The Lincoln Town Car, a mainstay of executive transportation, and the Ford Crown Victoria, part of taxi and police fleets, are being discontinued.
They are the muscular, leg-roomy fixtures of New York’s crowded streetscape, the automobiles that came to represent the city.
The Ford Crown Victoria served as the mainstay of taxi and police fleets. Its close cousin, the Lincoln Town Car, could reliably be found idling outside Lincoln Center or waiting to whisk a Wall Street type home for the evening.
But in a little more than a year, both models will go the way of the Checker cab. Ford Motor Company plans to shutter the Canadian plant that manufactures the cars and discontinue the recognizably bulky frame that gives them their shape.
That means the end for vehicles that have come to symbolize the full spectrum of New York life, from private black sedans purring on Park Avenue to the ubiquitous sight of the yellow cab, great equalizer of the varied urban tribe.
“These cars are a facet of people’s everyday experience,” said David Yassky, the city’s taxi commissioner. “Whatever takes their place will have a real and tangible influence on the city’s aesthetic.”
Passengers should prepare for a bumpier, more cramped ride. Forget roomy trunks that fit a French-door refrigerator; the older models are yielding to smaller gas-and-electric hybrid vehicles with knee-bumping back seats and flimsier frames.
The impending departures have left New York’s livery world scrambling. The Taxi and Limousine Commission is holding a contest to design a new taxicab to replace the city’s 8,200 Crown Victoria yellow taxis. The Police Department will lose a fast-accelerating sedan it has depended on since 1992. And the black-car industry must replace 75 percent of its fleet.
Prophecies of the cars’ demise have come and gone: they survived one death notice in 2006 when Ford moved production from Michigan to Ontario. But widespread regulatory reform and industry financial troubles mean this is the true end of the road.
The company says it concluded that sales would drop off in coming years as more states required police and livery vehicles to meet stricter environmental standards — a high hurdle for gas guzzlers like the Crown Vic and the Town Car, which get about 16 miles a gallon in the city.
Fickle consumer tastes have also played a role: the models sell well with commercial fleets but not individual drivers, who tend to prefer slimmer sedans. One exception is the retiree market in Florida, which has a fondness for Town Cars. (The Crown Vic is now sold only to commercial customers.)
In other words, the lighter, greener hybrid has triumphed. “We need to move onto an improved, more sustainable product,” Rob Stevens, Ford’s chief engineer for commercial vehicles, said in an interview.
But some drivers and fleet owners maintain that the Town Car and Crown Vic are uniquely well suited to their task of comfortably ferrying all manner of city dwellers, from expense-account Wall Street bankers to criminals handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser.
“It is large, it is safe, it is easily repairable,” John Acierno, president of the Executive Transportation Group, said of the Town Car, which makes up more than 80 percent of his 1,800-car fleet.
“When you think of a black car or a limousine, your mind’s eye sort of goes to it,” Mr. Acierno said. “If there’s one sitting in front of a building, you think the car is waiting for someone.”
The cars also deliver a particularly smooth ride, die-hards say, thanks to a forgiving suspension and the sturdy steel frame that underlies both models. The Crown Vic’s plush leather back seat can resemble a sofa on wheels.
Replacements have begun to crop up in the city’s fleets, but some owners of yellow cabs say they are unimpressed.
Ronald Sherman, the president of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, which represents 28 large fleet owners, said he had seen would-be taxi passengers ignore Chevrolet Malibu or Ford Escape cabs, opting for a longer wait in order to grab the more spacious Crown Vic. “These minis are ridiculous; passengers do not get into them,” Mr. Sherman said, asserting that the smaller back seat and low headroom made the hybrids uncomfortable and potentially dangerous for riders.
Kevin Healy, another fleet owner, agreed. Of the Volkswagen Jetta, another alternative taxi, he said: “Literally, I can’t get in. And I would need a doctor to get out.”
Despite such objections, New York City’s government is intent on greening its car fleet. A mayoral mandate is in place to depose the big gas guzzlers of yore: commissioners now drive hybrids, and the Police Department has reduced its Crown Victoria count to 1,400 cars today from 1,800 in 2006.
