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
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Happy New Year !!
Well what a way to ring in 2012 !!!
Its just great !!!
No, ? Why ?
PHUCKING Sad way to hump the Yellow Medallion owners WHO HAD the EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to pick up Anywhere in the city…THIS WILL BE THE DEMISE OF THE LIVERY BASES AS WE KNOW THEM Now , There shall be more empty stores / former bases , who needs them ? The cruising liverys SHALL CAUSE AN EXTREME AMOUT OF POLLUTION IN THE OUTER BOROS !!! Take a DEEP Breathe Outer boros , The AIR you Breathe NOW is going AWAY…PS The only TIME Outerboro Cabs will be busy is DURING RUSH HOURS / Bad Weather Times, WHERE do You THINK THEY ARE COMING When they are slow , TO MANHATTAN OF COURSE , I see THEM PICKING UP NOW on SAT AND SUNDAY WITH IMPUNITY BOTH DAYS during Eve rush !!!! CHEAPER RIDES FOR The OUTER BOROS …WHAT A JOKE , Never will PRICES BE CHEAPER IN The Outer boros ,Folks be ready to PAY Thru the NOSE , With this Rule Passage The COST of Running One of these OUTERBORO Cabs is GOING TObe more EXPENSIVE than the MARKET Can bear , The $1,500 Fee Is just the Tip of the ICEBERG Costwise ….Want More Contac Me….
Oh yeah , NO CURRENT VEHICALS can Pick up a Wheel Chairs as they want now, I pick them up and put chair in trunk currently , UNLESS THE MAYOR WANTS 2000 AMBULANCE TYPE VANS CRUISING THRU NYC !!! Ummm, They DONT Make Your Mileage / and Pollute way to many Emissions , PS AMBULLETTE , Drivers and Owners The MAYOR wants to Destroy YOU Via this Rule …..Hmmmm…..
It is amazing, and a shame, what the City is doing. The city should be more concerned about how to best regulate the taxi business, based on demand and supply, and not seek to make billions of dollars by ripping off the drivers taxi business with their totally illegal ideas of selling new medallions and permits, which the City paid nothing for them. Whenever the City needs to issue new medallions and/or permits to meet the demand for more taxis they should be freely distributed by lottery only to qualified individual drivers operating a taxicab. What these despicable politicians are doing calls for a revolution. Beware that you do not fall for their greedy and unjust legislature. It will backfire one way or another on whomsoever gets involved in their unjust racketeering ways of business. Don’t let them make our government a bad government. Be righteous and do the right thing no matter what the cost.
Want To RAISE CASH Bloombum ? CHARGE THE OTHERS – Car Services ,Limos ,Radio Groups,Liverys ,Black Cars, AND COMMERCIAL Trucks the $1000 tax stamp MVT the yellow medallions have been paying for years !!!!!!!
No Panic!!! Because. who’s tha owner of%% 80 and %%85 interest of the !!!13.237 medallions!!!! CREDIT UNIONS .I don’t think they would lend any money for new mwdallions !!!!maybe if some ones wants to put at least $$$200.000 down payment??????
Forget finding a yellow cab that will take you to an outside borough from Manhattan!
Once the bill is passed, Yellow Cabbies will not want to travel outside manhattan. They will never find a ride back to the city when there will be hundreds of black cabs picking up street hails.
If anyone knows of how these medallions will be sold, and at how much ? Can individual buyers purchase them or its only to big corporations to place a bit ? It seems that no matter how many cabs are on the road there are always drivers ready to pay this outrageous rents and leases .I think even if they sell 1000 medalions every month and there will be more taxis than people living on earth there still be people ready to work 12 hours a day trying to make 25 dollars .Wow ,this is the United states of America -reachest country in universe!
The solution is simple .Demand 10 dollars an hour pay plus benefits ,and watch this house of cards fall!
