Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at Mayor Eric Adams’s recently announced plan to allow the testing of self-driving cars on New York City’s streets.
Anyone who has to navigate New York City’s congested, chaotic streets might wonder whether it makes sense to add self-driving cars to the welter of vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, skateboards and horse-drawn carriages that now crowd the pavement.
But Mayor Eric Adams said last week that it does, adopting a fatalistic tone in announcing that the city was introducing a “robust” application process for autonomous-vehicle testing.
“This technology is coming whether we like it or not,” Adams, an avowed technophile, said, “so we’re going to make sure that we get it right.”
So-called robotaxis have been tested in a number of U.S. cities and now operate in several, but experiments with self-driving technology have been limited in New York.
In 2017, Audi, a Volkswagen subsidiary, demonstrated an autonomous vehicle in Albany. The same year, a self-driving Cadillac set out from Manhattan on what was described as the first successful cross-country, hands-free drive.
More recently, Mobileye, a division of Intel, tested two autonomous vehicles equipped with self-driving technology over several months in 2021, covering 338 miles in parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
The company’s findings, compiled in a brief report submitted to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, would not surprise most New Yorkers, and they highlight some of the city-specific obstacles self-driving technology faces in the five boroughs.
“The number of pedestrians and jaywalkers is significantly increased in New York City,” the report says.
“The driving behavior is very assertive,” it continues.
“Double parking is prevalent,” the report adds.
In a statement, Ydanis Rodriguez, the city’s transportation commissioner, acknowledged that New York is home to “America’s most challenging street network” while insisting that the new permitting process was “robust” and would “ensure safe, responsible testing” of autonomous vehicles on the city’s streets. In line with state law, a trained safety driver will be at the wheel of each car being tested, officials said.
Matthew Wansley, a Cardozo School of Law professor who specializes in emerging automotive technologies, said in an interview that the city’s application process resembled those in place at the state level in California and Massachusetts and at the city level in Boston.
New York officials, he said, were “asking the right questions” of companies seeking to test such vehicles. In particular, he cited the focus on safety drivers’ working conditions, including the length of shifts.
He added, however, that he believed the city would “come to regret” adopting a California requirement under which companies must track and report how often their vehicles need to disengage from autonomous mode during tests. The requirement, he said, “creates a perverse incentive to discourage safety drivers from intervening.”
Wansley did question how driverless cars, which have mostly been tested and deployed in the Sun Belt, would fare in New York’s winter weather and noted that the city’s mass transit system made it a less fertile locale for self-driving vehicles.
“The case for a robotaxi is much stronger in Phoenix,” he said.
Samuel I. Schwartz, a transportation engineer and a former New York City traffic commissioner, was skeptical of the new testing program. Autonomous vehicle technology is “not ready for New York yet,” he said in an interview. He also took issue with the application’s reliance on companies’ self-reporting their safety records.
“This is not an industry with a stellar record of self-reporting,” he said.
He and Wansley cited an episode last fall involving a Cruise driverless taxi in San Francisco. After another car hit a woman at an intersection, flinging her into the path of the Cruise taxi, the taxi ran her over and then dragged her 20 feet before pulling to the curb, causing serious injuries.
California regulators accused Cruise, a division of General Motors, of omitting the dragging from a video it had initially provided to investigators and ordered the company to shut down its driverless car operations in the state. Cruise subsequently suspended all driverless operations in the United States, its chief executive resigned, and G.M. slashed spending on the unit.
Waymo, a unit of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is the other leading company in the self-driving industry. Its global head of public policy, Michelle Peacock, said in a statement in City Hall’s news release that the company “looks forward to continuing our partnership with Mayor Adams and his administration.”
A spokeswoman for Waymo, which recently tested its vehicles in the winter weather of Buffalo, declined to comment on the company’s plans for testing in New York City.
Weather
Expect rain and a breezy day, with wind between 6 and 13 miles per hour and temperatures in the high 40s. Rain will continue into the evening, with temperatures in the mid-40s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until April 10 (Eid al-Fitr).
METROPOLITAN diary
Tuxedo trouble
Dear Diary:
In town for a black-tie wedding at the Plaza, my wife and I spent a leisurely afternoon enjoying an unseasonably warm December day.
When we got back to our room at a nearby hotel, I discovered that I had left my tuxedo shirt at home. I called down to the concierge and explained my situation.
“Hmm,” she said. “Well, you can run out and buy a shirt.”
“But the wedding is in a half-hour,” I replied.
“Sorry, sir,” she said. “I hope you make it. Good luck.”
Running downstairs in search of a store, I passed through the lobby’s revolving doors and noticed that the bellmen were wearing white shirts.
I went back in.
“Excuse me,” I said to one who looked about my size. His name was Paul. “I’ve got a wedding in 25 minutes and no shirt. Can you help?”
He hesitated.
“What size are you?” he asked.
“Sixteen neck, 32 sleeve,” I said.
He disappeared through a side door and came out minutes later holding a freshly laundered white shirt, on a hanger no less.
I could have kissed him. Instead, I thanked him profusely and handed him $50.
After a late checkout the next morning, I found Paul to return the shirt and get my checked bags.
He asked about the wedding, and I joked that we had looked great together. He began to walk away and then turned back.
“Thanks for showing my shirt a good time last night,” he said.
— Barry Offitzer
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. Corey Kilgannon will be here tomorrow.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
