A new data visualization video shows a day in the traffic life of New York City using the location data of 100,000 NYC cab rides. The project, called Taxi!, is the work of Tom McKeogh, Eliza Montgomery and Juan Francisco Saldarriaga, who created it for a course at Columbia University.

Taxi! was created using publicly available NYC taxi data–along with some help from the Google Maps API–to make sure the cars travelled correctly. The artists call the project a “breathing” map of the city in the project’s description, due to the way that the cities traffic swells and ebbs throughout the day.

Interestingly, despite the fact that it just maps the data on a plain black background, Taxi! actually forms a reasonably accurate map of New York: It clearly shows the outline of Manhattan, along with the major thoroughfares of the outer boroughs. Even more amazingly, the project uses only a small selection of the taxi traffic in NYC, limiting itself to just rides that began or ended in either Lincoln Center or Bryant Park.

Boosted by a recent Supreme Court decision, New York City cab drivers claim warrantless GPS tracking exposed thousands of drivers to bogus prosecutions and license revocations.

Lead plaintiffs Koffi Aka and Robert Carniol filed a federal class action against New York City, its Taxi and Limousine Commission, and commission Chairman David Yassky, the leader of the 9-member board.

New York City Law Department Senior Counsel Diana Murray defended the legality of its GPS tracking in an email statement to Courthouse News.

“* The courts have long recognized that 4th Amendment privacy protections are not applicable to certain highly regulated industries such as the pawn shop and taxi industries,” Murray wrote. “TLC only receives GPS data from taxicabs when the driver is on-duty – not when the driver is off-duty. Also, except for credit and debit card information, data collected from the GPS devices reflects exactly the same information that cab drivers have long been required to document in handwritten trip sheets.”

The cabbies’ 23-page class action cites the Supreme Court’s January ruling that police violated a suspected drug trafficker’s 4th Amendment rights by placing a GPS device in his car.

The cabbies claim that the Taxi and Limousine Commission falsely prosecutes cab drivers for overcharging riders, based on GPS-gathered information.

“In many cases, including Mr. Carniol’s, the TLC ultimately revoked hack licenses solely on the basis of GPS tracking evidence, without even a single complaining witnesses complaining or testifying against them,” the complaint states.

The class claims that in 2007 the Taxi and Limousine Commission forced all New York City medallion-holders to install GPS devices as part of a Taxi Technology System, required that every cab transmit license information, location of each trip, number of passengers, metered fare and distance to the commission.

“Thus the TLC requires that all taxis and taxi drivers continuously transmit to the TLC or its agents by use of GPS their locations at all times,” the complaint states. “While taxis must have this technology installed, nothing in the TLC’s rules permits (or even mentions) the TLC to use GPS data to prosecute taxi drivers even criminally or administratively.”

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance challenged the new technology in 2007 in a federal privacy lawsuit. The TLC beat the charges, in part, by assuring the court and the public that it would not use the GPS to track individual drivers, according to the complaint.

But the cabbies say the TLC changed its tune after it snared cabdriver Wasim Khalid Cheema for charging Rate 4 (out-of-city) fares for local rides. After finishing the Cheema investigation, the TLC scoured its 42,000-vehicle database for evidence of similar frauds, according to the complaint.

On March 12, 2010, a Friday night, the TLC told the press that its broader investigation had uncovered an $8.3 million scam implicating more than 33,000 drivers, based almost entirely on GPS data.

“Even after the TLC publicized the alleged Rate 4 problem and it was widely reported in print, radio and television, just ‘a couple’ of alleged victims came forward,” the complaint states. “Nor has the TLC ever claimed any exigent circumstances that would have made it impossible or even inconvenient to secure a search warrant.”

The cabbies say the TLC quickly retreated from its allegations, which were widely reported, including in The New York Times.
“Just 10 days later, however, the TLC admitted that the account it had aggressively marketed was wildly inaccurate,” the complaint states.

However, “Rather than accept responsibility for the errors, [TLC Chairman Matthew] Daus claimed, ‘The numbers that the press reported’ – which were precisely the numbers the TLC announced – were misleading. …

“While the TLC had now conceded its initial numbers were wrong by a factor of six in terms of trips and incorrect by a factor of eight in terms of dollar value, the media still presented the ‘scam’ as pervasive,” according to the complaint.

