BY Samantha Liebman New York City

Jan. 20, 2026

View the video and full article here

Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing legislation to allow for a limited amount of autonomous rideshare vehicles to operate in New York outside of the city.

For-hire-vehicle drivers in the city worry it will eliminate jobs for the 140,000 licensed drivers and thousands more yellow taxi drivers.

Waymo is currently testing eight vehicles in the city with humans ready to take the wheel under a special permit.

Pedro Acosta has been a professional driver for 25 years and drives for both Lyft and Uber.

He said while it affords him flexible hours to take care of one of his children who is in a wheelchair, it’s already become harder to make money.

“If there are so many people [on] the platform, you have to wait till a long time to get jobs sometimes,” Acosta said.

He worries it will get even harder now that the governor has proposed allowing for a limited deployment of for-hire autonomous vehicles, like Waymo, to operate in the state.

“There are over 140,000 licensed here in New York, and that means 140,000 families that are going to be without work,” Acosta said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal excludes the five boroughs.

Brendan Sexton is the president of the Independent Drivers Guild, also known as IDG, which represents drivers and said it has already hurt them in other cities.

“We’ve seen some incremental loss in wages for drivers,” Sexton said. “You know, these algorithms are going to push the AV’s [Autonomous Vehicles] more than they’ll push live drivers. And that’s going to have a detrimental effect.”

Read full article and view the interview at: 
https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/traffic_and_transit/2026/01/20/robotaxi-proposal-worries-human-uber-and-lyft-drivers