The city also wants to establish fuel emissions standards for taxicabs. Those regulations have been held up in court, but owners have pre-emptively started to adjust. Crown Victorias still account for 60 percent of yellow cabs, but their dominance has been threatened by growing numbers of Ford Escapes (2,637 cabs) and Toyota Sienna minivans (1,381).
The Lincoln Town Car remains a common sight on Park Avenue and outside the city’s gilded corporate headquarters. But there are signs that its clients’ tastes are changing, too.
Only half of the cars idling outside Lincoln Center on a recent weeknight were Lincolns. Instead, well-to-do clients stepped into Cadillacs, Mercedes-Benzes and a BMW.
A similar scene unfolded on a Wednesday morning at the Loews Regency Hotel, at Park Avenue and 62nd Street, where power breakfasters opted for Ford Expeditions, Lexuses and a Toyota Camry hybrid.
For most of the 35 years he has driven his private car in the city as a chauffeur, Ziggy Kingston used a Lincoln. But he recently made the switch to a Prius, saying that his clients, including the 30-minute meal maestro Rachael Ray and the actress Sarah Jessica Parker, often prefer the hybrid.
“It’s a good image for them,” he said, waiting for a pick-up outside the Barclays building in Midtown.
Gesturing toward a nearby Town Car, Mr. Kingston continued, “This was the car you wanted when no one cared about pollution and the mayor didn’t care.” Now, he said, “you got to go with what the environment is good for.”
Fleet owners are unsure about what will replace the Town Car, although Lincoln has created several new models intended for livery use. But none have the same Yao Ming-size legroom or trunk space.
Eager to retain the taxi market, Ford is offering a custom version of its Transit Connect van, whose oblong shape and tall roof resemble a London cab’s. The van gets 22 miles a gallon in the city and comes equipped with big picture windows for a scenic ride. More radical designs have been submitted to the city’s taxi commission, which has solicited ideas for a new taxicab built from scratch, rather than retrofitted from an existing car. The winner, which will not be announced for months, will have the exclusive right to build the city’s cabs for a decade.
Mr. Sherman, who owns a taxi fleet himself, said that his needs, like those of passengers, were simple: “What people are looking for in a taxicab,” he said, “is a safe ride from A to B.”
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot...
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
There is no way in hell I will drive one of these and become a robo-cab
[img]http://www.yellowcabnyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/nyc-taxi-2-1.jpg[/img]
Website visitors might like to see a true solar taxi. Go to solartaxi.com to follow the 2-year journey of the solar taxi which started in Huntsville, Alabama, and continued throughout Europe and other continents, I believe. U see, a rider said to me something brilliant: if tomorrow all car engines ran on water, it would be a special kind of water bought at the gas station at the same price as gasoline. And immediately I knew it was true. Americans cannot escape the greed of the rich reapers in all American industries. And that is why in rural towns such as Greenville, Arkansas, and others that are being rebuilt from tragic destruction, that a set of solar car roads, and cargo truck roads ARE NOT not being set up for solar car use. Small solar cars likely can be run even on cloudy days, recharging those batteries. No US congress is going to let Americans drive around in a little, lightweight solar car, that doesn’t produce mangled accident victims, NO, because they can’t tax and watch them all!! They want that gasoline money.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky want private commuter vans, also known as dollar vans, to start picking up passengers >>>
http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/156500
Thanks, Mayor Bloomberg & TLC David Yassky. Will U be happy when there is nothing left for the cabbies, and 45,000 cabbies quit? Not strike, but quit! Eventually they will have to quit, and operate a dollar van! More money to be made with dollar van than renting & driving cab.
Bloomberg & Yassky laughing all the way to the bank, driven by Greenbaum, Sherman et al. U see, with illegal dollar vans and share a cabs on discontinued bus routes, cabbies won’t SCREAM when the new medallion auction announcements begin, then medallion prices inflate even more and more. How many medallions do Bloomberg & Yassky own? Already, ADVERTISING in dollar vans? No one safe from Greenbaum, Sherman et al.
