The current New York City TLC Commissioner is Midori Valdivia, who was confirmed by the City Council on March 26, 2026 and chairs the agency that licenses roughly 170,000 professional drivers and more than 100,000 vehicles across the city’s for-hire transportation industry.1NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. TLC Commissioners
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani nominated Valdivia on January 13, 2026. She succeeded David Do, who had led the agency since May 2022 after serving as director of Washington, D.C.’s Department of For-Hire Vehicles. Do was nominated by then-Mayor Eric Adams following the resignation of Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk.
The Chair is the only paid member of the nine-person Commission, earning approximately $212,000 per year.2Checkbook 2.0. NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission Payroll It is a full-time job that includes running daily operations, presiding over public Commission meetings, and hiring the staff and officers who carry out the agency’s work.
How a Commissioner Gets the Job
The Mayor nominates the Commissioner and the City Council must confirm the appointment. Every member of the nine-person Commission serves a seven-year term under New York City Charter Section 2301.3American Legal Publishing. New York City Charter – Section 2301 Membership of Commission The Mayor then designates one member to serve as Chair and chief executive officer.
Removal is not simple. The Mayor cannot fire a Commissioner over a policy disagreement; stated charges and cause are required. The Mayor can, however, strip the chairperson designation without removing the person from the Commission, which effectively replaces the agency’s leader while the outgoing Chair keeps a board seat. In practice, leadership turns over during mayoral transitions anyway, but the formal structure gives commissioners more insulation than most mayoral appointees receive.
What the Commissioner Actually Oversees
The TLC regulates every segment of the city’s for-hire network: yellow medallion taxis, green street-hail livery cabs, black cars, app-based services such as Uber and Lyft, community car services, commuter vans, and paratransit vehicles. The agency licenses the vehicles, the people who drive them, and the base stations that dispatch them.
Under the Chair’s direction, the agency handles a few core functions:
- Licensing. The TLC processes driver licenses (currently $252 for a three-year term), vehicle licenses, and base permits through licensing centers and the online LARS portal.
- Safety enforcement. Agency inspectors run vehicle inspections, investigate complaints, issue summonses, and conduct street-level enforcement against unlicensed operators.
- Accessibility. The Commission administers the wheelchair-accessible vehicle trip mandate, which requires for-hire bases to dispatch at least 25% of total trips to accessible vehicles.4NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. FHV Trip Mandate Rule – Frequently Asked Questions
- Driver pay. The Commission sets and updates minimum per-mile and per-minute pay rates for drivers on high-volume app platforms.
Enforcement runs through the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. The Commission can impose fines of up to $1,000 per violation on a licensed driver, suspend a license for up to six months, or revoke it entirely.5American Legal Publishing. Rules of the City of New York Title 35 – Section 80-02 Penalties Drivers who ignore a summons face a default judgment, meaning a judge can find them guilty in their absence and impose fines, license points, suspension, or revocation.6NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. Receive a Summons
Where the Chair’s Authority Stops
The Commissioner does not act alone on the biggest decisions. The full nine-member Commission votes on rulemaking proposals, license revocations, and major policy changes. Of the eight members besides the Chair, five must each live in one of the five boroughs and be recommended by a majority of that borough’s Council delegation.1NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. TLC Commissioners Those eight serve without pay.
The Commission’s legal powers come from New York City Charter Section 2300, which establishes its authority over all for-hire transportation in the city, including fare rates, licensing standards, vehicle safety and emissions requirements, and insurance minimums.7American Legal Publishing. New York City Charter – Section 2300 Commission A public hearing must precede any new rule, giving drivers, fleet owners, and advocacy groups a chance to testify. Between meetings, the Chair controls enforcement priorities, staffing, and the agency’s day-to-day direction.
Current Priorities Under the Commissioner
Two active programs frame most of what the agency is doing right now.
The Green Rides Initiative requires high-volume for-hire services to shift their fleets toward zero-emission and wheelchair-accessible vehicles by 2030. The benchmarks follow a fixed schedule: 5% of trips in 2024, 15% in 2025, and 25% in 2026, climbing by 20 percentage points each year until reaching 100% in 2030.8NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. Green Rides A trip counts toward the benchmark if it is completed by either an electric vehicle or a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. Providers have announced plans to bring at least 180 fast-charging plugs online by 2026 for the for-hire industry.9Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice. Electric Vehicles
Minimum driver pay on high-volume platforms is the other active front. As of March 1, 2026, the per-mile and per-minute floors are:10NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. Driver Pay Rates
- Standard trips within NYC: $1.283 per mile and $0.681 per minute.
- Wheelchair-accessible vehicle trips within NYC: $1.601 per mile and $0.681 per minute.
- Out-of-town standard trips: $1.757 per mile and $0.725 per minute.
- Out-of-town wheelchair-accessible trips: $2.193 per mile and $0.725 per minute.
These are floors. App companies can pay more; they cannot pay less. The higher rate for accessible vehicle trips is designed to pull drivers into operating accessible vehicles, which in turn supports the trip mandate.