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Minneapolis mayor vetoes ordinance that would require 'human safety monitor' in driverless vehicles. While autonomous vehicle services are currently not available in Minnesota, Waymo is in the process of bringing those services to Minneapolis. October 3, 2026 The Minneapolis City Council approved an ordinance Thursday that requires autonomous ride-share vehicles, or robotaxis, to be accompanied by a human in the driver's seat at all times. However, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed the ordinance on Friday. In recent years, autonomous vehicle services have developed rapidly and tech companies have begun putting driverless vehicles on the road for consumer use. Waymo, a company owned by Google's parent corporation, currently operates robotaxis in 10 U.S. cities. Further, Tesla has begun offering robotaxi services in Texas, and Amazon is also developing its own robotaxi service. While autonomous vehicle services are currently not available in Minnesota, Waymo is in the process of bringing those services to Minneapolis. As such, the Minneapolis City Council has begun examining how those services should be regulated. On Thursday, the 13-member council voted 7-6 to approve an ordinance that regulates the autonomous vehicle services industry. However, the ordinance included a requirement that driverless vehicles be accompanied by a "human safety monitor." "No autonomous transportation network vehicle may provide autonomous transportation network services on public right of ways without a human safety monitor physically present within the driver's seat of the vehicle and with immediate access to controls for steering, braking, and acceleration," the ordinance said. In short, the city council's ordinance would defeat the purpose of autonomous vehicles by placing a person behind the wheel of the vehicle as it operates. The ordinance would not become effective until October of 2027. On Thursday, council members who supported the ordinance expressed concern about the safety of autonomous vehicles. Additionally, they warned that driverless cars would result in job losses for people who drive for ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft. Multiple council members warned that the autonomous vehicles would impact immigrant communities. According to a 2024 report from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, 61% of drivers for ride-share companies are foreign-born. Meanwhile, opponents of the ordinance said no other city requires a "human monitor" in autonomous vehicles and people should get to choose if they want to ride in a driverless car. Another council member said driverless cars have not caused a single fatal car crash. Ultimately, the council's far-left and DSA-aligned members supported the ordinance while the more pro-business Democrats on the council voted against it. On Friday, Mayor Frey vetoed the ordinance. In his veto letter, Frey acknowledged that "local governments should have a role in regulating autonomous vehicles (AV)," but the ordinance did not address certain regulatory matters and "instead requires a driver to sit in driverless vehicles." "Requiring a human monitor in AV ride share cancels out the benefits for riders who prefer a driverless vehicle for safety and reliability," Frey added. "Minneapolis must be open for business, including innovative technology," the mayor wrote. "I am ready to work with the Council on an ordinance that addresses both safety concerns and practicalities of AV ride share. But I cannot support a back door ban that belies our progressive tradition in Minneapolis."

Robotaxi companies have leased more space this year than the previous four combined. Much of it is in cities where they can't legally operate yet. By Elizabeth Plum / Published: Sep 29 2026, 10:58 AM EDT Lyft, Uber, Alphabet-owned Waymo and Amazon-owned Zoox have signed leases for nearly 1 million square feet of industrial space so far in 2026, according to Cushman & Wakefield data reported by Bisnow. That figure alone exceeds the roughly 830,000 square feet the same group of companies leased combined between 2022 and 2025. I have not independently verified Cushman & Wakefield's underlying numbers beyond Bisnow's reporting of them, but the pace they describe lines up with a specific, named set of deals across several cities. "It being doubled in, call it, the last nine months, that's pretty impactful," said Reed Vestal, CEO of Houston-based brokerage and investment firm Junction Commercial Real Estate. "We're probably talking tens of millions of square feet probably in the next decade, I'll bet." Robotaxis were legally permitted to operate in 26 states as of June, according to the New York Times. The real estate activity hasn't stayed within that boundary. Several brokers say autonomous vehicle companies are actively shopping for depot, charging and maintenance space in markets where they have no approval to operate at all, and doing so quietly. "They've been so good at not disclosing what they're doing," Vestal said. Waymo, Zoox, Lyft, Uber and Tesla did not respond to Bisnow's requests for comment on their real estate activity. The companies have been considerably more open about deals in markets where they're already cleared to operate. In Nashville, Lyft subsidiary FlexDrive began construction in April on an 80,000-square-foot depot supporting Waymo's ride-hailing service in the city. In Houston, Uber secured a 50,000-square-foot depot and charging facility in June, with plans to begin operating there in 2027. In Hayward, California, near San Francisco, Zoox signed a 34,000-square-foot lease in May for a logistics and staging hub, down the street from a 219,000-square-foot manufacturing facility it opened in 2025, according to The Real Deal. Washington, D.C. is where the gap between real estate activity and legal status is starkest. Waymo leased a 32,000-square-foot facility in Northeast D.C. this year, one of three maintenance and charging facilities the company is developing in the city, the Washington Business Journal reported in August. Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher told Axios in July that the company had "committed tens of millions of dollars in Wards 5 and 7 to build the service centers and charging facilities needed to support our service." Yet D.C. hasn't legalized the service those facilities are meant to support. Council member Charles Allen, who chairs the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, introduced a bill in May that would allow a limited test period for driverless cars, and it's still working through the council. Cyclist and disability advocacy groups have asked for more transparency and specific rules, while the Teamsters, 32BJ and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 have argued the bill would cost drivers their jobs. Religious groups are planning to join labor unions for a rally against the bill on October 6. New York City shows the same pattern without even a pending bill. The city's Department of Transportation granted Waymo a trial testing period in Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, but that permit expired at the end of March and was not renewed, following opposition from ride-hailing driver groups. It's currently unclear when autonomous vehicles could legally operate in the city at all. That hasn't slowed real estate demand. "We're continuing to see increased demand from the robotaxi, EV charging, etc., across all industrial properties in the city," said Ryan Nelson, managing principal at Turnbridge Equities, which owns industrial property in New York, New Jersey and Sun Belt markets. "We've seen it nationally as well, but we've definitely seen a pickup in New York City as of late." Nelson said the companies are typically looking for 50,000 to 100,000 square feet in neighborhoods that can easily serve Manhattan, naming Long Island City and the South Bronx specifically. There are practical reasons this kind of facility takes a long time to bring online even after a market opens up legally, which helps explain why companies might want a head start regardless of legal status. Stephen Millington, counsel for transactions at Rosenberg & Estis, who has worked on electric vehicle lot deals in New York, said the lease and permitting process is only part of it. "Let's say it's made legal somewhere today," he said. "You have to have the lease in place, the approvals and all the permitting and everything, and the construction part and the infrastructure that goes into it. That's what takes a really long time." Nelson said getting a power hookup from Con Edison in New York can take years on its own, since the utility generally won't provision that much capacity speculatively; a prospective tenant has to submit a letter describing its intended use before Con Ed will even evaluate whether it has the capacity to provide it. Tesla is positioned differently than its robotaxi competitors because it already owns a nationwide network of service centers and charging stations built for its existing electric vehicle business. Tesla vice president of engineering Lars Moravy told analysts on a January earnings call that the company is using that network to "get ahead of robotaxi autonomous vehicle demand." "We're excited that because of this network, we are the only company capable of scaling at the rate that is needed for the tsunami of autonomy that is coming," Moravy said. Tesla's Cybercabs have already been spotted on New York City streets in recent weeks, despite no legal path for the company to operate a robotaxi service there yet. Vestal offered two explanations for why companies would want to keep these real estate moves quiet even where they're legally cleared to sign a lease. One is straightforwardly commercial: landlords who learn a prospective tenant is a well-funded Silicon Valley company tend to raise their asking rent during negotiations. The other is broader and reputational. "Blue-collar workers are honestly scared. Are we going to lose jobs? Are they going to drive up electricity costs?" Vestal said, adding that public backlash toward the broader technology sector, including data centers and artificial intelligence, may be spilling over into how robotaxi companies approach their own real estate footprint. That backlash has a real basis in public opinion, if not necessarily in the safety data the companies themselves point to. A Gallup poll from April found close to 60% of Americans believe roads are safer with a human driver behind the wheel. Waymo's own published data claims its vehicles are involved in 95% fewer crashes causing serious injury compared with human driving benchmarks, and a separate study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found Waymo vehicles operating in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Austin were involved in 68% fewer accidents than human drivers over the period studied. Dan Keene, co-founder of autonomous vehicle infrastructure provider Aseon Labs, argued public opinion will shift as the technology becomes