In the last decade, if Bloomberg & Daus had wanted to “green the fleet,” they could have met with Ford to ask that it come out with a 6 cylinder version of the Lincoln Town Car and the Ford Crown Victoria. And if they cut down the weight and size a little bit, made them sort of mid-size, they could have produced a high displacement 4 cylinder. And that would have cut the emissions by 1/3 or 1/2 depending on what they did. It is a big SAFETY issue to FLOOD NYC with tall Connect vans, especially 13,400 taxis, and Lincoln SUVs. But a cut in emissions is not what Yassky & Bloomberg want, they want the political spot-light to say “green, green, green.”
“What people are looking for in a taxicab,” Mr. Sherman said, “is a safe ride from A to B.” Yeah, true, Sherman et al., you got that from this website, so why do we have to have your 25% blood sucker credit card and advertising system in our taxicabs? They do not help people get a safe ride form A to B. Why are U a cabbie spy?
Hey, Cabster! -These new RObooo-Cabs will include all kinds of electronic gadgets, and the robot cabdriver serving fresh cafe for the passengers! Cafe spilling are optional! Furthermore, the partition will be a mirror faded, only the passenger can see the driver, but the cabbie can’t see the pretty lady in the back if she prefers that way! On the other hand, it will be a 360^ police surveillance camera, built in for security of the driver and passengers. In the meantime, be safe, and keep your comments posted for changing the industry, and be part of these exciting times, because the people who are designing the RObo-cab, only care about making cabs more expensive to sell it to you! We should have the cab our way, and not more overpriced than a regular passenger car! Should we drive Altima, or Ford Escape, or Ford Transit, or a futuristic RObo-cab? Which one is right for taxicab, based on your experiences?
WHY, RadioFree, MUST every New York City cab be same make model? U see, parts theft/switchie from the private drivers when cab fixed.
To Columbo! – Well, almost every country they use regular cars for taxi. Custom made vehicles cost a lot more money. The TLC approved cars for taxi cost just about 30.000 dollars, but that is NOT enough, need this and that, talking GPS, amenities for the cabbie, lipstick holder and mirror for the passenger, huge TV and satellite radio, child seat, wheelchair holder, and lot more! Then the taxicabs will cost much as 60.000 dollars!
To RadioFree. You are so correct, precisely correct. Nothing else to do but focus on driver and rider, and tell them what they want. Riders do not DEMAND new cabs, they demand safe cabs. All support and safety parts of cars can be replaced. Thus, it was the unwillingness of rich garages to do their maintenance work. Any cabbie bringing back a cab listing things needing fixing, soon wouldn’t get any cab. What are you blacklisting every cab?
Re: Dollar vans and other comments–Day by day, everything I see going on in our industry makes me remember my parents screaming at me to study hard and get a proper education and job. Folks, at its best, this is a temporary/transition job unless you’ve bought a medallion at a reasonable price long ago. Never forget this and expect no consideration or respect from those in power or the public that is told consistently by the regulatory agencies and the media to expect the worst from cab drivers and to treat them accordingly.
Ohkha, used to be one could get out of the maddening crowd yet enjoy the social side of riders, taking them from point A to point B, in the comfortable cab. Leave the bustle behind. Now the maddening crowd is INSIDE the cab, followin the cab, surveilling the cab, paperwork, fines [biggest fine for avoiding generating revenue for Greenbaum, Sherman et al.], tickets, do this, do that, watch this, every week new equipment. It is like all cabbies are on the operating table and the TLC surgical team is operating day & night to secure their paychecks. TLC et al., has abnormal compulsion to constantly tweak the cabbie until his hide is raw, they don’t know how to or when to stop.
