Could Waymo put Uber and taxi drivers out of work in Toronto?

I'm worried that I might change my business too. Rideshare and taxi drivers say business in Toronto has gotten leaner and more competitive. The city says there were over 80,000 active drivers working for ride-hailing companies by the end of 2024. Some drivers we spoke to say their hourly compensation is below minimum wage. In rush hours you could get like $6. Slow times like this you could get like $4 and stuff. You know, you have no choice, so you have to take it. We make about $8 an hour after expenses. I make less than $2,000 a month. And soon, there may be even more competition on the roads with driverless vehicles. Waymo has announced its intention to start operating in Canada, starting with a series of human-operated test drives in the city to map the roads. The company hopes to launch here in 2028. Some are concerned about the impact on the rideshare and taxi industry. Straight out of the gate, we see it as an absolute replacement of workers. So it would eliminate, for every Waymo car that's on the road, there's one to three rideshare drivers who are no longer getting any gainful employment. I thought we were smarter than that. Toronto may be the first Canadian city to get Waymo, but drivers in the U.S., where Waymo already exists, have a cautionary tale to tell. I wish we in Atlanta had an opportunity to know what was coming in our direction, not just to be just realizing it once they're already in our market. Uber driver Bhupendra Chauhan says ever since Waymo hit Atlanta last year, he's felt a dramatic drop in the number of riders in his car. In a space of about one year, I would say the impact would probably be more than 20 percent, probably close to 30 percent. He says if he'd known the effect Waymo would have, he would have pushed for better legislation before they entered the market. It's a free-for-all, you know. Driverless cars can come in fast and furious as long as the testing is done. The City of Toronto is not yet at the stage of implementing any licenses or bylaws for Waymo, and the decision of whether or not they'll end up on the road is up to the province, who first approved this pilot project. They said in a statement, for Waymo to move beyond this initial phase, it must continue to meet Ontario's stringent safety and operational requirements and meet its commitments to Ontario workers with a credible jobs plan that sets out projected positions, hiring timelines and other opportunities for Ontario workers and businesses. Waymo claims the service will bring jobs to the city if approved. They expect to hire hundreds of people locally for jobs like fleet management and customer service. And they say they'll aim to hire current taxi and rideshare drivers for these jobs. They did so in Nashville earlier this year. But the managing director of Beck Taxi isn't convinced Waymo's arrival won't create more problems. When Uber arrived in Toronto and things like, And things like, oh, we're going to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads and we're going to provide good, well-paying jobs to the people who drive for us. Really, all it is is adding more vehicles and it's another billion-dollar U.S. company that wants to claim ownership of our streets. An Uber spokesperson said in a statement, in part, Torontonians have embraced rideshare as both riders and drivers. For riders, it means more choice in how they get around. For drivers, it means the flexibility to earn on their own terms. But drivers we spoke to say they're already struggling, and the arrival of Waymo could see them pushed off the road. Mercedes Gastambide, CBC News, Toronto.