more familiar. "Initially, in that kind of trust-building phase, there is typically a bit of a public backlash," he said. "But if you look at the statistics, they speak for themselves." Waymo has pushed back specifically on the jobs argument driving union opposition in D.C., telling Axios ahead of a council hearing that it would hire hundreds of workers, including former drivers, to clean and maintain its vehicles, as it already does in cities including San Francisco and Atlanta. Nelson's read on why companies are moving this early, into cities where they can't yet operate and in some cases aren't even publicly known to be looking, is straightforward: they expect to win eventually and want the best sites locked up before their competitors, or before local opposition hardens, catch on. "I think they're trying to plant their seeds," he said. "They want to get there ahead of people." For commercial real estate, robotaxi depot and charging infrastructure is shaping up as a genuinely distinct leasing category, smaller in scale than the data center buildout but following a similar logic: sign the real estate first, in whatever quantity and quiet the market will allow, and let the regulatory approval catch up to the footprint rather than the other way around. Join the Discussion EDITOR'S PICKS

Around Town: A magical project, going for a ride. BREAKING THE SPELL... The Magical Bridge playground is well known for its inclusive philosophy and openness to children of all abilities. Earlier this month, the playground at Mitchell Park welcomed a new addition that aimed to further brighten the days of its visitors: a Magical Library. The library was created by Palo Alto High junior Siddhant Mopkar, who belongs to Boy Scout Troop 50 and who constructed the colorful cabinet as part of his Eagle Scout project. "I thought it would be another great way for kids to connect," Mopkar said. "If they don't want to play on the structures or they can't play, they can come here and find an interest in reading." Staff from the Magical Bridge Foundation, which builds accessible playgrounds throughout the region, celebrated the installation with a Sept. 6 ceremony. But sadly, the magic didn't last. One week after the installation, playground staff were saddened to learn that someone had vandalized the Magical Library, ripping out its doors. Kris Loew, chief marketing officer for the Magical Bridge Foundation, said the group reported the damage to the city's Community Services Department, which oversees local parks. Mark Ribeiro, a manager in the department, arrived to remove protruding screws and mitigate any further damage. Now, the foundation is mulling its next steps. Loew said the group discussed moving the Magical Library inside the Playhouse to protect books from rain. It also hopes to work with nearby nonprofits, Friends of Palo Alto Libraries and AbilityPath, to keep the library stocked and to ask participants in AbilityPath's adult day program to walk books over every few weeks. The foundation hasn't yet determined whether to replace the doors. "We'll work with Mark to ensure we find a good, safe place for it," Loew said in an email. Mopkar, meanwhile, is undeterred. He is already working on his next project: a communication board that will allow Magical Bridge users with limited speaking skills to point at images to express themselves. He has already designed the board and he expects to install it within the next few months. WAY MO' OPTIONS... As self-driving cars continue to expand their footprint nationwide, Mountain View-based Waymo wants its riders to take the train. The company launched a new program on Sept. 22 that gives riders $2.85 - the price of a bus fare in San Francisco - in "Waymo Cash" if they transfer to public transit within two hours of their Waymo trip. It works through the tap-to-pay system that all 27 Bay Area transit agencies use today, where paying with the same card on a multimodal trip unlocks transfer discounts between buses, trains and light rail systems. "Public transit networks and shared autonomous vehicles are part of a complementary mobility ecosystem," Waymo said in a statement. The Waymo Cash can be redeemed once per day to cover part or all of the cost of a public transit trip. The program will roll out to the public in the Bay Area in the coming weeks, and at the same time, Waymo is also launching a partnership with Caltrain to lease 40 dedicated parking spaces at the train stations. Waymo public relations manager Anjelica Price-Rocha confirmed in an email that 10 spaces will be reserved at the California Avenue station in Palo Alto, with the goal of better serving those who are already taking public transit to their destination. Caltrain spokesperson Dan Lieberman said the remaining parking spots will be leased from the Belmont, Menlo Park and Mountain View stations. "Our goal is to expand this transit rewards program and transit agency partnerships to more cities over time, ultimately making shared, all-electric transportation more accessible and affordable for everyone," Waymo wrote in a statement. Gennady Sheyner is the editor of Palo Alto Weekly and Palo Alto Online. As a former staff writer, he has won awards for his coverage of elections, land use, business, technology and breaking news. Gennady... More by Gennady Sheyner Riley Cooke is a reporter at Palo Alto Weekly and Palo Alto Online focusing on city government. She joined in 2025 after graduating from UC Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in political science. Her... More by Riley Cooke