Women on the Road in the New York Taxi and For-Hire Industry

Cira Angeles, the Co-Founder, President, and CEO of L.A. Riverside Brokerage, Inc. Riverside Transportation Group since 2024, is a strong advocate for the taxi and livery sectors. She co-founded L.A. Riverside in 1994, serving thousands across New York City. Ms. Angeles is a respected industry leader and serves as the Spokesperson for the Livery Base Owners Association (LBOA), a key organization representing over 300 taxi bases and more than 20,000 drivers. Her advocacy led to the passage of the ​“Green Cab” bill in February 2012, a significant milestone for the industry.

From 2009 to 2017, Ms. Angeles hosted ​“La Hora del Conductor,” a Univision/Radio WADO 1280 AM radio program, and La Mega 97.9 FM, which focused on the taxi and livery industry and essential regulatory matters. In addition to her broadcasting career, she is a former board member at Hostos Community College and served as Chair of the Dr. Nasry Michelen Foundation, that created the Endowment for the Health allied careers at Hostos Community College. She serves at the Board of Advisors of Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

In 2019, Ms. Angeles was honored with the Excellence Chamber of Commerce Award. The following year, she was appointed by Mayor Bill De Blasio to the NYC Department of Transportation of the city’s reopening after COVID-19. In 2021, she was selected by the city council for the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s Black Car and Livery task force, which was created to address challenges within the livery sector. In 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul appointed her to a task force aimed at resolving the insurance insolvency crisis in the Taxi and Limousine industry.

Ms. Angeles’ contributions have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the ​“Latina Businesswoman of the Year” from the New York State Senate. The Ministry of Tourism of the Dominican Republic also acknowledged her efforts to promote Dominican culture in the U.S. In 2020, she was recognized as the ​“Empire Whole Health Hero” by Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield for her contributions to public health. In 2023, she was honored with the ​“Inspiring Community Leaders” award by the president of Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, for her significant impact on the community. She holds degrees in Industrial Engineering from Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra and Public Administration from Farleigh Dickenson University.

Vanessa Barrios serves as Co-Chair of the Women+ of Color in Transportation & Climate Infrastructure network, a growing community that creates space for women and gender-nonconforming people of color to build relationships, share knowledge, support one another, and strengthen leadership across the transportation and climate fields.

As Director, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiatives at Regional Plan Association, she facilitates research, engagement, and advocacy related to affordable homes, accessible transit, public health, climate justice, and equitable economic development.

Prior to joining the organization in 2016, she worked as a case manager, housing navigator, and outreach worker at People Assisting the Homeless, a homeless service organization which serves unhoused families, veterans, and individuals in the Greater Los Angeles area. In April 2022, Vanessa earned a spot on City & State New York’s Non-Profit 40 Under 40 list for her leadership both at RPA and the Healthy Regions Planning Exchange, an RPA-led initiative that convenes a network of planners, practitioners, and advocates from 10 regions across the country to address health and equity in planning.

She has a bachelor’s in sociology from the University of California, Riverside, and a master’s in urban planning from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University where she focused on international development planning. This specialization culminated in an analysis of local economic growth in the 30 regions of Tanzania and provided recommendations for industry potential and quality of life improvements.

Vanessa’s ancestors are from the Philippines. She is originally from Los Angeles, CA and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY where enjoys tending to her small but mighty windowsill garden and planning her friends’ next birthday parties.

Bhairavi Desai is the Executive Director and a co-founder of the 28,000-member strong New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), the union that represents NYC’s yellow taxi, green cab, and Uber/Lyft drivers. NYTWA’s driver-led campaigns have won over $450 million in stolen wages for Uber, Lyft, and yellow cab drivers and over $475 million in debt forgiveness for yellow cab medallion owner-drivers after drivers held a 15-day hunger strike outside City Hall. Most recently, NYTWA fought for and won a landmark law, establishing the most comprehensive just cause protections for Uber and Lyft drivers in the country, stopping these corporations from arbitrarily firing drivers with no warning and no recourse. On the forefront of organizing workers stripped of employee rights, NYTWA has won Unemployment Insurance benefits for Uber and Lyft drivers as employees, industry-specific minimum-pay that cover Uber and Lyft drivers’ time on the clock in between trips (empty time) and paid sick leave (via settlement the NYS Attorney General made with the companies which stemmed from a wage theft complaint filed by NYTWA.) In 2003, NYTWA established the first-ever framework for livable incomes for taxi drivers and has secured hundreds of millions in pay raises and cost of living adjustments for drivers. NYTWA annually serves 15,000 drivers and families through a robust direct social services and advocacy program. In 2017, NYTWA’s yellow cab members went on strike at JFK Airport to protest the inhumanity and unconstitutionality of the Muslim Ban. In 2011, NY and Philadelphia TWA formed the National Taxi Workers Alliance, becoming the 57th affiliate of the AFL-CIO and its first one of independent contractors and in 2016, NYTWA co-founded the International Alliance of App-Based Transportation Workers in solidarity with driver organizing in the Global South. Bhairavi was the first Asian American elected to the board of the AFL-CIO Executive Council on which she served from 2003 to 2022. Born in India, Bhairavi has been organizing drivers since 1996.

