Your livelihood is the center of this fight. Here's the real picture.

What the bills say about drivers

S9038A (Take the Wheel Act) would require a human behind the wheel of every for-hire vehicle — a statutory ban on driverless service, backed by TWU Local 100 and the NY Taxi Workers Alliance. S10413 takes the opposite tack: it would let robotaxis operate in NYC, but only under a TLC license restricted to medallion owners, turning medallions into the gate to the market. DC's bill is the third model: allow, cap the fleet, and levy a per-mile fee that funds transit and a displaced-driver fund. Expect any New York deal to borrow from all three.

What happened to drivers elsewhere

In Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Waymo grew to a meaningful share of ride-hail trips over two to three years without a measured collapse in Uber and Lyft driver counts, largely because total rides grew and robotaxis are capacity-limited by fleet size. Fares did not fall. In Austin, Waymo and Tesla combined remain a small fraction of trips. The near-term risk to New York drivers is not volume; it is the political precedent of licensing without a labor deal — which is exactly why the unions are fighting the first permit, not the hundredth car.

The medallion question

If S10413's medallion-only language survives, the roughly 13,500 NYC medallions become scarce licenses to operate robotaxis — a reversal of a decade of value destruction. Medallion lenders, the Taxi Workers Alliance and the operators all understand this, which is why the text of that clause is the most-watched sentence in Albany. Fleet owners who hold medallions should be modeling a leasing business, not an exit.

What to watch

Transportation Committee agendas in both chambers from January 2027; any NYC DOT testing application; TLC rulemaking notices; the DC vote this winter (it sets the "transition fund" template); and NJ's S1677, which could put driverless cars at Newark Airport before Albany acts.