Ohkha, TLC’s biggest CON: raise fares 25% on all riders, so billionaire cab cartels obtain advertising rights & screens in every NYC cab, credit fees, & only some riders use cards. What about the million NYC riders every single day who pay 25% more, the greatest scam in the world, to make the billionaires into trillionaires? The 25% fare increase went from rider to cabbie to Greenbaum, Sherman et al. Did the riders demand this? Cabbies and private owners see WIRELESS COMING ON, have NYC riders been demanding this? Or is this just a spotlight move, where the TLC stands up in the newspaper with a microphone and some plaque that means who knows what, and says NYC HAS WIRELESS. Did anyone want it? Makes no difference MONEY IS BEING MADE HERE BY THE CARTELS. GIVE EVERYONE A BREAK, according to the advertising cab cartels, themselves, the average NYC cab ride is 12 minutes. Talk about cabbies hides being raw, how many operations can the rider take in 12 minutes? The poor rider, the excuse for trillions for the cab cartels.
1 why cant these v8′s convert to LPG or propane, Europe and Australia do it in thousands of cars. Exhause is cleaner than gas, less power too.
2 Has anyone every seen a London Taxi cab they are built to many many regulations of the U.k. and get good gas mileage and have plenty of room. See them being made on Science Channels Factory Made.
Since the new financial Reg bill just signed is changing what CCard processors charge, why not add the process fee into the final tab then the driver can keep more change.
To ford luv. What is the new financial Reg bill just signed? No one posting news to this website on that? What are the Card processors going to charge? By Card Processors do you mean the Greenbaum – Sherman TLC machine? Let me guess, Card processors are NOT going to charge less! Am I right? Now that the tentacles are there in the cabs & in the meters, the EVER-INCREASING blood-sucking begins. Is this true? As to your suggestion about LPG or propane, I wouldn’t drive one, and I expect a large amount of riders would not ride in one, if they knew it.
please consider subaru outback. i understand this has been rated safest in crash tests. it is also economical with gas.
2011 chevrolet is bringing back the Caprice, full-size V8 cylinder deactivation, flex-fuel. Roomy backseat, HD suspension, big trunk.
url=http://www.gmfleet.com/pdf/GM_Fleet_and_Commercial_Car_and_Truck_Guide_-_2011.pdf
Pg 93, 94 just like the caprice of old, the 9c1 is police, the 9c3 is detective car.
Cloth front seat, vinyl backseat.
About the Financial Regulatory bill url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704518904575365223062942574.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
If Chevy is bringing back the Caprice, they better improve their transmissions which was the reason taxis and police FLED to the Ford Crown Vic after 95, and 96. 93 was the last good year. Also, Caprice electric cooling fans were a mess, and their relay circuit breaker boxes in the engine compartment must have stronger integrity. The relay underwiring was burning out and no good over the long haul, and needed special bypass wiring for individual systems. Many engines were blown because fo the design and failure-prone powering of the electric fans. The Ford Crown Vics had one electric fan, but one FLY-WHEEL fan [the idea being it does not shut off]. Chevy caprice better do better, but please, only a 6 cylinder. Flex fuel and 8cyl deactivation is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Other models of Chevy too, like Lumina, had cooling fan problems and too much power in a 6 cyl. The Chevy 4 cylinders are very good. That’s why some are looking at the 4-cyl HHR van with windows.
