Self-driving robotaxis are heading to Atlanta through rideshare service Uber beginning in early 2025, but the driverless cars aren’t likely to be wheelchair accessible. For residents like Carden Wyckoff, it’s a blow to an already lacking number of transport options for wheelchair users in the city.
The distinct white cars covered in cameras have been spotted around the city throughout the past year, all helmed by drivers training the vehicles on Atlanta streets. The vehicles are owned by Alphabet and have already appeared in major cities like San Francisco and Austin.
Atlanta residents will be able to hail the robotaxis through the Uber app. Users who request Uber Green, Uber X, Uber Comfort or Uber Comfort Electric cars could be paired with one of the vehicles, though Waymo won’t be able to travel everywhere in the Metro Atlanta area.
Uber said it plans to expand the Waymo fleet of Jaguar I-PACE vehicles to “hundreds over time.”
When the news dropped that Atlanta would be one of the next cities to see an autonomous vehicle fleet, Atlanta resident Carden Wyckoff, a disability advocate and wheelchair user was curious to know if the vehicles were going to be wheelchair accessible.
Wyckoff uses public transportation to get around, but she wants to use rideshare in Atlanta, too. But apps like Uber and Lyft don’t currently have wheelchair accessible vehicles. Waymo could change that.
“We do have wheelchair accessible cars available for you to hail, you can just give us a call for you to be assisted in ordering one,” the support team responded.
She specified that her request was Atlanta-specific. In a Sept. 13 email from Waymo Support, the company specified that every time the autonomous cars come to a new city, they “always ensure that wheelchair-accessible vehicles are available for riders to use.”
“I got really excited,” Wyckoff said. “I tweeted and was like, “Oh, this is so great, they’re going to be wheelchair accessible.””
But an hour later, Wyckoff was still skeptical. She reached out to a friend in California, where Waymo has about 350 driverless cars in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He told Wyckoff that California’s Public Utilities Commission had “skirted out” on reporting wheelchair accessibility data.
Data from the California Public Utilities Commission showed that across a month, almost 12,000 people hailed driverless Waymo cars. For WAVs, or wheelchair-accessible vehicles, that number was zero. It stayed the same for “drivered” Waymo cars.
All of the state’s wheelchair accessibility data around autonomous cars sat squarely at zero. It made Wyckoff even more skeptical about the cars coming to Atlanta. But the Waymo Support team had stopped responding, so she reached out to her Atlanta City Councilmember – Amir Farokhi.
The District 2 Councilmember released a research report through the zone page in 2019 that tackled rideshare and taxi accessibility. The report examined how other cities require or incentivize the so-called “WAV” rides and how those models could fit into Atlanta.
Farokhi emailed a Waymo contact and got confirmation: “The Waymo vehicles at this time are not wheelchair accessible, but riders will be able to hail Uber WAV rides through their existing app/partnership.”
“That’s when I just started crying,” Wyckoff said. “I was very upset because Uber is not accessible in Georgia.”
In 2015, Georgia passed House Bill 225, also known as the Rideshare Deregulation Act. It eased requirements around licensing and fares for taxi, limousine and rideshare operators across the state. It also deregulated wheelchair accessibility requirements in the state.
Now, Wyckoff and other Atlanta-based wheelchair users don’t have access to Uber WAV in the area because Uber doesn’t have a fleet of wheelchair-accessible vehicles. She said there is a single Checker Cab in the Metro that she can sometimes use when leaving Hartsfield-Jackson airport, but it’s not a consistent option.
“We’re back at square one, and Atlanta sadly can’t do anything about it,” Wyckoff said. “There are no permits required for Waymot to operate in the city; they can come in and do whatever they want.”
The Waymo announcement got Wyckoff’s hopes up – with wheelchair accessible rideshare, she would have the luxury of unplanned rides around the city. She has long navigated Atlanta without a car, relying on public transportation and the Beltline to get around. It’s made her one of Atlanta’s key figures in the push for robust, accessible public transit.
Journalist Alex Ip commented on Wyckoff’s updates about Waymo on X, saying that her experience shows private companies have no incentive for equity. But he connected the issue to transit, too.