Undeterred, the TLC pursued its “prosecution offensive,” according to the complaint.

“The May 14 [2010] press release, apparently certain that its restated numbers were correct, outlined the TLC’s prosecution strategy,” the complaint states. “The agency announced it was ‘in the process of initiating license revocation proceedings against taxi drivers who were identified with 50 or more overcharges. Drivers with evidence of between 10 and 49 overcharges would have the option to surrender their TLC license or face fines ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Drivers with less than 10 overcharges would be reviewed on a case by case basis.’”

Plaintiff Aka said a prosecutor sent him a letter on Dec. 7, 2011, accusing him of more than 40 overcharges.

Carniol said he was accused of 91 overcharges, though there were no witnesses against him and no evidence of fraud in his income.

The cabbies say the TLC has sent letters demanding that more than 2,000 drivers enter settlements, and has claimed that its dragnet reaches more than 21,000 drivers.

The TLC said in an email that 257 drivers have entered into plea agreements to surrender their licenses so far.

Aka and Carniol demand punitive damages for the class and an order declaring warrantless GPS tracking of cab drivers unconstitutional.

They are represented by Daniel Ackman.

“Stop the greed and lower the lease”

Instead picking up fares, taxi drivers held up signs. Demonstrating in front of one of the city’s largest fleet operations, cabbies are protesting what they call high and unfair leasing fees charged by the owners of the cab companies.

Ali Memon is from Pakistan and has supported his wife and three daughters as a cab driver 12 years.

Most of New York’s 13 thousand taxicabs are owned by one of these large companies who then lease them out to drivers. The license fees are capped but not the finance charges for the car itself. Many here complain some owners with interest; charge as much as 60 thousand dollars on a vehicle that only costs 25 thousand.

There are more than 50 thousand registered taxi drivers in New York City. Most are immigrants from Muslim or Hindu countries. At one time here being a cab driver was considered one of the most dangerous jobs a person could have. And even though crime against cabbies is down there is still considerable risk and cost in the profession of moving people around.

David Yassky is head of the Taxi and Limousine Commission. His agency regulates taxi fares, rules and fees. He says although lease charges are capped and workers have can complain – some owners still try to get around the rules to charge the drivers more.

But the last fare increases for taxis was eight years ago. The hikes are supposed to benefit the drivers but during that time gas, insurance and other expenses have gone up. Protestors say with no new fare hike insight and no controls on all the extra fees – all of the money goes to the owners of the big companies and not to them and their families.

Watch the Video

WHEELCHAIR users have long been deprived of a quintessential New York City experience: riding in a taxi. So after years of discussion, litigation and experimentation, the governor and the mayor of New York last month announced a deal to put 2,000 wheelchair-accessible cabs on the streets, setting aside up to $54 million in subsidies and loans to retrofit vehicles for wheelchair use or buy new wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

The plan is well intentioned but might not achieve the desired results. Rather than improving access for the disabled, it will require taxpayers and the taxi industry to foot the bill for taxis that will in all likelihood rarely be used by the target ridership. A more sensible alternative would be to set up a small fleet of wheelchair-accessible cabs that disabled passengers could call upon, through a centralized dispatch system, at any time of day or night, as part of the region’s mass transit system.

Advocates estimate that there are about 60,000 wheelchair users in the city — and that’s not counting out-of-town visitors. No one doubts that getting around New York in a wheelchair can be daunting. Most subway stations are not accessible; many bus stops are too distant for wheelchair users to reach; and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s van program for the disabled requires registration and making a reservation, usually days in advance.

In response, the state and the city now plan to sell 2,000 new taxi medallions (the current total is 13,237) that will be designated for wheelchair-accessible vehicles and issue 18,000 permits — one-fifth of them wheelchair-accessible — for a new class of livery cabs that will be permitted to pick up street hails in upper Manhattan and the four other boroughs, areas traditionally underserved by yellow cabs.

But simply putting more accessible vehicles on the street is impractical and, for many, unaffordable. Drivers of accessible cabs would find it difficult to find space in the middle of heavily congested streets to accommodate wheelchair users; insurance premiums for drivers and vehicle owners are likely to rise; and many disabled riders would far prefer home pickup to an uncertain wait on a corner in bad weather (though advocates for the disabled are loath to admit it).