What about this new vehicle i am hearing about due in dec/jan called the MV-1. body on frame with Ford engine and trasmission. It is aso wheelchair accessible and is shorter in length than the Crown Vic. it with 56” pasenger door height and holds 4 passengers and one wheel chair.Check out http://www.vpgautos.com
I see the new MV-1 is a wheelchair accessible vehicle WAV, that some may want to buy. It is a 4.6 L thus too poor on gas efficiency for the cab business. It’s necessary weight to provide strenth needed is too heavy a load to use citywide on 13,400 cabs. Should be a 6 cyl, but may be an 8 cyl. What is wrong with a 4 cylinder, gasoline fueled, minimally suitable van – NOT ENOUGH CASH for the RICH? Electric & hybrid will come when all vehicles are these. I think we have had ENOUGH new ideas from non-cabbies, THE TYRANTS – those who keep their minds moving 24/7. All their ideas, WHATEVER THEY COST, come from cabbies’ earnings. The constant move about WAVs is PUSHED & PUSHED by those who want to FOIST computer dispatch on all NYC cabs [starting with flying the compassionate WAV flag, to try to get it in]. That’s why the DIM & PIM is in the cab – advertising, computer dispatch dues. Money for the two cabals. Everyone ought to quit, give up, the whole thing is too stressful, too difficult, too convoluted, the purpose to meet the planned END-GAME of the cabals: the increased income generated for them. Yes, a cabbie has become a forced trapeze artist, but the LIMITof the array of his tricks has been reached & does not include computer dispatch of jobs for all NYC riders, TRAVELING TO JOB taking away half the cabbies’ income generating time. Why was 7/8 of a dispatch system installed, when only back seat electronic slider was needed? Advertising & computer dispatch revenue generation for the cabals. I notice something interesting: if the rider’s cards do not work, the rider is not penalized. If the card system does not work, the cabals are not penalized [except thru loss of card fees], if the cabbie didn’t do a card job because he can’t or didn’t get to the cabal maintenance garage in time, the cabbie is penalized BIG TIME $350. Who loses if the cabbie takes the cab to the card fixer? – Obviously the cabbie will get a time lost credit from the lease garage – but, hey, the money that might have been made during that time period will be, OF COURSE, the cabbies’ earnings loss – the game is always TAKING MORE CABBIES EARNINGS. This is not only getting tiresome, the tyrant – prisoner relationship is intolerable in this day and age. It is numbing to realize that the Mayor & TLC reward cabals without embarassment & apparently laugh about punishing the cabbie prisoners ad infinitum, while taking more and more of the prisoners’ earnings. Unbelieveable how highfalutin, bubbly & euphemistic words ‘like excited’ & ‘the future’ cover up such a sewer system operation.
Yeeehah, a 4.6 L – 8 cylinder WAV. What’s next? Horse & Buggy. The Ford Transit Connect, 4 cyl 2.0 L, LEFT ALONE, forget UPLIFTER’S DESTRUCTION conversion kits for hybrid, CNG, LNG. For Criminy sakes, next they’ll be using LASER EMR on the cabbies’ heads. Cabbie SAFETY, how safe will the cabbie target be holding up NYC honking traffic, out of the vehicle, beside the vehicle pushing in a wheelchair, in the early morning dawn, the dusk, and the dark? Please, give cabbies a REST, maybe 12-months status quo at least, please. Stop the insanity. It is So-damn Insane.
If the cabbie gets credit lease credit for 3 hours fixing card processor or fix too high volume on back-seat bacteria garden screen (which won’t fix), so if the 12-hour lease was $120 [to make it even] the cabbie will get a lease credit of 3-hours = $30. BUT, during those three hours paid for cabbie could MAYBE have made $60 – WHICH IS GONZO & lost. What if the 3 hours are LOST during the highest cabbie traffic of the day? Then maybe a lost of $100 or more, the time needed to pay the LEASE!!! No matter what: it is cabal vs. cabbie. It is TYRANT
Apparently no embarrassment of TLC at JFK hold over toilet appalling conditions. When will someone comment here about what is the ongoing status of the appalling JFK hold toilet ocnditions? Apparently this is just a bump in the road for the cabal, which is speeding down the REVENUE ROAD, toilet fixing is not in the program, the cabal plan. And the cabal does not have enough time to be embarrassed. Zooming from 8 cyl police interceptors engines to hybrid mandates back to 8 cylinder heavy weight vehicles again. Too busy to fix toilet problems. Ayyyyeeee. A sewer operation. Cabbies should ask for a DAILY TOILET CONDITION UPDATE.
Here’s what RULE BY CABAL means. The write-up of the Safety Awards barbecue held by All Taxi Management. Popinjay Yassky was there. While All Taxi called the shots about who was what and who wasn’t. Here’s what one safe driver said: “Mr. Ndiaye said driving cautiously means he sometimes makes less money, but he wasn’t worried about that. He would rather not have to pay for repairs ON HIS CAB.” Note it says “HIS CAB.” What on earth does All Taxi Management [Greenbaum cartel] have to do with Mr. Ndiaye’s private cab and his cab repairs? What did All Taxi do, call him in off the street to be judged & juried, call him positive & give him a prize? And who told All Taxi Management what the cabbies think of them? Bet All Taxi 0got their judge & jury awards from Popinjay Yassky. So was this hoopla for All Taxi Drivers, or the WHOLE KIT AND CABOODLE of NYC cabbies, all 45,000? How could they fit at the barbecue? Manipulation! Pure & simple. And HOW, pray tell, did All Taxi get the private information on which cabbie did or did not have an accident? Big brother? So I guess All Taxi just looked over 45,000 cabbies insurance records! So much for any cabbie respect.
