this issue.

Um, and uh it's the drivers who are violating the law and creating the discrimination.

It um this can leave people stranded, and it would be so helpful to have autonomous vehicles that didn't have the drivers, because it's the drivers that are doing the discrimination.

Approximately 2.5% of people in the district of Columbia are blind or low vision.

Uh another total of 25% of the people in the district of Columbia do not have a driver's license.

That's a lot of people that don't have a driver's license that have to do something other than drive themselves to wherever they need to go.

So, similar to blind people, all these other people are using other types of transportation.

There's been a lot of talk today about employment, and I want to talk about the impact that lack of transportation options have on employment.

I once experienced that.

It helped contribute to me losing my job one time.

Many of the uh people who are not employed in the District of Columbia with and without disabilities probably have who do not have a driver's license.

The lack of transportation options could be impacting their employment.

Not always the case, but could be impacting their employment.

There is good transportation, mass transit and other transportation options in the District of Columbia, but having more options is a good thing.

The autonomous vehicles will not be a panacea, but it will create another transportation option.

When I travel, I live in Baltimore, when I travel to Washington, DC, which I do on a weekly basis.

I come, I come in a variety of ways, probably like other people do.

Uh it's not always the same.

I match the best transportation to the situation.

And in some cases, if we had AVs, especially say to get around DC, that could be one of the choices that I would try to evaluate that would help me get around and could improve employment, which I urge you to keep in mind.

The previous panel, I agree.

They agreed the importance of the accessibility of the app and the um, but they didn't specifically mention uh there's a standard called the Web Consortium Accessibility Group, YCAG, and that um uh well that WCAG and the 2.2 level AA, which we can send to you, send to you afterwards, but that would be the appropriate standard to require.

That's the one that these companies would say they strive to meet.

Uh, if they do strive to meet it, why don't you go ahead and put it in the law?

That would be a good thing.

We would appreciate that, and I don't think they would disagree with that.

That's what they strive to do, and it's what the uh Department of Justice regulation that almost went into effect on April 20th of this year.

It was postponed by a year, but it it's gonna require the district.

Well, not this would be private, but it would it would it requires all state and local government entities to meet uh YCAG WCAG 2.1 level double A.

I would just say now the most current is 2.2 and would urge you to do that.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Parray.

Next let me turn to Sandra Newzil who's joining us online.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Good afternoon.

Okay.

Councilmember Allen and or Chair Allen and other council members, thank you for this opportunity to speak today.

My name is Sandy Newzell.

I am speaking on my own behalf and on behalf of all people who have disabilities.

I'm a resident of Fairfax County for 49 years.

I worked within two miles of my home for 32 years, which made my commute easier.

For the past 10 years, I've been volunteering and working part-time throughout the DMV.

I'm unfamiliar with the streets and layout of most of DC and frequently find myself going to new locations where I've never been before.

I've been legally blind my whole life and thus have never had the opportunity to drive a car.

I rely on public transportation, friends and family, and metro access to go where I need to go.

However, each of those modes of transportation require a significant amount of time to plan, strategize, coordinate the trip, and then wait for the ride or rides from my starting location that will take me to my destination.

Public transportation may require multiple rides and transfers, followed by walking to the destination, allowing time to catch a bus or metro, plus more time if I trans must transfer transfer and wait for another bus or metro takes longer than hopping in a car and driving somewhere, which was never which has never been an option for me.

Further public transportation may only get me close to my destination with my blindness in a new and unfamiliar area.

That last walk from the nearest public transportation stop to the to each to the exact address I need to go to is often challenging and stressful.

A ride from a friend can take up more than twice as much of their time as mine.

They need to pick me up, drop me off at my destination, and return home.

That does not even include the back and forth time spent asking a friend for a ride and juggling their schedules and possibly mine to accommodate where I'm going when.

Friends may be willing to do this, but they have their own lives and needs and don't always have the time.

Metro access is a lifeline for me.

However, it requires planning ahead by more than a day.

Also, Metro Access only claims to get me from my door to my destination in a time equal to that of public transportation.

There's a lot of anxiety and time involved in the process of booking the ride, verifying the ride was booked correctly, wondering will it pick me up when promised, and waiting for the ride to arrive.

If I could hop in an autonomous vehicle whenever I want to go, wherever I am in DC, for example, at a metro station where I've arrived from Fairfax County where I live, and go wherever I want to go in DC for work or pleasure or whatever on my own without hours or days planning and coordinating, it would save a tremendous amount of time and significantly reduce frustration and stress for me.

