As Midori Valdivia takes the wheel of the New York Metropolis Taxi & Limousine Fee, she is encountering an business with different girls in key management roles — and the place the variety of journeys with females within the driver’s seat is rising.
Valdivia is the fourth lady to function commissioner and chair within the 55-year historical past of the TLC and her arrival comes as company information reveals that feminine operators full 6% of all month-to-month journeys by the greater than 178,000 TLC-licensed drivers who ferry passengers for livery bases, yellow taxis, inexperienced cabs and app-centered ride-hailing companies corresponding to Lyft and Uber.
That may be a marked improve from simply over a decade in the past, when there have been greater than 140,000 TLC-licensed operators throughout the assorted for-hire automobile courses as app-based companies have been of their infancy.
“The hours are so long and the conditions can be dangerous and risky,” stated Bhairavi Desai, government director of the New York Taxi Staff Alliance. “All of that makes it more difficult for women who are usually primary caregivers.”
In keeping with the 2016 TLC Factbook, agency-licensed feminine operators accomplished 4% of journeys by for-hire automobiles, which provide pre-arranged companies by licensed bases, with 3% accomplished by girls driving for the apps. For yellow taxis, feminine drivers accomplished not even 1% of all journeys, a quantity that, a decade later, stubbornly stays in the identical vary.
Taxi Staff Alliance director Bhairavi Desai speaks exterior Metropolis Corridor forward of invoice so as to add simply trigger protections or app-based drivers, Dec. 18, 2025. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“Everybody was like, ‘Oh my god, a woman cab driver!’” recalled Dorothy Leconte, who has been a yellow taxi driver since 1987. “Until today, I still hear that.”
“But years ago, it was more often like people were surprised that they had been living in New York for 20 years and this was the first time they had ever had a woman cab driver.”
Business leaders stated the adjustments to the business are placing as feminine drivers account for the next share of all rides, whereas additionally acknowledging that their numbers are nonetheless dwarfed by these of their male counterparts.
Riverside Transportation Group President Cira Angeles works out of her Washington Heights workplace, April 16, 2026. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“It shows how much we have moved forward — that would have been impossible 20 years ago,” stated Cira Angeles of the Livery Base Homeowners, an affiliation that represents greater than 300 bases and shut to twenty,000 affiliated drivers. “It was a man’s industry and it really still is.”
Ladies in Driver’s Seats
As Valdivia settles into her second week as head of the company that regulates New York Metropolis’s taxi and for-hire automobiles, the brand new TLC head stated she admires the “hard work and strength” of ladies who succeed within the business.
Midori Valdivia was appointed to guide the Taxi & Limousine Fee by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Jan. 13, 2026. Credit score: Kara McCurdy/Mayoral Pictures
“You can see that intrepid and independent spirit in many of our female licensees,” stated Valdivia, who served as TLC deputy commissioner of finance and administration beneath Meera Joshi, who led the company throughout Invoice De Blasio’s two phrases as mayor. “They make up some of the safest drivers and most conscientious base operators out there, a mighty force who deserve our respect and support.”
Ladies are already in management and advocacy roles at a number of business teams within the metropolis.
Because the 1998 founding of the New York Taxi Staff Alliance, Desai has been a labor chief within the group representing greater than 20,000 yellow taxi, inexperienced cab, app-based, livery and company black automobile drivers. Angeles is the spokesperson for the Livery Base Homeowners group and the co-founder and chief government of L.A. Riverside Brokerage, a taxi and livery insurance coverage dealer.
Then there’s Diana Clemente, president of the Black Automotive Help Corp., which represents drivers of these vehicles. She additionally serves on the board of the Black Automotive Fund, which gives staff’ compensation protection and different advantages.
Clemente entered the enterprise within the Eighties whereas she was in school finding out to be an authorized public accountant.
“I am a CPA, I never really expected to go to a car company,” stated Clemente, the chief government of Huge Apple Automotive, a base in Brooklyn. “But sometimes a door opens in life and you walk through it.”
Clemente recalled how her mother and father made what she described as a “small investment” in Huge Apple Taxi, the yellow cab firm that preceded Huge Apple Automotive — and which launched her to the enterprise.
“My mom was despondent over the fact that they had made an investment with their savings — which was quite minimal, but all they had — and she begged me to come on board with the company,” she stated. “I resisted because I went to school for public accounting.”
Diana Clemente is chief government of Huge Apple Automotive, operating the Brooklyn-based automobile service out of her Tub Seaside workplace, April 16, 2026. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Many years later, Clemente continues to be there because the business grapples with competitors from new app-based rivals corresponding to Empower and the prospect of autonomous automobiles doubtlessly getting into the fray in New York Metropolis amongst for-hire automobiles, as they’ve in different cities.
“It’s been a pretty amazing journey,” Clemente stated. “It’s had its ups and downs, but I wouldn’t change it.”
Former manufacturing unit employee Carmen Cruz shifted to driving for Uber a number of years in the past after she started working in 2001 for a black automobile base in Brooklyn. To this present day, the next proportion of ladies drive for livery bases than the opposite automobile courses.
Carmen Cruz, a former manufacturing unit employee and a longtime black automobile driver, now drives for Uber, April 17, 2026. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
As of February, feminine drivers accomplished 5.9% of month-to-month journeys for the bases, TLC information reveals, in contrast with 3.6% for Uber and Lyft. Uber final month expanded its “Women Preferences” program to New York Metropolis and throughout the nation, giving feminine drivers and passengers the choice to request journeys with others from their gender.
“I’m happy that I came through all of this with my three kids,” stated Cruz, 53. “I got to see them grow up and they know everything I have gone through in this business.”
She acknowledged the issue of being a single mom, noting how she usually drives seven days per week to make ends meet.
Cruz stated she helps Valdivia, expressing hope that having a feminine TLC commissioner and chair will likely be useful for girls drivers whose on-the-job obstacles embrace entry to parking areas for lavatory breaks and private security.
“For me, it was so strange when I went to work as a driver — and it scared me, too,” Cruz stated. “But you know that necessity only makes you stronger.”
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