To close the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s $307 million budget gap, the city’s political establishment is preparing to ask voters to approve two transit tax measures on the November 2026 ballot: a regional sales tax and a local parcel tax targeting property owners. Throwing more taxpayer money at an obsolete, labor-heavy transit model is a mistake. The primary driver of transit deficits in San Francisco and across the United States is the cost of labor. Paying unionized drivers and funding their retirement benefits accounts for the majority of transit operating costs, especially when large, expensive vehicles are deployed on routes with relatively few passengers. By transitioning to autonomous transit, San Francisco could drastically reduce these recurring labor costs, effectively eliminating the need for new taxes while maintaining mobility options for residents.
The feasibility of this transition is proven daily on the city’s own streets by Alphabet’s Waymo, which currently provides over 400,000 weekly paid trips across its markets. In the Bay Area, Waymo recently expanded its service map to cover the entire Peninsula, offering rides from San Francisco to San Jose, including freeway access. Competitors are advancing as well; Amazon-owned Zoox recently launched select passenger rides in San Francisco’s SoMa and Mission districts. The competitive landscape is accelerating rapidly, with the Uber-Lucid-Nuro initiative unveiling a global robotaxi program designed to deploy 20,000 autonomous Lucid Gravity SUVs on the Uber network starting in late 2026. Simultaneously, Tesla’s first production Cybercab recently rolled off the assembly line at Gigafactory Tex., promising a fully autonomous, steering-wheel-free vehicle with an estimated $30,000 price point. The era of the robotaxi is no longer a futuristic concept but a functioning reality that is scaling rapidly
Skeptics might argue that driving a transit bus in mixed urban traffic is too complex for autonomous systems, but international examples demonstrate otherwise. In Singapore, the Land Transport Authority recently awarded a contract to a consortium to deploy driverless public buses in mixed traffic starting in the coming years. Municipalities like Shenzhen have similarly integrated autonomous bus technology into their urban environments. There is no technical barrier preventing San Francisco from gradually replacing its fleet of human-driven vehicles with more efficient autonomous shuttles, or from partnering with existing tech firms to automate low-ridership routes.
Some older residents express concern about losing the personal option to drive as urban design increasingly favors transit and driverless technology. However, driving safely becomes demonstrably more difficult as we age, often with tragic consequences. In March 2024, a 78-year-old driver lost control of her SUV in San Francisco’s West Portal neighborhood, speeding into a bus stop and killing an entire family of four. The incident highlights the serious risks of relying on fallible human operators, especially as we age.
Autonomous technology is the safest way for seniors to maintain their independence without endangering the public.
Another common objection is the ideological aversion to subsidizing billionaire-owned tech companies like Alphabet or Amazon. Yet, a basic fiscal analysis shows that contracting with these firms would be a massive net benefit for the public. In many cases, it will be cheaper for the city to subsidize individual Waymo rides for low-income residents than it is to pay the exorbitant salaries, health care, and pension costs of unionized personnel operating largely empty 40-foot buses. This calculus will become increasingly evident as economies of scale and competition force down Waymo’s current fares.
As the 2026 elections approach, San Francisco voters should keep tabs on the progress of autonomous vehicle technology. Rather than continuing to pour hundreds of millions of dollars annually into San Francisco’s transit bureaucracy, city leaders should take a serious look at driverless vehicles and the potential cost savings they bring.
Marc Joffe is president of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association and a visiting fellow at the California Policy Center.
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