I'm running out of time, so I will say thank you very much for this opportunity and happy to wait and answer questions.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next, let me turn to Olivia Norman, also joining us online.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

Yes, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Charles Allen.

It's wonderful to see you again.

Um, my name is Olivia Norman, and I am representing myself today.

I'm a DC resident of 20 years.

I am also totally blind.

I have been since birth, and I am a guide dog user.

No one with a disability is a monolith, as you so rightly pointed out this morning.

In addition to my blindness, I'm also a cancer survivor and I have anxiety and other chronic illnesses.

And the result of those is that I just simply most of the times do not have the energy to mess around and take metro and do that kind of planning on transportation.

So as a result, unless it's a straight shot for me downtown or somewhere that I know well, I have to rely on ride shares or friends, most notably a friend's Tesla, and I have experienced the self-driving of a Tesla in that way, and I would love to have that kind of freedom.

I get about a 50% refusal rate from Uber and Lyft, but I would also say that this happened in the days of taxis in DC as well.

Um interestingly, similar story to what Scott Thornhill just told you.

In about 2012, I was downtown and it was raining, and this person had stuck had had stopped because I had kept getting passed over by taxis.

I was hailing on the street because of that time, that is how you got the cabs.

And I didn't know this.

And this man stopped and he said, Hey, two cabs have just driven past you.

Hide behind this tree and I'll get you the cab and I'll put you in it to get you home.

And so it worked.

The guy didn't want to take my guide dog, but he couldn't really say no.

And when I went to pay for my cab, he said, Don't worry, the gentleman who helped you took care of it.

In that moment, I think I saw the best and worst of humanity.

I'm really hoping that autonomous vehicles will help level my playing field because they cannot deny my guide dog and I the amount of stress this causes me.

I just can't describe it.

It has a huge impact on my mental health.

I get a lot of my treatments for my various illnesses at Simply Hospital, which is in Ward 3.

It is not accessible via Metro, even if I could do it that way.

So I mostly have to rely on my friends or Ubers and hope that they don't deny me when I go get my treatments.

And it's this is just I really hope that we can get to where we can have autonomous vehicles on our streets that will give me and others more flexibility and more choices as to how we get around the district.

And I'm running out of time, so I'll be happy to answer any of your questions, and I thank you for your time.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Norman.

Alright, next let me turn to Sean Callaway.

Oh, good afternoon.

Uh Councilman Allen, uh Chairman Allen and the rest of the committee.

Uh my name is Sean Callaway.

I serve as president of the National Federation of the Blind of the District of Columbia.

Uh I am a DC resident.

Uh also am employed in Washington, DC.

Uh I I'm also do my entertainment in DC.

I'm a proud Washington Wizards season ticket holder and also attend Washington National Game Games as well.

And I'm also a parent of a 11-year-old.

I'm married as well.

Um, so I am responsible sometimes of taking my daughter to uh from school.

Uh you heard the words independence and options today.

Um options is the the key word.

Um I can't tell you how many times uh uh Chairman Allen where I will try to obtain an Uber during rush hour.

Okay, wait five to six minutes to find out if I'm gonna get a ride and then find out that there are no Ubers available at this time.

This has happened several times this year.

Um, and and and what makes it even worse is that you have an option once they tell you that there's no pedal schools available.

Um you have an option to get a priority vehicle, which calls maybe five or six dollars more uh than the actual ride itself.

Also, when it comes to options, uh you've heard the denials of uh blind individuals who have guide dogs, but I've been denied as a blind person uh multiple times.

Uh a driver will see me, and he was ask me, are you blind for real and will drive off?

Um also I want to ride uh these vehicles without judgment.

Oftentimes I've been questioned about my blindness.

I mean, uh this is no braggadocious point.

A lot of us blind people love to dress nice and look nice, okay, and we are very independent.

Well, we have often been questioned by drivers about our blindness and if we're blind for real, and I don't think we should be uh subjected to such uh actions in regards to what we do and how we do things.

We just want to ride and it's a uh point A uh to point B.

And to point out the last thing I want to mention is the uh option of uh, you know, uh uh something other than metro access.

Of course, you have to plan as uh one panelist said uh in regards to utilizing metro access.

However, there are some days where I have to use uh transportation the day of, and I'd rather quite honestly want to use an AB because again, um there may be some issues with Uber or Lyft that I just do not want to have to deal with.