The new plan put forward by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is partly a response to judicial pressure. On Dec. 23, two days after the deal was announced, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the taxi commission had failed to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act by not providing sufficient wheelchair access. The judge even stopped the city from auctioning any new permits or medallions unless they are all accessible and until a plan is approved by the court.

There is a better approach: a centralized taxi-dispatch system for disabled riders. From July 2008 to June 2010, the Taxi and Limousine Commission tested such a system. When riders called the city’s 311 information line, a company dispatched one of 232 accessible yellow cabs to pick them up.

The results were not promising, but also not conclusive. The median wait time was 22 minutes. Only 2,700 individuals used the service — and most of them for just one trip per year. Only about eight rides took place each day. The $1 million budget for the 5,828 trips taken meant that each trip cost, on average, $172. The overwhelming majority of the rides began and ended in Manhattan (as is typical of cab usage in the city).

However, I believe the disappointing results were more a reflection of the high cost of riding a cab — a particular deterrent for people who are on fixed incomes — than of the challenges of a dispatch system.

My proposal is this: convert the existing van program run by the M.T.A. into a system of subsidized door-to-door taxi rides. The van system, known as paratransit or Access-a-Ride, spends more than $380 million a year. The average cost per ride is $30 to $50, which I believe could be lowered to $12 to $15 if the little-used vans were replaced with accessible cabs. The system would rely on usage patterns to determine the right number of cabs — instead of setting them by fiat. Passengers would pay $2.25 a ride (with a discount for purchasers of certain fare cards), the same cost as a subway trip.

The M.T.A. has been testing such a program; it should become permanent. It would allow the use of custom-built vehicles instead of retrofitted ones. The M.T.A. or the city would enforce service standards to ensure that wait times were reasonable and drivers properly trained. Over time, as the service became more reliable, demand would rise — after all, door-to-door service for the cost of a subway ride is far cheaper than hailing a retrofitted yellow cab. One model for this is Chicago, where only 90 wheelchair-accessible cabs (about 1 percent of the total fleet) are efficiently dispatched through a single toll-free number.

Congress could also help. The Americans With Disabilities Act, enacted in 1990, exempted taxicabs, but subsequent federal regulations required cabs for the disabled to provide “equivalent service.” So governments are not required to provide accessible cabs, but if they do, they are open to being sued (as New York City was) for discrimination. The act should be amended to provide incentives for disability access instead of punishing municipalities that try to do the right thing.

Putting thousands of accessible cabs on the road looks good in theory, but how it will work in practice is a different matter. Quite possibly, the result will be further irritation — not enhanced mobility — for disabled New Yorkers.

by Matthew W. Daus – a lawyer, was the chairman of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission from 2001 to 2010.

Now that he has taken responsibility for remaking New York City’s taxi and livery industries, Gov. Cuomo needs to demonstrate that his plan can work before he and the Legislature write the overhaul into law.

Cuomo was widely hailed — pun intended — last week for devising a scheme that would:

add 2,000 yellow cabs, all capable of accommodating wheelchair passengers, to the fleet;

raise $1 billion for the city through the sale of taxi medallions.

The rub is that Cuomo has set conditions on achieving all those benefits. He insists that:

20% of the new street-hail liveries — 3,600 cars — must be wheelchair-accessible, and

the city must spend up to $54 million to help livery drivers pay for those expensive vehicles.

In other words, Cuomo will let Mayor Bloomberg reap $1 billion for cops, firefighters and teachers only if huge numbers of drivers dump their cheap cars to buy specially equipped high-cost vans with the $54 million in public aid.

This does seem a fantasy.

Roughly 23,000 livery cars provide taxi service in the vast stretches of the city — the boroughs and Manhattan above 96th St. — that have been abandoned by yellow cabs. They answer radio calls and are barred from picking up street hails — though they do so anyway 150,000 times a day.

Although the industry had been humming along for years, Taxi and Limousine Commission Chairman David Yassky decided to force change after his wife griped about negotiating fares with drivers. She preferred that the cars have meters.

Then, Bloomberg announced he wanted to “equalize” taxi service across the city,
never mind that yellows and liveries operate under different sets of economics, practicalities and legalities.

Soon enough, the yellow cab industry rose to defend its monopoly. Just as quickly, advocates for the handicapped expanded to street-hail livery cars their legitimate demand, endorsed Friday by a federal judge, that yellows take wheelchairs.

