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Midori Valdivia would head the Taxi and Limousine Commission, overseeing more than 115,000 for-hire vehicles. The mayor said drivers deserved a “forceful champion.”
Jan. 13, 2026, 10:00 p.m. ET
Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood with taxi and Uber drivers at LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday night to announce his choice to oversee the nation’s largest fleet of for-hire vehicles.
The mayor nominated Midori Valdivia to lead the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, which regulates more than 115,000 vehicles, including yellow taxis and Uber and Lyft cars.
“From City Hall, we will deliver meaningful change in the lives of the working people too often forgotten by our politics, and in the day-to-day existences of the taxi drivers who deserve a forceful champion at the T.L.C.,” Mr. Mamdani said.
The city’s nearly 180,000 for-hire vehicle drivers are an important base for Mr. Mamdani, a former state assemblyman from Queens. Many of them live in Queens and most are immigrants, including from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and the Dominican Republic.
Mr. Mamdani has been an advocate for the drivers for years. In 2021, he went on a 15-day hunger strike with dozens of drivers over the crushing debt that many had taken on to buy medallions, the city-issued permits required to own a yellow cab. It ended when city officials agreed to a program that has since brought about $476 million in debt relief to more than 2,000 medallion owners.
“As his political star has risen, he’s never forgotten the drivers,”said Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents more than 28,000 taxi, Uber and Lyft drivers in the city.