So I'm pretty much excited about AB's coming to Washington, DC, and I'm looking forward to this bill passing.

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much, appreciate that, Mr.

Callaway.

Um, all right, a couple of questions.

Um Ms.

Norman, I might start with you.

You know, I was really struck in your testimony as you talked about just the sheer amount of time, energy, mental energy, it sounds like, to be able to um plan for just even the basic type of trip you've got to take.

And and it it leads you essentially to then just say, I'll I'll just stay home.

Um that's not the choice we obviously want people to feel like they must make or have to make uh as we think about these trade-offs.

Um is there does the experience you've shared, is that cut across both taxi, um, four-hire vehicles, metro, and in other words, the the is it all of your transportation choices really, and it's it did I hear your testimony correct that you really feel like it's the the autonomous vehicle is the one that really opens up your options and independence?

Yes, you did, and it does cut across all modalities.

Metro not not quite so much, but metro works for me if I'm going downtown and I know where I am and I don't have to expend a lot of energy on transportation, but if I have to walk somewhere and try and some days I just don't have the energy, and it's like, well, I'll just stay home because when I get denied by the light shares, you know, or or the taxis or whoever drivers, that is a whole nother energy drain.

And so unless I can um get a private driver, which actually went to a party in Rockville that Miss Stanley held the other week, and that worked for me because I was able to get a private driver, but it costs a lot of it costs money, but it's like time or money, you know, and I had a great time, but if I had not been able to get a driver for that event, I would have just stayed home.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that that's the autonomous vehicles are gonna help me a lot because I won't have to worry about being denied by a driver, and I can spend my limited energy on things that I enjoy doing instead of transportation.

I think that's that's key.

Okay, thank you.

Um, Mr.

Callaway and then Mr.

Perry, I'll ask you the same thing.

Um I think you've you've been listening to a lot of the conversation in the course of the day.

One of the things I'm also interested in trying to think through how we balance is the precision we need to give autonomous vehicle operators of not breaking uh traffic safety laws, meaning speed limit, red light stop signs, et cetera.

And then the reasonableness of where drop off and pickup locations are.

Oftentimes, if we're talking about uh be it a commercial street or residential street, it's a reasonable expectation that that pickup is going to take place and the vehicle double parks momentarily.

Technically, that's gonna be against the traffic safety law.

But it's I think what most people reasonably assume would take place.

Do you have any thoughts about how we strike that balance, especially when we think about um blind or vision impaired?

Where is the most appropriate place for that pickup and drop off?

Or is it is just the same as any other pickup and drop-off, and it's just the balance that we're seeking.

I won't go with the ladder on that one.

Um I mean, you as you will know.

I mean, it's the the streets are pretty different in PC.

Uh, but for us, uh and I hope I'm answering your question correctly.

I just believe that um just trying to locate um the vehicle, the double, if it's double parked, uh if it's on the corner, uh, one thing I do know about those vehicles, the autonomous vehicles, it does uh have a uh sort of mechanism where you can locate that vehicle.

Um so if it uh if it's across the street uh if it's down the street, um you are able to uh navigate to locate that vehicle.

So yeah.

And Mr.

Perry, anything you want to add to that?

Maybe uh just to give you some context with with typical ride share, it uh it's not unusual for a blind person to call the driver and try to negotiate to help find the vehicle.

Uh so when when Ub with Waymo and Tesla, uh and it was also cruise, we the National Federation of Lines said, Well, now there'll be no driver to talk to.

Um, it'd be very helpful because a lot of times this is what we do is we say to the driver, could you just toot your horn horn softly?

And uh we hear that, and we can maybe say to it again, toot it again, and we then we can move towards the vehicle and find the vehicle that way.

So um the ride the uh A V companies have instituted in the app so that you can toot the horn from the app, so that really makes it easier to find the vehicle.

So the finding the vehicle through the um auditory method of where you touch the thing and you were actually tooting the horn in the AV works pretty well.

Um the drop-off can be uh trickier, um, but and that's an isn't necessarily that much harder than uh when we have um maybe uh ride share where there's a language barrier or just a person who's not not necessarily very helpful.

Um I took two ride shares to get here, I'll be taking two two ride shares to get home and um to go to union station.

Not sure whether you know they kind of let you off all kinds of places at Union Station, but find people then use their travel skills to help help find where they need to go.

Um so a we don't have to have specialized places, but if there are specialized pickup drop-off places, they're not uh they don't have to happen.