So, in stepped Cuomo, who fashioned the plan outlined above. Question, governor: Have you ever ridden in a livery cab?

Most start out as used cars — worth, maybe, $10,000 each — then rack up hundreds of thousands more miles.

Given the fare structure, larger investments are generally out of the question.

Yet Cuomo theorizes that 3,600 drivers will pony up for $40,000 wheelchair-accessible vehicles if the city spends $15,000 a car to reduce the out-of-pocket cost. Leaving aside the question of whether taxpayers should shoulder that kind of expense, Cuomo’s numbers appear unworkable.

If that is correct, two results are possible:

One, the scheme will fail and the city will be denied $1 billion desperately needed to deliver basic services.

Two, livery car drivers will have to sock passengers with markedly higher fares.

Neither outcome would be acceptable. That’s why the governor must prove he knows what he is doing before proceeding further.

Until then, he should just stick with the law he signed last week that will allow 30,000 liveries to cruise for fares starting in two months and let the city pull in the $1 billion by auctioning 1,500 yellow medallions.

The following are permitted reasons for refusing to transport:

(1) Another Passenger is already seated in the Taxicab.

(2) The Driver has already ac- knowledged a hail from another person, and that other person is being picked up or is about to be picked up. (CAUTION: A Driver must not acknowledge the hail of one person over another in order to avoid transporting the person whose hail was not acknowledged.)

(3) The Passenger is carrying or is in possession of any article, pack- age, case or container which the Driver reasonably believes will cause damage to the Taxicab. (CAUTION: This does NOT include wheelchairs, crutches, a service animal or other mobility aid used by disabled Pas- sengers. Mobility aids must be accepted.)

(4) The Driver is discharging his last Passenger or Passengers prior to going off duty, and has already:
(i) Illuminated his “Off Duty” light, and
(ii) Transmitted or entered the appropriate data.

(5) The Driver is ending his or her work shift, and has already:
(i) Illuminated the “Off Duty” sign,
(ii) Locked both rear doors, and
(iii) Transmitted or entered the appropriate data.

(6) The Driver must take the Taxi- cab out of service for required repairs to T-PEP, and has already:
(i) Illuminated the “Off Duty” light sign or properly placed the Relief Time sign in the Taxicab,
(ii) Locked both rear doors, and
(iii) Transmitted or entered the appropriate data.

(7) The Passenger is accompanied by an animal that is not properly secured in a suitable container. (CAUTION: This does not apply to service animals accompanying people with disabilities.)

(8) The Passenger’s destination is Newark Airport or someplace in
Nassau or Westchester County, and the Driver has been operating the Taxicab for more than eight hours of any continuous 24-hour period.

(9) The Passenger is disorderly or intoxicated. (CAUTION: Drivers must not refuse to provide service solely because a disability results in annoying, offensive, or inconvenient behavior.)

(10) A Passenger asks a Driver on the airport Long Haul line for a Short Haul trip and there are Taxicabs available in the Short Haul line.

(11) A Passenger asks a Driver in the airport Short Haul line for a Long Haul trip and there are Taxicabs available in the Long Haul line.

(12) If a Passenger is smoking and has refused the Driver’s request to stop, the Driver can discharge the Passenger in a safe location. (CAUTION: The Driver must ask the Pas- senger at least twice to stop smoking before requiring him or her to leave the Taxicab.)

On a rainy Wednesday in Brooklyn, one might have expected some enthusiasm for a new law that next year will allow livery cabs to be hailed on the street in northern Manhattan and the four other boroughs. Instead, some who work with livery cabs were skeptical about the effect the law might have, while those in the yellow cab business worried about its potential impact.

John D’Adamo owns Malones Car Service in Greenpoint; 20 drivers pay him a fee to use his company’s dispatch services. Customers call the office to request a ride, and a dispatcher sends drivers to fetch them. That, Mr. D’Adamo said, is how it works in Brooklyn.

“You call; you make a reservation; you know you’re going to get a car,” he said. “You can have a clear head. These guys who do street hails, they’re not going to make the money.”

He said airport rides accounted for a large share of business, and, by 1 p.m., some 30 customers had already requested rides to La Guardia ($22), Kennedy International ($35) or Newark Liberty International ($50, plus the toll). Because the call-in service works well, he said, he forbids his drivers from accepting street hails.

But he added: “Go wait on Manhattan Avenue, and see how long it takes you to hail a car from another service. It won’t take long.”