New York City Yellow cab`s medallions are worthless now!! How? Because, TLC will keep charging tickets, new rules, fees, and worst part new medallions will keep coming in next years. I am seeing 1 customer who looking to hire a cab and the second that they raise their arms and 5 empty cabs show up and jump on to customers in these days. I saw a news, TLC`s hooker Yassy was saying; Best investment, other bs about taxi business.. I have seen many medallion owner guys who having having hard time to pay their bills, and live like a homeless with decades. I dont think it is worth. and it will become much worser now with recent liberty bill.
Already tonite, A guy @ park ave was hailing, I stopped for him but he said,” not U,Black car!” WTF?!!
> Enforcement, enforcement, enforcement with $500 or more maximum fine and suspension to revocation, if not, we should unite to sue the city.
> Also we should clearly define yellow territory not roughly 96 but precise yet flexible line which includes beyond 96 (Mt Sinai hospital @100, Columbia U @122, Central Park North developing) and yellow territory near The East River (B’klyn Heights, Park Slope, Williamsburg, Astoria, etc.) You may not prefer to go these area, but if they are cut out for return trips at all, cabs will try the best to avoid trips then two problems arise: Manhattan will be too saturated with empty cabs with more competition and
business will suffer without customers delivered by yellow, for example, River Cafe.
> Meanwhile all drivers should be equipped to quickly shoot photos or videos so when you “See something, shoot something”. TLC hotline for report should be established and we should upload them in YouTube. I will work on this.
> At least new medallions will be introduced 500 at a time while monitoring the effects to drivers, says director of Taxi Workers Alliance.
> more of risk mitigating solutions will be posted soon.
> You do your part.
Anonymous, I’ve been telling you it is LEGAL to hail FHV in Manhattan as well as in o-b as clearly stated in June in NYC.gov/TLC. Passengers hailing black car is legal through phone hailing app. TaxiMagic, Uber, YouTheMan are just a few apps. Please check those apps or download yourself. They are new but changing the way taxi are hailed and it is illegal for yellowcab driver to use as of now!
Passenger can see available livery or black cars not yellowcab around their location like Park n 31 St and just click to hire and can see that car approaching them on the phone map so that was not you but that black car he wants legally!
My prediction is that increased demand by free or 99cent apps will eventually pull the supply of yellowcabs but not now.
My idea is that nobody use them in rush hour in Midtown but all should be able to respond to demand all time off Midtown and non-rush hour in Midtown. We will see. These apps and bike sharing are next big issues.
See how convenient these apps are for doormen in hotels or residential buildings in bad weather or cold winter? They don’t have to come out, just use phone and click indoors. When they see cars approaching the building in the map, just come out with passenger and open the door of black car! See this is not in big use now but more and more we will lose significantly so we have to deal with soon. Visit NYC.gov/TLC homepage in the middle.
I agree w / Mario 2 nd violation TAKE THE CAR !!!!
The ” Outer boros ” Cabs Meters should be PROGRAMMED For AN IMMEDIATE VIOLATION TO OWNER & DRIVER if acivated in OUR Zone !!! $500 1 st fine 2nd fine 1 yrs supension 3 rd fine Outerboro Lic / Med VOIDED and ELIMINATED ….THIS SHOULD AND CAN BE DONE in there meters …NO Man power for TLC to chase them as of NOW…LET THE METERS DO IT !!!! Yes there will be those who run w/o meters….
Has ANYONE QUESTIONED THE ENVIORMENTAL IMMPACT of This Bill signing 18,000 more CRUISING CARS in 3 yrs….Take a deep breath …That air shall soon be BAD ……..
“Segregation” is against the law, and that is what the city is effectively doing with the livey cabs. Only yellow birds should be allowed to pick up street hails, otherwise let hell break loose so every cab or car can pick up hails anywhere… no need for medallions, and no need for TLC.