Jaslin Kaur is the Legislative Advocacy Advisor in the Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. There, she stewards legislative campaigns and partnerships as the liaison between advocates and City Hall. Jaslin was born and raised in Queens, NY to Sikh Punjabi immigrants. As the daughter of a yellow cab driver, she and her family faced significant financial impacts following the medallion market collapse. This issue compelled Jaslin to run for New York City Council in 2021. Later, she went on to organize and help win what is now the Medallion Relief Plan with members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA). Previously, Jaslin worked at the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) where she led the largest national GOTV program for Sikh Americans as well as bilingual Know Your Rights outreach campaigns. She has also held roles at Run for Something and New American Leaders. Jaslin is a proud graduate of CUNY Hunter College and Nassau Community College.

Julie Su is New York City’s first ever Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice. In her newly created role, she oversees agencies such as the Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Small Business Services, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, and the Department of Cultural Affairs, helping the Administration deliver on its affordability agenda by ensuring that the local economy works for every New Yorker. As former US Secretary of Labor, Julie played a central role in fighting for workers, ensuring a just day’s pay for a hard day’s work and saving the pensions of more than a million union workers and retirees. Prior to her work at the federal level, she served as the California Labor Secretary appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom. Building on her nearly two decades of experience as a nonprofit attorney representing low wage, vulnerable workers, Julie’s work as California Labor Commissioner from 2011-2018 was synonymous with a renaissance in enforcement, creative approaches to combating wage theft, and fiercely protecting immigrant workers. Julie graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Law School. She speaks Mandarin and Spanish.

Tiffany-Ann Taylor joined NYC DOT as Chief Strategy Officer in 2026 and leads the policy vision for the nation’s largest municipal transportation agency. In this role, Ms. Taylor is responsible for creating internal and external strategies to ensure equitable implementation of the agency’s core objectives and values, including but not limited to safety, accessibility, equity, sustainability, and state of good repair.

Ms. Taylor formerly served as the Vice President for Transportation at the Regional Plan Association (RPA) where she was responsible for the organization’s multi-modal mobility policy for the tri-state metropolitan area. She served as RPA’s representative on critical regional projects, including but not limited to her leadership in congestion pricing advocacy, expanding RPA’s role as a regional freight advocate, and leveraging RPA’s influence to combat highway expansion projects throughout the region. Prior to working at RPA, she served as Deputy Director of Freight Programs, Education, and Research for the Freight Mobility unit at NYC DOT and as an Assistant Vice President at the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Throughout her career, Ms. Taylor has led transformative projects in passenger transportation, freight policy, and truck safety and compliance initiatives. She holds a B.A in Government from The College of William & Mary and an M.S in City & Regional Planning from Pratt Institute.

Ms. Taylor is a first-generation American, the founder of the Hindsight Conference and former President of the New York Metro Chapter of the American Planning Association. She is an alum of notable fellowships including the Coro Leadership New York Program, the Urban Design Forum, NYU Rudin Center, and is a former mentor of Transit Center’s Women Changing Transportation Mentorship program. Ms. Taylor is also an adjunct assistant professor at NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, teaching urban transportation planning to a new generation of urban planners.

Midori Valdivia was nominated to serve as the Chair and Commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) by Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani on January 13, 2026, and was confirmed by the City Council on March 26, 2026. 

Midori has worked at the center of the New York region’s most consequential transportation institutions, including the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. As Chief of Staff at the MTA, serving a workforce of 70,000, she played a key leadership role in advancing some of the most significant transportation and climate policies in the nation. Her leadership has worked to center the dignity of working people within complex regulatory and fiscal environments. Midori shaped the regulatory framework for the first wage standards for service workers at John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports and was part of the senior leadership team in advancing the TLC’s first-in-the-nation driver pay study for for-hire vehicle drivers — landmark efforts that strengthened income stability for thousands of predominantly immigrant workers. As Deputy Commissioner for Finance and Administration at the TLC, Midori also led the roll-out of the largest wheelchair accessible taxi fleet in the United States at the time. 

Born to Peruvian parents, she lived in Osaka, Japan, with her family as a young child. She immigrated to the United States where English became her third language. Midori holds a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs and Urban and Regional Planning from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Penn State University. Midori served on the Board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, nominated by the Mayor of New York at the time and appointed by the Governor of New York. She was previously a Trustee of the TransitCenter foundation and board member of the Shared-Use Mobility Center and the Regional Plan Association. Midori co-founded the Women of Color Network in Transportation and Climate Infrastructure. She is committed to expanding equitable, affordable, and accessible transportation options.