In fact, it took a reporter, standing in a light drizzle, about 15 minutes to flag down a livery cab on Manhattan Avenue.

The first livery driver to stop was Michal Wolczynski, who owns his own gray Lincoln Town Car but pays a dispatching fee to Prime Time Transportation Inc., based in Long Island City, Queens.

Mr. Wolczynski said he did not normally pick up street hails, which has been illegal for livery drivers but will be legal under the new law for drivers who obtain a special permit. He said, however, that he would make an exception to speak with a reporter.

Mr. Wolczynski, an immigrant from Poland, bought his first Town Car two decades ago: a used 1985 model for which he paid $5,000. He estimated that in the 20 years he had worked as a livery cab driver, often seven days a week, he had logged nearly one million miles in the city.

Despite his long record, and the new law that could potentially enable him to expand his business, he said that Wednesday coincidentally was his final day as a livery cab driver. In 2008, he split the cost of a yellow cab medallion with a partner; each man paid $217,500. He said he planned to drive the yellow cab full time starting Thursday, which he said would be more lucrative than driving a livery cab.

He said he did not think the law would have a significant impact, as most of the passengers who hail cabs do so in Lower Manhattan, where it will remain illegal for a livery cab to pick up someone hailing from the street.

“Yellow taxi business is much better,” Mr. Wolczynski said. “Yellow taxi is very busy in Manhattan all the time. People in livery cabs cannot pick up in Manhattan.” But some in Brooklyn’s yellow cab business were worried that the new law, signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday, would let livery cabs eat into their earnings.

“Listen, every cab driver thinks it’s bad for the yellow taxi,” said Chris Harisopoulos, a dispatcher at McGuinness Management, which operates a fleet of 350 yellow cabs from Greenpoint.

The company manager, Sebastian Olson, noted that the new law ended yellow cabs’ exclusive right to pick up people on the street and said that he feared this was just the beginning of an encroachment by livery cabs.

“That’s their foot in the door,” he said. “And once their foot’s in the door, it’s just a matter of time before they’re going to be given more permits or get to pick up passengers in the city during certain hours.”

Not far from the McGuinness Management office, Alex Brody, a nanny and college student, was walking from Manhattan Avenue to her apartment near McGuinness Boulevard. She tends to rely on public transportation, she said, but occasionally calls Malones, when she needs a lift to the airport or home after a late night.

“There’s so many car services in the neighborhood, and they’re easier and often cheaper,” Ms. Brody said. She added that she did not expect to use the livery cabs available for hailing much more than she used the call-in service.

Even on a wet December day like this?

“It’s not a problem,” she said. “I have an umbrella.”

Thousands of free taxi, livery cab and transit rides distributed as part of “You the Man” campaign, reminding New Yorkers to celebrate responsibly and plan for a designated driver

New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan today announced the return of the “Safe Rides Home” giveaway, with thousands of free taxi, livery and public transit rides home to be distributed from now until New Year’s Eve to encourage New Yorkers to be safe every time they celebrate by planning for a designated driver. This promotion is part of DOT’s “You the Man” campaign, which is designed to curb drinking and driving, reduce traffic crashes and make New York City’s streets even safer. DOT is working with Johnnie Walker to provide 1,500 free debit cards valued at $15 apiece for New Yorkers to use in taxis or at MetroCard or other transit-ticket machines this holiday season. In addition, 4,000 single-ride MetroCards will be distributed citywide as part of the program. Safe Rides Home reminds revelers that New Yorkers can count on friends and family members as designated drivers, as well as the city’s transportation professionals: cab, livery and bus drivers and subway operators. Former NFL quarterback and WFAN morning sports show host Boomer Esiason and Diageo Executive Vice President of Corporate Relations Guy Smith joined Commissioner Sadik-Khan for the giveaway at Times Square. The announcement marks the second year Johnnie Walker’s parent company, Diageo, has partnered with DOT to provide New York residents and visitors a free, safe ride home during the holidays.

“Wherever the celebration takes you on New Year’s and all year round, plan for a safe ride home with a designated driver,” said DOT Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “New York City’s designated drivers, including taxis, bus and subway operators, keep the good times rolling while making our streets as safe as they can be.”

