As a full-time Uber driver in Chicago for the past five years, I read the Tribune’s recent reporting about Waymo vehicles mapping our streets with a pit in my stomach (“Waymo sends vehicles to start mapping city’s streets,” Feb. 26). For some, I am sure autonomous vehicles are an exciting glimpse into the future, but for me and thousands of other drivers, they represent a very real and very immediate threat to my livelihood.
Driving isn’t a side hustle for me. It is how I pay my rent, how I buy food, how I afford my medication; it is how I survive. I drive 10-hour days through the unpredictable weather and Chicago traffic ensuring my neighbors in every corner of the city get to the hospital, to school, to appointments and home after late-night shifts. I have kept loved ones and our communities connected. Now, I am being told that robots may come to our city and take my job.
What are drivers like me supposed to do? If autonomous vehicles take over the streets, thousands of us will be left competing for fewer and fewer jobs with no transition plan and no safety net, not to mention that the people who will benefit most from Waymo in Illinois are millionaires in Silicon Valley. I can’t wrap my head around our elected officials supporting more millionaires out of state over their own constituents who are barely scraping by.
Innovation should not mean abandoning the working people of our city and state. I hope our legislators will do right by us and prioritize people over robots in a time when too many of us are struggling.
— Tracy Shaw, Chicago Uber driver
Rules for autonomous cars
It was only a matter of time before Chicago and Illinois would be talking about autonomous vehicles hitting our streets. Autonomous vehicles promise greater safety, freedom and independence for all kinds of people. As we welcome these vehicles to our state and craft appropriate legislation to regulate them, let’s make sure people who are blind aren’t left out.
While many of us who are blind or visually impaired live fulfilling, independent lives going to work, school and other activities, our biggest barrier to full participation in society is affordable, reliable transportation. Before ride-share services such as Uber and Lyft came along, we needed to rely on public transportation, paratransit, taxis or help from family and friends to get around. While these services worked well in many locations, they weren’t always available, particularly in smaller communities and far-flung suburbs.
Ride-sharing has opened up transportation opportunities for many of us, but it comes with its own set of issues. The biggest issues faced by our community are for those who use guide dogs regularly being denied rides by ride-share drivers. This has been an issue for longer than ride-share services have been around.
Autonomous vehicles can add to our transportation options just as they can for others. Waymo, for example, has proved in places such as Phoenix and San Francisco that it can provide service to people who are blind or visually impaired. This includes ordering a ride, identifying the correct vehicle and entering it, and getting taken to the destination requested.
I call on the legislature and others who will be involved in bringing autonomous vehicles to Illinois to make sure we who are blind can take advantage of the independence that they can offer, so that all can benefit.
— Ray Campbell, president, Illinois Council of the Blind, Springfield
Moratorium on Waymo
The city of Chicago is currently allowing itself to be automatically driven into a liability nightmare at the expense of its most vulnerable residents. By authorizing Waymo to test “robotaxis” throughout the most pedestrianized parts of the Windy City, leadership is effectively notifying blind and nonambulatory residents that Chicagoan sidewalks and crosswalks won’t be safe and accessible.
I am a property owner in Streeterville and a full-time power wheelchair user. I have officially filed a notice of statutory liability against the city and a formal safety defect report with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Why? Because the city has failed to conduct a disability perception audit on the self-driving Waymos. These are vehicles that struggle to identify “non-normative” human forms; the city already is under a federal court order to fix our broken pedestrian signals.
We are told these vehicles are safer, yet the city requires human guide drivers (an admission that the artificial intelligence isn’t ready). This isn’t just a tech glitch. It’s a violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
It is time for a moratorium on this program before an avoidable tragedy becomes a permanent line item in the city’s budget for legal settlements.
— Kelsey Maurine Brickl, Chicago
What Springfield needs
For three decades in law enforcement, I have not simply talked about public safety — I have implemented it. As sheriff of DuPage County, I have managed an $80 million budget without deficit spending, overseen hundreds of employees and built one of the most effective correctional rehabilitation models in the state. Our jail’s recidivism rate is below 15%, demonstrating that accountability and intervention can coexist. That is not a campaign slogan; it is a measurable outcome.
Springfield too often debates theory while communities experience consequences. The SAFE-T Act is one example. While well intentioned in parts, it has created confusion for law enforcement, uncertainty for victims, and missed opportunities for meaningful intervention for offenders who need structured supervision and treatment. True reform should protect victims while ensuring individuals receive the accountability and services necessary to break cycles of crime.
Fiscal discipline must also move from rhetoric to reality. Illinois families live within their means; state government must do the same. I have balanced budgets and made difficult decisions locally. At the state level, that same discipline would mean zero-based budgeting, independent performance audits and prioritization of core services before expansion of programs.
On pensions, we must address the unsustainable growth honestly. That means protecting benefits already earned while negotiating responsible adjustments for future accruals, exploring constitutional pathways for reform and offering voluntary buyout incentives to reduce long-term liabilities. Ignoring the problem only deepens the burden on taxpayers and threatens retirees alike.
Opportunity remains central to public safety and fiscal health. My running mate in the governor’s race, Dr. Robert Renteria — a veteran and nationally recognized youth advocate — has spent decades mentoring young people and steering them away from gangs and violence. His life’s work reflects what prevention looks like in practice, not in theory.
Illinois can restore confidence in government through transparency, accountability and measurable results. We have demonstrated that disciplined leadership works. The question before voters is not who can deliver the most ambitious promises — but who has already delivered results.
Illinois deserves leadership grounded in experience, not aspiration.
— James Mendrick, sheriff, DuPage County
Chicago leaders’ ignorance
Colin Powell once said: “The day soldiers stop bringing you problems is the day you stop leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” Unfortunately, Chicago politicians have taken silence from their constituents to mean that they are doing great and that no problems exist.
Asking the executive and legislative apparatus in Chicago to change direction on how it governs, instead of being forced to by the judicial, is a heavy lift because political power in this city is euphoric and not something that one gives up easily without a fight. We see it in how referendums are denied, perpetuity in office is prized, and longevity breeds nepotism, corruption and poorer services over time. We see it in how effectiveness is not the norm but the exception, and how stagnation in efficiency breeds voter apathy and, therefore, fewer complaints.
Ideally, it would be perfect if the men and women we elect in this metropolis cared enough to put the safety, security and well-being of our city ahead of their political aspirations, but that is asking a lot of those accustomed to being paid well for performing very little actual work. Imagine if we woke up one day and discovered that the members of our council had decided on their own to shrink their numbers down to 25, from their current bloated number of 50. Or if our mayor took the step of announcing that a referendum be placed on the ballot that asks voters to decide if future occupiers of his office be limited to only two terms.
Those would be real examples of the executive and legislative branches working for the good of the people
— Ephraim Lee, Chicago
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