{"id":791729,"date":"2026-05-12T19:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/791729\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T19:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:30:18","slug":"philadelphia-officials-question-waymo-impact-on-safety-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/791729\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia officials question Waymo impact on safety, jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia officials say they are alarmed about driverless cars operating on city streets without the city having much power to regulate them.\n<\/p>\n<p>About 100 people rallied outside City Hall on Tuesday ahead of a City Council hearing, urging lawmakers to push back against autonomous vehicles and protect jobs for taxi and ride-hailing drivers. They say <a href=\"https:\/\/waymo.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Waymo<\/a>, a self-driving taxi company operated by Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet, could kill thousands of jobs in the city.\n<\/p>\n<p>Councilmember Jim Harrity, who chaired the hearing, acknowledged the city can\u2019t stop the vehicles from operating.\n  <\/p>\n<p>The Philadelphia Parking Authority regulates taxis, limousines and ride-hailing services locally, but Pennsylvania oversees autonomous vehicle policy, leaving the city with limited authority.\n<\/p>\n<p>Harrity said officials are worried about public safety and the potential loss of driving jobs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact of the matter is these things are driving on our streets, and we\u2019re worried about safety. We\u2019re worried about jobs,\u201d Harrity said.\n<\/p>\n<p>Harrity said there are tens of thousands of human drivers in the city.\n<\/p>\n<p>Councilmember Nina Ahmad argued that replacing human drivers with autonomous vehicles could redirect transportation revenue away from local workers and toward large technology companies headquartered outside Philadelphia.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not only just the jobs. It\u2019s the safety and indirect impact of what will happen if we transfer our modes of transportation to these robotic cars,\u201d Ahmad said.\n<\/p>\n<p>She also questioned whether the city should embrace autonomous transportation simply because the technology exists.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust because we can doesn\u2019t mean we do it,\u201d she said.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":791730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-791729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116563268581600879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}