Driverless taxi company Waymo will soon be testing its tech on New York City streets, the firm announced Wednesday — part of an effort to lobby for a law change that would allow the robotaxis to roam the roads of Gotham.
“We want to serve New Yorkers in the future, and we’re working towards that goal,” Waymo said in a social media post on X Wednesday.
Starting next month, New Yorkers may start to see vehicles with remote sensor systems know as LiDAR — Light Detection and Ranging — on city streets. But the cars won’t be driving themselves, Waymo and city officials said — they’ll be at the command of a human pilot.
In the meantime, Waymo said it has applied for a permit from the Transportation Department under the Adam’s administration’s autonomous vehicle permit program, a necessary step to allowing semi-autonomous operation.
Mayoral spokeswoman Sophia Askari confirmed that DOT was reviewing an application by the Silicon Valley firm that would allow it to enable so-called “self driving” features — albeit under the watchful eye of a human chaperone.
“The New York City Department of Transportation is reviewing Waymo’s application — the first autonomous vehicle testing application that we have received under the Adams administration’s new Autonomous Vehicle Demonstration or Testing Permit Program,” Askari said. “Public safety is our first priority, which is why we have strong guardrails and requirements in place on any sort of autonomous vehicles to ensure that we get AV technology right,” Askari said.
New York State law prohibits fully autonomous operation without a human driver in the car, thus forbidding the kind of driverless service Waymo provides in San Francisco and elsewhere.
Waymo said Wednesday it is lobbying in favor of changing that law. An effort to do so is currently before the transportation committee of the State Senate, but has stalled out in the Assembly.
DOT and Taxi and Limousine Commission spokespeople referred all questions to City Hall.
B’hairavi Desai, head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance — which represents drivers of yellow cabs, Ubers and Lyfts in the city — decried the move as political gamesmanship at the end of Adams’ mayoral term.
“The technology is not ready, certainly the streets are not ready, and they are trying to throw a Hail Mary pass before this administration is out the door,” she said.
“The service is not going to be able to stand up to the service drivers provide,” she added. “Our streets should not be used as an experiment.”