They are helpful.

Yeah, okay.

All right, that's helpful.

And Miss New Zealand, anything you want to add to that from your experience?

Um I'm familiar with the Mac um trying to coax the DC into um assessing where they could have pickup drop-off zones on the core blocks in DC where it's very crowded, and I think that would be helpful to avoid the double parking and to avoid pulling into you know a dangerous crosswalk at the corner of a a block.

But yes, I have a lot of trouble finding my vehicles, negotiating with the driver.

Where are you?

And they tell me I'm in the red car, and I'm like, I don't see a red car.

Right.

I don't see.

Yeah, um, so it's tricky.

It's perpetually tricky.

Um, yeah.

Can can I add to that as well or no?

Yeah, sure, Ms.

Norman.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing for me.

I guess I worry a little bit because I live on Connecticut Avenue, and it's a very commercial strip, and you're and you're correct, and that they have to sometimes double park, and I worry also that there might be um multiple, you know, how what what happened if there's multiple Waymo's or Teslas or what have you at the same time?

I'm not sure how that kind of thing would work, and I would worry a little bit about being left off in a travel lane of Connecticut Avenue.

So I think we would have to adjust some of that for commercial or busy business areas.

I where I wonder how that would work.

Okay.

Got it.

All right.

Well, I appreciate it.

Well, thank you.

Appreciate this panel for all your testimony and recommendations.

Uh thank you very much.

And we'll follow up with each of you as needed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, let me call our next panel of witnesses.

I have Emma Cleveland who's the state and local political coordinator with amalgamated transit union, also ATU, I think is joining us online.

Brian Wavell, who's the director of special projects with ATU Local 689.

Woo.

Crystal Middleton, member with SCIU Local 32BJ.

And Jaime Contreras, who's executive vice president of SEIU Local 32BJ.

So Emma Cleveland will actually not be joining us today.

So I thought uh Emma was online.

Issue.

Oh, nope.

Okay.

All right.

Uh thank you, Chair Allen.

Go ahead.

Sorry, hang on one second.

All right, and Mr.

Contreras, and then I have Crystal Middleton.

I guess somebody else.

I think she was supposed to be used.

Yes, okay, that's right.

So yeah, you're right.

Because Helen, we had you lowered down and hadn't had you grouped with this SCIU panel.

Okay, we got you now.

Okay, now Brian.

Sounds good.

Thank you very much, Chair Allen.

My name is Brian Weivel with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689.

By way of introductions, we represent about 16,000 transit workers and uh and retirees throughout the kind of DMV area.

So uh you can see our full testimony that we submitted written, uh, but to just cover a bunch of different points that have been raised today over the several hours of this hearing and the several hours that I anticipate many other additional points will be raised, I'm just gonna try and go and summarize some of those.

Uh so first off, I just want to say part of the reason why this whole debate is going on right now is because ultimately I think a lot of us are recognizing that this is not simply about the future of robotaxis, this is not about Waymo, this is not about Uber and Lyft and the future of TNCs in this region.

This is about setting a precedent for what happens for large-scale labor automation.

And the precedent that this council takes up and sets, we hope to see as being one that takes care of workers and ensures that they have a safe, just transition to other employment, or that their employment is protected.

And as we look at this bill, there are definitely steps, clear intention taken to pay attention to that issue, but we think there needs to be more.

So uh I think it was kind of funny that it was brought up earlier, uh, a reference to, you know, uh automated checkout and tellers and cashiers and stuff like that.

If anyone honestly tells me today that they believe the consumer experience has been improved by the removal of a large number of uh cashiers and clerks from stores, I think they're lying to you.

Uh we have to recognize that there uh by the own admission of the company's Uber and Lyft, there are thousands of workers in this region that work more than 20 hours a week doing ride share work.

That is thousands of people that may lose their employment in this industry if we do not correctly uh set up the infrastructure and the incentives for this.

Additionally, speaking as a public transit worker union, we view autonomous vehicles as the anti-public transit embodied in one vehicle.

If you look at the way that land use has been shaped in development has been shaped by the type of transportation technologies of that time, we obviously had an era where people were only able to live right near where they worked because they had to walk there.

Then, you know, you had horses, then you had street cars, then you had uh uh, then you had buses.

And with each one of those technological changes, it changed the way that people lived around where they were able to work.

And as we uh consider allowing a technology that will allow someone to do a 30 to 45 minute drive without having to talk to a single human being, and they can work the entire time.

