Albany Has Waited Long Enough for Reliable Rides

My family has served this community for more than four decades. I know this city's rhythm — which Tuesday nights will be quiet, which Palace Theatre shows flood the streets, and how hard it is to convince a regular from Lansingburgh or Loudonville to come downtown when "how do I get home?" is still a question mark.

That uncertainty is a silent killer for small businesses, especially in the hospitality industry.

Let's be direct: Albany's rideshare network, and what's left of our taxi infrastructure, is in crisis. Open a ride-hailing app at 10 p.m. on a weekday and you aren't looking at a wait — you're looking at a gamble. Same goes for an early morning flight, or the last Amtrak into Rensselaer.

The data matches what we feel on the ground. Across the Capital Region, off-peak rideshare waits often run 15 to 20 minutes, nearly double the average in major metro hubs. Upstate cities like ours carry a "friction rate" well above the national average. And when a car finally appears, surge pricing can double the cost of the meal that brought you out. For a city striving to be a premier dining destination, that's a structural failure we can no longer ignore.

This is why I support legislation that carefully regulates autonomous vehicle ride-hailing in New York State. This isn't about replacing drivers. It's about giving people another option, and putting Albany on the map as a city that leads rather than waits.

I know "autonomous vehicle" invites skepticism. But these aren't experiments. Waymo has logged more than 200 million autonomous miles with a safety record that consistently outperforms human drivers — by its own data, thirteen times safer in crashes causing serious injury or worse.

Then there's the Albany Parking Paradox. Our city offers abundant free garage and street parking after 5 p.m. (thank you, Albany Parking Authority) — and yet the mere prospect of hunting for a spot creates real anxiety. Research shows customers will abandon a restaurant trip if they expect arriving to be difficult. And when one of our world-class venues brings a crowd downtown, those "abundant" spaces vanish instantly.

For the couple in Delmar who loves our food but dreads circling the block, an autonomous ride isn't a convenience. It's the reason they finally make the reservation.

The business case is simple: reliable transportation equals economic vitality. It means birthday parties that don't end early for lack of options. It means a table ordering that second bottle of wine because a safe ride is seconds away.

Some will say we should wait for other cities to lead. Albany has waited long enough. Our city is ready. Our businesses are ready. Let's give our community a reason — and a reliable ride — to come back downtown.