Windy rooftop party barbecue thrown by All Taxi Management, with Yassky on hand to confer an award. Be careful. Setting themselves up as JUDGES & JURIES, conferring awards, sends the subtle, not so subconscious message that 45,000 cabbies would not know how to drive a cab, if not for those self-set-up JUDGES & JURIES who do not drive cabs. What APPEARS as great appreciation, is really self-confirmation as JUDGE & JURY [boss] action not based in any law. I suggest the Alliance get certificates to fill out, called Alliance Clean Bathroom Awards. When you visit TLC for hearing or some other purpose and find a clean bathroom. Call the news media to come and photograph the Clean Bathroom Award conferred by the Alliance. How long do you think popinjay Yassky will sit for that? Then at the end of a year’s worth of conferred certificates, call the news media to talk yet again about the JFK hold deplorable bathroom conditions.
A friend coined the phrase VERTICAL MONOPOLY to describe NYC cab cabals. Meaning like Sherman, Greenbaum who own huge numbers of medallions (1,000 and 1,500), huge lease garages, medallion brokerage, lending, insurance & management, credit card GPS & advertising systems.. According to friend, this is vertical monopoly. Let me know whether this is the correct word, please.
Wikipedia says a vertical monopoly MAY be more appropriate called a ‘cartel.’
“A monopoly is said to be coercive when the monopoly firm actively prohibits competitors from entering the field or punishes competitors who do. . .”
[img]http://www.yellowcabnyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/DSC00291.jpg[/img]
Pedicabs, Central Park okay, but UNSAFE in City traffic. Only a matter of time before terrible catastrophic pedicab accident befalls unprotected riders. The good neighbor city government prefers a spotlight moment (sacrificing safety). . . . . “come to NYC and plow thru traffic in our open-air Pedicab bicycle cabs.”
High-riding Escape should result in less bodywork & painting repairs, while low-riding Transit Connect will likely result in more bodywork & painting repairs.
Cab drivers in other cities say Camry hybrids DO catch fire underneath driver-side dashboards, not just smoke but flame. Still, they are using more & more Camrys.
Yet ALL cabbie opinions become MOOT when JFK toilets pictured in violation of basic public health codes cannot brought up to standards. This means the revenue-generating taxi cartels go on & on, and cabbies are treated as necessary evils, tyrant vs. slaves, prisoners, if you will – and ain’t no Bloomberg appointed Popinjay paying attention to anything cabbies say!
Wrong Bloomberg spotlight stance & TLC admin FOULED taxi card processing system. With this stance, all riders fully believe that if any card they put through the slider does not work (even a cardboard), they do not have to pay the fare. Riders, under the wrong stance, embark with credit card, no money & no thoughts of paying at all if what they present does not work. In other words, if card processing not 100% perfect, cabbie doesn’t get paid, no responsibility to pay fare. Bloomberg spotlight stance SHOULD HAVE BEEN: all NYC taxis are EQUIPPED to process credit cards; mobil card processing is NOT100% perfect, as land ATMs are not. If the processor doesn’t work, or your card doesn’t work, or both don’t work because you are in a temporary dead spot, the FARE MUST STILL BE PAID, and the taxi is not expected to drive around until your card works, increasing the fare that cannot be paid. Card processing is a privilege not a right, and may slide 1 card – if it doesn’t work, then you must pay cash & taxi must move on. The WRONG stance devolved down the TLC administrative line into all kinds of cabbie threats and punishments. Cabbies must give up earnings and RACE to service shop in machine is down, any cabbie caught refusing a credit card $350 fine, all types of punishments administered by an ever-increasing number of enforcement personnel. Single-dimension abstract-thinking TLC popinjays focused on only one scenario: the cabbie might not want to lose part of his earnings & refuse the credit card. Well, we’ll FIX THAT. Then came the punishment rules & regulations. There was no thought to punish the card processor cartels, no thought to punish the clever foxes who knew their (old) cards wouldn’t work. There was no thought of holding up traffic while card after card didn’t work, dead spot, or who knows what. Is it true that if the power is out, land ATMs will not work? If so, then why is Bloomberg not FINING every ATM in the power out area $350 for every card holder who could not get in?
