TLC Shake-Up: Valdivia Steps In as Taxi Industry Faces Turmoil

Paul Riverbank, 1/14/2026Midori Valdivia takes TLC's helm as NYC's taxi industry faces mounting turbulence and urgent reforms.

Midori Valdivia’s appointment might have seemed, to the casual observer, like a tidy bit of politicking. But anyone who has followed New York transit for a decade or more could recognize the thread running through Valdivia’s career. Occasionally you spot these figures who seem to pop up everywhere important—sitting quietly at Port Authority budget hearings, hammering through tough negotiations as an MTA board member, or, more recently, championing congestion pricing in op-eds that actually get people talking. Her years with the TLC, earlier in her career, are remembered perhaps less for grandstanding and more for the work that gets noticed only when it doesn’t get done.

The crowd shifted, restless under the airport floodlights; several drivers held homemade signs, a few in long-standing support, others with hopeful curiosity. Mamdani was plainspoken about his logic: “A city that moves together works together,” he said, hinting that the mayoralty itself may rest on how people, and not traffic, flow through New York’s boroughs. Valdivia’s nod, he assured, was about creating a city where “drivers are no longer passengers in their own lives.”

When you look at the numbers, you catch the scale of trouble: more than 80,000 for-hire vehicles roam New York’s streets. Once, taxi medallions were a ticket to the American dream (at least, in the city’s version of the tale), fetching $1 million or more—until the rideshare revolution left a generation of drivers underwater, their medallions worth maybe a fifth of that, the sort of drop that leaves debts and foreclosures in its wake. The industry is a patchwork now: old-school yellows, Ubers and Lyfts zipping past, a steady upsurge in electric vehicles—all watched and regulated by an agency frequently struggling to keep up.

Valdivia, if nothing else, is coming in with support from some of the loudest, most persistent voices in the room. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, often brushed aside as too uncompromising, has put their weight behind her, seeing in her both experience and a willingness to engage with the issues that so often slip through bureaucratic cracks. She made her priorities plain the night of the announcement: “People come first,” Valdivia said, “and behind the wheel or in the back seat, New Yorkers deserve to see that.” The words landed with the conviction of someone who had, more than once, walked the length of a traffic-choked avenue not for optics, but out of habit.

Her reputation as a consultant has also drifted across the city’s transit world. Unlike the fleeting appointees who shuffle from agency to agency, Valdivia kept grounded, working with gig economy drivers on wage theft disputes, weighing in on the endless congestion debates that fill Albany hearings and neighborhood association meetings alike. She has gone on record—print, podcasts, public hearings—about congestion pricing, which somehow manages to infuriate drivers and residents in equal measure. “Congestion isn’t just a traffic problem—it’s a threat to the city’s pulse,” she argued in a recent essay, noting lower crash rates and cleaner air in city zones where traffic is actually managed.

“Transportation is freedom,” she likes to say. But in Valdivia’s hands, the phrase is less slogan than worldview. Whether she’s referring to the daily paycheck of an immigrant cabbie or a teenager’s first trip alone across the city, transit is more than logistics—it’s the city’s connective tissue, shaping who has access to what and when.

What awaits her, should City Council confirm the nomination, is by no stretch enviable. Modernizing outdated rules, balancing drivers’ pay with passenger safety, keeping up with the breakneck pace of ride-hailing tech—none of these lend themselves to farewell speeches or quick wins. Already, the TLC has tried on reforms: raising minimum pay, halting exploitative industry practices. Some measures land. Others stall.

She’ll replace David Do, who weathered the storm since 2022 and who, by all accounts, leaves a tougher job than he found. And as Valdivia steps up, it’s impossible to ignore the moment: New York, famously allergic to stasis, is in another of its self-imposed transitions, taxi cabs and rideshares and buses all fighting for relevance and survival.

If history is any guide, the future of New York transit will play out less in public statements and more in the unpredictable day-to-day swirl—drivers competing for fares, passengers arguing over service, city policies tossed between hopeful reform and familiar resistance. But perhaps, with someone like Valdivia at the helm, the next chapter will be written not in isolation, but from the back seat, windshield, and sidewalk—right where the city’s stories have always unfolded.