“Taking taxis and other for-hire vehicles have always been a great way to demonstrate responsibility during the holiday season and the ‘You the Man’ campaign, along with these taxi cards are an excellent way to promote awareness,” said TLC Commissioner/Chair David Yassky.

“Johnnie Walker stands behind its commitment to responsible drinking. Joining the DOT for its annual Safe Rides Home program allows us to deliver a very important message during the holiday season,” said Diageo’s Guy Smith. “It makes sense that the country’s most popular New Year’s Eve destination would take the lead in celebrating responsibly. We are looking forward to ringing in 2012 safely with both our fellow New Yorkers and the thousands of visitors who travel to our city each year.”

DOT launched the first Safe Rides Home program last December, and 78 percent of all debit card transactions from that giveaway took place between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. – prime celebratory hours. For this year’s Safe Rides Home promotion, the rides will be distributed in the form of pre-paid debit cards, which are processed by Western Union and valued at up to $15. They are redeemable exclusively in the city’s 13,000-plus taxicabs, participating livery car services, MTA, PATH, NJ Transit or other ticketing machines from Dec. 16 through noon, Jan. 1, 2012. The debit cards will be distributed at two events in December and MetroCard giveaways will take place in each borough this month. Dates, times and locations can be found on www.youthemannyc.org. To learn the exact whereabouts of the street team during the giveaways, follow @youthemannyc on Twitter.

Launched in February 2010, DOT’s You the Man social-marketing campaign is designed to reach all New Yorkers and encourage smart behavior that makes the city’s streets safer by keeping drunk drivers off the roads. The slogan, creative designs and humorous approach are especially designed to resonate with men ages 21-39, who statistics show are most likely to get into a DWI-related crash or accept a ride from an intoxicated driver. You the Man relies on peer-to-peer language to celebrate designated drivers and in its latest iteration uses humorous winter holiday scenarios to remind New Yorkers to plan for a designated driver. New ads will run now through the new year online as well as outdoors on billboards, on buses and on posters. The campaign features a Web site, www.youthemannyc.org, and a free iPhone app that uses GPS to help users find the closest subway stops and livery car services.

The NYPD will continue its drunken-driving enforcement throughout the holiday season with DWI patrols and checkpoints throughout the city. The NYPD made 9,601 DWI arrests and seized 1,363 vehicles from drunk drivers in 2010.

The new law will bring legal taxi service to the outer boroughs

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that he and the Legislature have agreed on a plan that greatly expands New York City taxi service to the outer boroughs and brings an anticipated $1 billion in revenue to the city to ease a budget shortfall.

“The new law will make getting around town easier, safer and less costly for millions of New Yorkers,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “It will make an enormous improvement in the getting of service for people with disabilities that need to have the ability to get around.”

Under the compromise plan, the city will sell 18,000 of a new kind of permit that lets livery cabs pick up passengers who hail them on the street in upper Manhattan and the four other boroughs. Manhattan below 96th Street and the city’s two airports will be off limits to this new class of taxis.

The city will provide grants of up to $15,000 to retrofit vehicles to accommodate the disabled or to purchase accessible vehicles.

The plan also authorizes the city to sell 2,000 new medallions, all of which will be restricted to vehicles that are wheelchair-accessible.

“The bill as originally passed failed to address the needs of individuals with disabilities and did not provide any incentive for the livery industry to ensure disabled New Yorkers had full access to the taxicab system,” Cuomo said.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos said the deal announced Tuesday was “an improved piece of legislation that provides much-needed revenue for the City of New York and serves the needs of its residents and all of the interested parties.”

Bloomberg said the plan is the realization of a goal that has eluded the city for three decades.

The new law will bring legal taxi service to 7 million people outside of Manhattan’s central business district and will make more cabs accessible to the disabled. It will generate $1 billion for the city, Bloomberg said.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz says the plan will also offer considerable legal protection to livery cab drivers, many of whom are immigrants.

The bill allowing livery cabs to pick up street hails in New York City’s outer boroughs stirred angry protests this fall from cabbies, who said their costly taxi medallions would be worthless if they lost exclusive rights to street hails.

Fernando Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said he supports the governor’s approach and believes the changes negotiated in the bill will address at least 70 percent of taxi driver’s concerns, but he doesn’t think it will really work.

“We shall see. I believe that the livery industry will survive and I believe that those drivers that do switch over to do street hails will realize how expensive it is and will ultimately reject it,” Mateo said.

Copyright Associated Press