Microscopic fact-collection, inspection of systems, motives, links, power over & over, & suddenly you stumble upon the ‘nut,’ the core problem that is demonizing, taking away earnings, stressing out the victims, the cabbies. Here, we find the crux of the stressful & earnings loss card processing is the WRONG STANCE of Mayor Bloomber & TLC admin, no doubt being cudgeled by the taxi card processing cartels. A wrong stance that promised riders 100% perfect card processing or NO PAY. How the stance was bragged about under the spotlight led to these conclusions by riders, who found ways not only to scam with funny cards, but to WALK AWAY with an excuse not to pay. The point of all this, one comment said why continue to fight when you can’t even get clean toilets meeting the most basic public sanitary codes? Well, lots of opinions, over & over, lots of thinking, inspection, false tries, finally triggers the light-bulb thought, of what is the core malfunction leading to victimization of cabbies. Wrong stance by Mayor Bloomberg & TLC admin. Thus, cabbies must not give up! Keep those opinions coming, keep thinking outside the box (if you can ever get out of the box – Ha!). With the correct stance, riders know that if their card does not work, they have to pay – they are prepared! And the scammers are deprived of a method.
Sensei, U 100% correct but Bloomberg in his spotlight moments should have confessed to the world that 5% gross fees became 15% out of cabbies’ net pay after cabbie paid shift lease. And confessed that meter fares were increased 25% to cover all this money sucked out by the Taxi Garage Card Cartels. As we know not all New Yorkers wanted a 25% increase in meter fare so the taxi garage card cartels could grab 15% from cabbies’ net pay, plus supposed to cover $15 a day fare beaters. The usual fare increase just to cover inflation has never been seen by the cabbies. Instead of Bloomberg confessing, the taxi garage card cartels et al have been advertising on cable tv AGAIN that NYC cabs take credit cards, with no disclaimer about if somehow it doesn’t work, YOU MUST PAY FOR THE FARE IN CASH, without taking a big long chunk out of cabbies’ time. Cabbies earn their pay by TIME. Loss of TIME is loss of pay. Having gotten down to this understanding of the core problem, what to do? Alliance should start sending certified and notarized letters to Bloomberg & all TLC members that the SPOTLIGHT stance must be changed and clarified by Bloomberg on his spotlight media podium. And the $350 punishment must be rescinded. Equipped & possible, not 100% certain.
Cabbie, under safety concern, has the right to refuse card processing where he must hold up lanes of traffic. Cabbie must tell customer, card cannot be processed here because of safety – in fact if cabbie knows exact destination of rider, he can tell customer, no card processing at that drop-off point, too UNSAFE, too much traffic. And we ask, is there some rule where the taxi garage card cartels much grab every cent of money they can, and if not a cabbie must pay $350?
“Every NYC cab is equipped with a credit card processor, which is highly reliable yet not infallible. Should your card not process, you must be prepared to pay cash. If you must go an ATM to get cash, you must pay the meter & waiting time. This is what Bloomberg should have said in his spotlight announcement, and the TLC should have administered the program accordingly. Q.E.D. Instead the program has been ruled by insanity.
“Every NYC cab is equipped with a credit card processor, which is highly reliable yet not infallible. Should your card not process, you must be prepared to pay cash. If you must go an ATM to get cash, you must pay the meter & waiting time.” This is what Bloomberg should have said in his spotlight announcement, and the TLC should have administered the program accordingly. Q.E.D. Instead the program has been ruled by insanity.
“Travelers said New York had the most available taxis.”
>>>
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38592086/?gt1=43001
Please continue discussion on the forum: link