Anybody coming through LaGuardia’s Terminal C on a recent evening would have noticed chaos—travelers arguing with luggage, drivers hunting for riders, and in the midst of it all, a row of yellow taxis gleaming under harsh fluorescence. It was against this backdrop that Mayor Zohran Mamdani stepped forward, flanked by a cohort of drivers and the ever-watchful press corps, not just to pose but to signal a new direction for one of New York City’s most embattled agencies. The mayor’s choice for Taxi and Limousine Commission chair wasn’t a name pulled from a list of insiders, but a face many in the city’s tangled transportation world already knew.Midori Valdivia’s appointment might have seemed, to the casual observer, like a tidy bit of politicking. But anyone who has followed New York transit for a decade or more could recognize the thread running through Valdivia’s career. Occasionally you spot these figures who seem to pop up everywhere important—sitting quietly at Port Authority budget hearings, hammering through tough negotiations as an MTA board member, or, more recently, championing congestion pricing in op-eds that actually get people talking. Her years with the TLC, earlier in her career, are remembered perhaps less for grandstanding and more for the work that gets noticed only when it doesn’t get done.The crowd shifted, restless under the airport floodlights; several drivers held homemade signs, a few in long-standing support, others with hopeful curiosity. Mamdani was plainspoken about his logic: “A city that moves together works together,” he said, hinting that the mayoralty itself may rest on how people, and not traffic, flow through New York’s boroughs. Valdivia’s nod, he assured, was about creating a city where “drivers are no longer passengers in their own lives.”When you look at the numbers, you catch the scale of trouble: more than 80,000 for-hire vehicles roam New York’s streets. Once, taxi medallions were a ticket to the American dream (at least, in the city’s version of the tale), fetching $1 million or more—until the rideshare revolution left a generation of drivers underwater, their medallions worth maybe a fifth of that, the sort of drop that leaves debts and foreclosures in its wake. The industry is a patchwork now: old-school yellows, Ubers and Lyfts zipping past, a steady upsurge in electric vehicles—all watched and regulated by an agency frequently struggling to keep up.Valdivia, if nothing else, is coming in with support from some of the loudest, most persistent voices in the room. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, often brushed aside as too uncompromising, has put their weight behind her, seeing in her both experience and a willingness to engage with the issues that so often slip through bureaucratic cracks. She made her priorities plain the night of the announcement: “People come first,” Valdivia said, “and behind the wheel or in the back seat, New Yorkers deserve to see that.” The words landed with the conviction of someone who had, more than once, walked the length of a traffic-choked avenue not for optics, but out of habit.Her reputation as a consultant has also drifted across the city’s transit world. Unlike the fleeting appointees who shuffle from agency to agency, Valdivia kept grounded, working with gig economy drivers on wage theft disputes, weighing in on the endless congestion debates that fill Albany hearings and neighborhood association meetings alike. She has gone on record—print, podcasts, public hearings—about congestion pricing, which somehow manages to infuriate drivers and residents in equal measure. “Congestion isn’t just a traffic problem—it’s a threat to the city’s pulse,” she argued in a recent essay, noting lower crash rates and cleaner air in city zones where traffic is actually managed.“Transportation is freedom,” she likes to say. But in Valdivia’s hands, the phrase is less slogan than worldview. Whether she’s referring to the daily paycheck of an immigrant cabbie or a teenager’s first trip alone across the city, transit is more than logistics—it’s the city’s connective tissue, shaping who has access to what and when.What awaits her, should City Council confirm the nomination, is by no stretch enviable. Modernizing outdated rules, balancing drivers’ pay with passenger safety, keeping up with the breakneck pace of ride-hailing tech—none of these lend themselves to farewell speeches or quick wins. Already, the TLC has tried on reforms: raising minimum pay, halting exploitative industry practices. Some measures land. Others stall.She’ll replace David Do, who weathered the storm since 2022 and who, by all accounts, leaves a tougher job than he found. And as Valdivia steps up, it’s impossible to ignore the moment: New York, famously allergic to stasis, is in another of its self-imposed transitions, taxi cabs and rideshares and buses all fighting for relevance and survival.If history is any guide, the future of New York transit will play out less in public statements and more in the unpredictable day-to-day swirl—drivers competing for fares, passengers arguing over service, city policies tossed between hopeful reform and familiar resistance. But perhaps, with someone like Valdivia at the helm, the next chapter will be written not in isolation, but from the back seat, windshield, and sidewalk—right where the city’s stories have always unfolded.