{"id":171961,"date":"2026-02-27T20:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171961\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T20:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:44:11","slug":"is-waymo-coming-to-jacksonville-councilman-says-he-will-do-everything-he-can-to-bring-robotaxis-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171961\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Waymo coming to Jacksonville? Councilman says he will do everything he can to bring robotaxis here"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 In Florida, Waymo\u2019s self-driving taxis are already operating in Miami, Tampa and, as of this week, Orlando<\/a>. Now, one Jacksonville city councilman says he wants the River City to be next.<\/p>\n

Councilman Rory Diamond told News4JAX he plans to introduce legislation within the next month to pave the way for autonomous robotaxis \u2014 like those operated by Waymo \u2014 to run on Jacksonville roads.<\/p>\n

MORE | Waymo is operating self-driving cars in Orlando. Here\u2019s what to know about crashes, who\u2019s liable<\/a><\/p>\n

Diamond has long been critical of the city\u2019s existing autonomous shuttle program, known as NAVI, pointing to its estimated multi-million dollar price tag as a key concern. He says each ride on the current system is extremely expensive compared to what privately operated robotaxis could offer.<\/p>\n

Diamond said each NAVI ride is costing the city hundreds of dollars. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s insane,\u201d Diamond said, arguing that the same money could fund tens of thousands of rides in commercially operated self-driving vehicles instead.<\/p>\n

RELATED | JTA fare cuts came amid budget shortfall, lower NAVI ridership, city audit report shows<\/a><\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t want the city to build and operate its own self-driving system. Instead, he\u2019d rather it focus on changing local laws and regulations to allow private companies to run robotaxis in Jacksonville \u2014 shifting the cost from taxpayers to businesses.<\/p>\n

Diamond also insists the move would make local roads safer. Florida is regularly ranked among the most dangerous states for drivers, and he believes advanced self-driving technology could help reduce crashes caused by distracted or impaired drivers.<\/p>\n

He says he\u2019d rather see \u201csophisticated machines on the street\u201d than human drivers who might be looking at their phones, fiddling with the radio, or otherwise not paying attention.<\/p>\n

Diamond acknowledged there are people who are uneasy about self-driving cars and don\u2019t want to see more of them. But he says the technology is coming regardless \u2014 and with Orlando, Tampa and Miami already moving ahead, he doesn\u2019t want Jacksonville to be left behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can absolutely do it in Jacksonville,\u201d Diamond said, calling on Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s administration to support the effort. \u201cMayor, do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED | JTA is exploring 5 options for the Skyway downtown. Here\u2019s a look at each one<\/a><\/p>\n

His proposed legislation, which he says should be filed in about a month, would aim to clear the way for companies like Waymo or Tesla-operated services to launch robotaxi programs in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

The recent move of Waymo into Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando, Florida, announced Tuesday, widens Waymo\u2019s early lead in autonomous driving while rival services from Tesla and the Amazon-owned Zoox are still testing their vehicles in only a few U.S. cities.<\/p>\n

Waymo\u2019s robotaxis already provide more than 400,000 weekly trips in the six metropolitan areas where they have been transporting passengers: Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n

Waymo operates its ride-hailing service through its own app in all the U.S. cities except Atlanta and Austin, where its robotaxis can only be summoned through Uber\u2019s ride-hailing service.<\/p>\n

The expansion into four more markets marks a significant step toward Waymo\u2019s goal to surpass 1 million weekly paid trips by the end of 2026. Without identifying where its robotaxis will be available next, Waymo is targeting a list of eight other cities that include Las Vegas, Washington, Detroit and Boston while signaling its first overseas availability is likely to be London.<\/p>\n

To help pay for more robotaxis, Waymo recently raised $16 billion as part of the financial infusion that puts the value of the company at $126 billion. The valuation fueled speculation that Waymo may eventually be spun off from its corporate parent Alphabet, where it began as a secret project within Google in 2009.<\/p>\n

Although Waymo is opening up in four more cities, its robotaxis initially will only be made available to a limited number of people with its ride-hailing app in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando before the service will be available to all comers in those markets.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 In Florida, Waymo\u2019s self-driving taxis are already operating in Miami, Tampa and, as of this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1039,116,118,117,18571,24480],"class_list":{"0":"post-171961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-duval-county","9":"tag-jacksonville","10":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","11":"tag-jacksonville-news","12":"tag-rory-diamond","13":"tag-waymo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}