“Public transit is required to meet ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] standards, and hence a lifeline for those with disabilities,” Ip said in a post. “Defunding transit is taking away people’s freedom of movement.”
The MARTA heavy rail and bus system gives her independence and mobility. But it also involves extensive planning to ensure she can make the series of buses to get from her home in Midtown to various destinations.
On Sept. 23 Wyckoff had to be in three places within the first half of the day. Her first move was to check Apple Maps, type in the address and see the bus routes and travel times. For one trip, she started on the west side of Georgia Institute of Technology campus. MARTA doesn’t reach over there, so Wyckoff took the college buses to get to Midtown.
From there, Wyckoff plans out her connections to each following bus and rail line. If she doesn’t make it in time she can wait anywhere from 10-30 minutes. On the weekends MARTA will occasionally do single-tracking, so she’ll have to adjust her plans for longer wait times.
“I time everything to like the minute because it allows me to determine whether or not I’m going to make a connection or not,” Wyckoff said. “Everything is diligently and meticulously calculated.”
For Wyckoff, an impromptu trip is not an option. When she goes out to dinner and her friends suggest a nightcap at a bar across town, she knows it will take an hour of combined transit and rolling to make it to the destination. Often, she finds out that transit will only get her close to certain areas, leaving Wyckoff to roll the rest of the way no matter the weather or time of day.
“Basic equity is having the ability or having flexibility,” Wyckoff said. “I want to do all the things that my friends are going to do and I should be able to.”
Wyckoff emphasized that many people in Atlanta are multimodal — walking, biking, taking MARTA, driving and using rideshare apps to get around. Even “car free” people have the option to call a cab. She said the disability community deserves that, too.
“There is no equity right now in rideshare in the state of Georgia, and I’m also incredibly inconvenienced,” Wyckoff said. “I can’t live a full independent life that I wanted to have and that I’m capable of because of the inequities that the state created.”
Georgia may not have wheelchair accessible vehicles to hail, but she is still determined to push for equity. Other cities like New York City have structured permitting to make half of the taxi fleet accessible.
In Councilman Farokhi’s 2019 study, he documented regulatory frameworks across the country that push for accessible rideshare.
Houston required at least five percent of the vehicles-for-hire to be wheelchair accessible by 2017. Meanwhile, Chicago has a fund set aside to pay for the cost of converting or purchasing a wheelchair-friendly vehicle. Other cities fund the costs with 10-cent taxes on every ride or require rideshare to provide “reasonable accommodations” and wait times of less than 30 minutes for wheelchair rides.
“It is a combination of the state and the company that is bringing the service to the area, and the state has to provide financial incentivization,” Wyckoff said.
She said that rideshare companies need to have an equity lens. When Wyckoff reached out to Uber about a wheelchair accessible ride in Atlanta, she received the company line: “Because of various factors outside of Uber’s control, including rider demand and availability of wheelchair-accessible vehicle transportation providers, in your city the Uber app cannot be used to request a ride from a WAV at this time.”
Wyckoff said it’s a show of “zero accountability” from massive private companies that rake in profit. That’s why the state needs “guardrails” to dictate how the company operates.
While Wyckoff said she is grateful for support from city officials like Farokhi, the issue falls on a state level. Still, she encourages leaders like Mayor Andre Dickens to call for wheelchair accessible vehicles as Waymo heads into the city.
“You can demand equity; you can take a stance,” Wyckoff said. “When they hear news of companies, especially around transportation, coming into the city, there has to be a framework around accessibility and equity.”
The story seems a bit confusing.
Ms Wycoff Indicates she has utilized some forms of transportation in Atlanta with her wheelchair but wishes to use rideshare. But apps like Uber and Lyft don’t currently have wheelchair accessible vehicles.
But the very next sentence states that “We do have wheelchair accessible cars
available for you to hail. you can just give us a call for you to be assisted in ordering one.” The support team responded.
My father-in-law was in a nursing home for several years and I transported him and his wheelchair to various places on a number of occasions.
Just curious.