Waymo passed the road test but failed the politics. Here are the three moves that would let driverless service in on New Yorkers’ terms. Waymo spent seven months proving its technology could handle New York. From August 2025 to March 2026, it ran eight robotaxis, each with a trained safety specialist behind the wheel, in a circumscribed testing zone covering Manhattan below 112th Street and Downtown Brooklyn. By the Department of Transportation’s account, no collisions were reported. This was a successful pilot, and New Yorkers might have expected that success to encourage growth: more Waymo vehicles, in a larger zone, operating in the evening as well as the day, such that more people could try the service, and the service could demonstrate its value in these broader contexts. Then the permits expired. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has not renewed them. Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed bringing robotaxis to the rest of the state, but has now withdrawn even that. Nor has she asked her DOT to relax any of the existing regulations restricting automated vehicles. Robotaxis will get to New York City eventually. They are already on the streets of 11 American metros, and as Silicon Valley types like to say, the technology today is both the best it’s ever been and the worst it will ever be. New York is the largest for-hire market in North America, and no robotaxi firm will want to leave it unclaimed forever. So the question is: On what terms should the City let them operate? The next time Waymo or Zoox or Tesla knocks on the door at City Hall, the administration should make three moves. It should require firms to buy medallions for their robotaxis from the New Yorkers who hold them. It should send the first fleet to the transit deserts in