New York backs away from upstate robotaxi pilots

New York state is retreating from proposed robotaxi pilot programs outside New York City, according to The New York Times—another example of how “safety” is used as a regulatory pretext in American politics.

The immediate effect is banal but costly: fewer real-world miles, slower iteration, and delayed commercialization of autonomous mobility in precisely the kinds of geographies—less dense, more drivable, more predictable than Manhattan—where pilots could generate learning at lower risk and lower political temperature.

The Times reports that the state is backing away from upstate deployments after earlier momentum toward limited trials. While the official rationale is framed around caution and public safety, the political economy is hard to miss. Robotaxis threaten multiple entrenched interests simultaneously: legacy taxi and livery operators, municipal regulators who treat transportation as a licensing fief, and public-sector constituencies that prefer risk aversion to accountability. When something goes wrong with a private operator, it becomes a scandal; when the state blocks productivity gains for years, it’s called “prudence.”

Autonomous vehicles aren’t magic, and they will fail sometimes. But the relevant comparison is not “perfect safety versus any risk”; it is today’s human-driven baseline, which is already a mass-casualty regime tolerated because it is familiar. Regulators, however, face asymmetric incentives: they are punished for visible novelty failures and rarely rewarded for invisible lives saved through innovation.

Upstate New York also illustrates another dynamic: local veto points. Even when a technology could be tested in a narrow corridor with strict geofencing, remote monitoring, and clear liability rules, the state can still choose paralysis. The result is a de facto industrial policy favoring incumbents—without the honesty of calling it that.

New York is perfectly capable of hosting high-risk experiments when the beneficiaries are politically connected (real estate megaprojects, subsidized “economic development,” or public procurement). But when the experiment is a private service that might reduce costs, expand mobility, and weaken licensing cartels, the state suddenly discovers humility.

The practical consequence is that autonomous mobility development migrates to jurisdictions that permit learning-by-doing. New York doesn’t eliminate robotaxis; it just exports the jobs, the data, and the productivity gains—then imports the finished product later, at a premium, after other states absorbed the risk.

Government is supposed to protect the public. New York’s decision does the opposite, with the comforting label of “safety.”