We are going to watch sprawl on a level we have never seen before, and I think it is completely antithetical to the uh goals that the city has put forward for transit-oriented development.

As we also look at uh there have been many issues raised about, you know, the roles and responsibility of paratransit and wheel uh wheelchair assisted vehicles.

We want to say that most of the issues found within the TNC system for WAVs has been explicitly because of the under-regulation of transportation network companies.

Uh, additionally, many of the concerns raised about the current system of paratransit, we actually share those concerns.

But those are because paratransit is provided uh to the absolute minimum legal level necessary to provide those services.

And if you want to get the high quality paratransit, that doesn't require calling in 24 hours in advance.

If you want the high-quality paratransit that doesn't require uh staying within a three-quarter mile catchment zone, it requires additional expanded funding to make that possible.

Also, we have extreme concerns about DC's road peculiarity, namely around First Amendment activity.

Uh, it's often said about uh autonomous vehicles that obviously they might be able to uh detect a pedestrian, but can they detect an elephant in the roadway?

If they see an object that they are not expecting to see or have not been trained on a data set, I will let you know there are weird uh protest type activities that involve gigantic uh marionettes.

Are they trained on that type of activity?

Are they going to be able to adequately recognize what the uh object in front of them is and safely stop?

Uh we also want to point out just some general skepticism of claims that have been made by the companies.

They keep raising the fact that they do 500,000 trips a week.

Womata does 340,000 on metrobus in a day.

So we're talking about scales of magnitude where this is just not truly the type of uh fully tested system that they claim.

Now, additionally, I want to end on good job creation.

Good job creation is ultimately the responsibility of the council, as I'm sure you know.

If you want these to be good jobs, the council has to mandate that they are created as good jobs.

That requires labor peace requirements that requires retraining through joint labor made joint labor management apprenticeship programs, not just you know the company saying we got uh I don't know, Waymo University.

We need those retraining programs to go through joint labor management registered apprenticeship programs, and ultimately, this is going to be de-skilling on a level we have not seen yet, and I look forward to hopefully answering questions.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um, and then for SEIU, did y'all have a preferred order?

Do you want to go in?

No, okay.

All right, so then I've got Crystal Middleton, then Helen Rayner, then Mr.

Contreras.

Okay.

Great.

So good afternoon.

Uh my name is Jaime Contreras, I'm an executive vice president for SCIU 32 BJ.

I oversee the DMV, which uh uh our union here represents uh 22,000 airport workers, commercial office, cleanal security officers, and other property service workers.

Uh thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important bill.

Um this autonomous bill cannot pass as it lacks the kinds of guardrails necessary so that the new technology would actually benefit the residents of Washington, DC and workers instead of hurting them.

Uh instead the legislation will send uh as you've heard from other uh test testimonies will send money that should go into the pockets of DC uh residents out uh out of our communities uh into uh Silicon Valley mega corporations.

Um we believe that it's lack um that it lacks protections for working people, and this reminds us uh as a union uh of another bill that destroyed uh unimaginable numbers of uh jobs uh in our country called NAFTA.

If the council passes this legislation, your legacy will be introducing that kind of massive, massive uh threat to jobs in our city and our economy.

No city on the East Coast, not Baltimore, not Philadelphia, not New York, not Boston, no city has done this.

And you must not be the first one on the East Coast to do such a thing.

AVs uh threaten to destroy the jobs of thousands of workers across the district.

Not only rideshare drivers, but also taxi drivers, but also truck drivers and uh public transit workers, as you've heard in the previous testimony.

This is what we're seeing in other cities.

In San Francisco, Waymo absorb 30% of all the rideshare market in just 20 months.

And in most cities where autonomous vehicles have been introduced, driver pay is already declining.

Now, these wages not only go to drivers, but they stay in our community, in our businesses, paying rent, purchasing in local businesses, investing in our families and funding our public services.

Many of these drivers are immigrants in communities of color.

Many are people who our economy has left behind, supplementing day jobs that don't pay enough of a living wage or juggling caregiving responsibilities, which require flexible schedule.

These are people who will be severely harmed if if we pull their jobs from under them to benefit high-tech corporations.

Let me be clear.

We support innovation 100%, but it has to strengthen public services and it has to create good union jobs and it has to protect people.

But with any innovation, we must also ask who stands to benefit and who stands to lose when we introduce this type of legislation in our communities.