I used to be very generous for black cars picking up in rush hour right next to me thinking they have to support their families too, until one Monday night when I changed my stand. I was first in long line on Lafayette. Couple of passengers came out of the door clearly walking towards my cab but one guy intercepted and guided them towards his black car parked a little ahead of me in front of all yellows waiting line. I was sitting dumbfounded for a while but soon furious and drove next to him blocking his way. I stepped out of the car and walked up to the driver and asked him, ” what do you think you are doing? Next time I make sure you get a ticket.” And I stared the driver and passengers for a while. You might ask that was all? But I said that in such an authoritative manner holding my anger, he looked scared and ready to present license to me in case I was a cop in a yellow cab.
I think this could be what we all should do. You see undercover cops in crusing yellow cabs? We all should pretend like them. I wouldn’t say we carry a fake police badge in the wallet to flash in front of their face, although I saw those being sold legally, we should wear NYPD logo knit hat or shirts selling in the store to confuse them and ask them license to scare them and let them go with warning. What do you think, will it work, hitman?
It seems that these apps will solve the problem for people willing to go to outer boroughs . All the driver has to say is that he will engage the meter once he is out off yellow taxi territory.
There is a much bigger issue with metered outerborough cabs. Yellow taxis will become sort of hostage of the city goverment .If there is any disagreement with what the city wants to do , all the mayor has to say is that black cars can pick up fares in the city and taxi drivers can strike as much as they want ,if it will come to it .
One and only motivation of mayor seems to me to increase revenue for the city: bigger pie the better at the expenses of 99%. Any benefit like o-b residents treated like first class New Yorkers(?) is only justification because how about treating drivers as such? All small business in NYC suffer from numerous bogus tickets and stupid, all-over no stopping sign in front of their stores interfering deliveryandtaxis’pickupanddropoff because of no-good-for- nothing bikes’ right of way not bike’s safety, $payingpaying paying$ risking license for violation, while bikes are risking nothing even riding in car lanes next to bike path ( just being yelled, “don’t be a jerk” is enough in he city’s bike promoting campaign ). What’s wrong with this city? Its transportation system is run by someone who doesn’t know New York City who put up the sign like share the road which has neen practiced for 100 years! As well as No Turn on Red in exactly same suburban format @ 61 St n York Ave when you get off FDR Drive and numerous other corners I took pictures as proof of the city doesn’t know ABC of NYC transportation wasting money and we have to be squeezed to fund that waste.
DOT is saying bike sharing is good for health, obesity, environment and pocket book. No Way! It aggravates congestion and pollution because you know just by the way they riding without any lighting at night, they never drove the cars they don’t own the cars therefore they didn’t reduce traffic. Please go to gym for your health and less polluted air for all! It IS Only good for pocket book not saving gas, parking, tickets but saving other transportation costs bringing ridership down making all others suffer.
I.> Bike sharing + II.> apps like Taxi Magic ( please familiarize with these apps because they end blind street hailing or blind cruising, as a matter of fact O-B street pickup permit itself became obsolete with these apps and remember Mario said that in future)
These two are big issues for the year 2012 and we have to gather all wisdom triumphing with change not just victimized like 2011.
That’s all for now.
Bloomy’s achievments during his dictatorship -
1st ave -parking lot from 20st to 74 st
2nd ave-parking lot from96st to Houston
3d ave-parking lot,from houston to 79st
Lexington-parking lot ,from72 st to 36 st
park ave-just forget about it
Madison ave -idiotic light system can not go one block without stopping .
5ht ave -should anything be said about 5th avenue?
6th ave-the only street you have a chance to go 3 miles per hour
7th avenue hybrid -enjoy the view of times sqare you will be there for 15 minutes
8th avenue -bicycle lane , swimming lane , horse riding lane, stop discrimmination of kyak riders
9th ave -good luck to you my friend !
10th ave-may I go 5 more blocks trying to avoid midtown jam? Ah, lincoln tunnel , well, we might get lucky!
The only thing is missing is an extra 2000 cabs , plus a flood of black cars preing on turists who dont now much about which taxis are legit and which are not .
Please continue discussion on the forum: link