Yellow Cab? Dat’s racist...
The one with the disco lights.
New York City has been involved in an ongoing discussion about issuing more taxi medallions for years.
The biggest obstacle is that it sees limiting the medallion count as mainly an exercise in limiting traffic congestion in midtown Manhattan. It is believed that allowing more cabs on the street will simply worsen the congestion in these areas without providing any more service in outlying parts of the city where cabs are hard to find.
I’m surprised that NYC didn’t try to protect the “value” of the medallions by mandating that Uber and Lyft drivers were required to have them also. After all, it’s a one-party dictatorship. How hard would it have been to do that. How often does a tyranny drop the ball like this and allow actual freedom to seep in?
“Thousands of immigrant drivers”? Having quoted that, I’ve been a passenger of a NYC taxi with a driver from Russia and another one from Africa, friendly, proud and worth the money I paid them. Sad to think they have to fight New York City corrupt powers-that-be.
I’ve seen youtube videos that say that by the time an uber driver pays for expenses, that there is not enough left over to pay for the wear and tear on the car.
Thus uber drivers are liquidating their cars and not making enough to buy another one.
Nobody questions but that the system was corrupt and bad. But of course it was the gig economy with Uber and Lyft that left the sucker recent medallion owners holding the bag.
Almost without exception government effs up everything it touches.
L
I don’t know if it’s true elsewhere, but in my neck of the woods all the Yellow Cab drivers are independent contractors. So they are able to refuse trips.
And that’s happened to me. I called to book a Yellow Cab, and the dispatcher said “Okee-dokie! One is one the way.”
But no cab showed up, ever. When I called back, I was told “Oh, sorry pal. No one picked up your run.”
That caused me to have to reschedule a very important appointment. I will never, ever use Yellow Cab again.
1G12 or 3128
I was in New York City this past weekend. Wanted to go from the restaurant back to the hotel. Uber was 16 minutes away, and was going to charge $35 without tip. I managed to hail a cab within two minutes, cost of $13, tip included. I don’t know if it’s always like this, or if I just lucked out.
Hard to say what would have happened if Uber and Lyft weren’t LOSING Money on every ride, they might be charging the same rates as Taxi’s , maybe more.
Unbelievable!
I used to sell commercial real estate in Seattle back in the early 80’s. What I learned back then about how retail space rental really shocked me. The triple net lease is a fun one, but also how shopping malls did it. And then I learned about special “tax zones”. That is, if a location (mall, etc) is particularly profitable, the city will add an additional sales tax to just that location.
But the bottom line is this: The whole thing is like mafia “protection money” with various layers. If you are in a major mall, the mall sees your books and charges you a percentage of your profit. Same for building owners in high traffic areas. It means that “just paying your rent isn’t enough. If you are not doing all that well, though you can afford your rent, they’ll replace you with a more profitable tenant.
Frankly, when I see a small storefront doing a ton of buisiness in an area like this, I wonder how much of their profit is going to the landlord and the city, rather than the business owner.
The whole thing is corrupt, at least to me. Oddly, this is one reason I’ve not bought anything in a large shopping mall for at least 20 years, and I use Amazon* or Costco (or other online) as much as possible. Starve the beast.
*Yes, I know I’m hurting one collective “bad guy” to favor another, but still...
How many City "workers" are distributed around New York city monitoring the taxi line 24/7
Complete with high sallaries, benefits and pensions
Enquiring minds seek to know.
PING!!
I’m quite sure you could make some knowledgeable additions to this thread.