In the television sitcom “Taxi,” the dispatcher used a radio to tell the cabdrivers where to pick up their next fares. That system started to change in 1982, when yellow-cab companies were permitted to transfer two-way radios to their nonyellow cars, to free up yellow cabs for street hails. And the system disappeared entirely in 1987, when radio-dispatched cabs were phased out.
A 20-year-old division of labor — yellow medallion cabs having the exclusive right to pick up passengers from the street and for-hire vehicles (including livery cabs, “black cars” and luxury limousines) having the exclusive right to take radio dispatches — often makes it hard for people outside Manhattan to find a cab on short notice. This is a problem that may be worsening as economic development and residential growth penetrate neighborhoods throughout the city.
A bill before the City Council would require the Taxi and Limousine Commission to install and operate 10 taxi stands in outlying neighborhoods for a three-year trial period. Under the proposal, passengers could wait at the stands; only yellow cabs would be allowed to make pickups.
Supporters of the plan say it would make yellow cabs more available in places far from Manhattan.
“You have a better chance of seeing God than seeing a yellow cab,” Councilman Vincent M. Ignizio, a Republican who represents the southern part of Staten Island, said at a hearing on the proposal yesterday.
“The Bronx has more beavers than yellow cabs,” said Councilman G. Oliver Koppell, a Democrat from that borough, referring to recent beaver sightings along the Bronx River.
But at the hearing, Matthew W. Daus, the chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, came out against the proposal, saying that he was worried that it would be costly and unfeasible. He said it would take at least three employees to operate each stand for about 12 hours a day. That would cost $160,000 per stand each year, or about $5 million over three years, not to mention capital and other expenses.
“Only 8 percent of taxicab trips take place outside of Manhattan and the airports, which means that there are relatively few opportunities for taxicabs to even contemplate using a stand,” Mr. Daus said.
In 2003, the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, an association of large fleet owners who control roughly 3,000 cabs, opened a yellow-cab stand at Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street, in the heart of Flushing, Queens. Fleet owners gave drivers a small discount on lease fees for agreeing to serve the stand, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to give such drivers a ticket that allowed them to bypass the taxi hold where cabs line up at the city’s two major airports to pick up passengers.
Those two incentives helped the stand become a success, according to the taxicab board, which pays $70,000 a year for the service. Joseph Giannetto, an official at the board, said that 90,974 passengers had used it as of last month.
Mr. Daus did not dispute that the Flushing stand was a success and noted that some drivers who live in Queens now make the stand their first stop, instead of going first to the airports, as many drivers generally do. But he said he thought that Flushing was unusual in the extent of its foot and car traffic during peak hours and in its proximity to La Guardia and Kennedy International Airports. Mr. Daus said he did not believe the model would necessarily work elsewhere.
Mr. Daus also said the stands might prompt more livery cabs to illegally stop and pick up street hails and lead to “verbal and other confrontations” between yellow- and livery-cab drivers.
Councilman John C. Liu, a Democrat from Queens and the chairman of the Transportation Committee, disagreed, saying there was already a thriving underground market for livery cabs that pick up street hails. “There are a lot of people who get off the subway and would like to get a cab immediately,” Mr. Liu said. “And they do get a cab immediately. The problem is, they get it illegally.”
Mr. Koppell agreed, saying that every night at the 242nd Street-Van Cortlandt Park subway station, he sees commuters “getting into cars that are standing there, ready to take them to their residences.”
Mr. Daus said the commission tried a few years ago to install a yellow-cab stand in Harlem, only to face opposition from the local community board and from car services. “You know as well as I do there is a turf issue in certain neighborhoods,” he told the Council. (As of yesterday, there were 13,048 yellow medallion cabs and 37,945 for-hire vehicles, according to the commission.)
Mr. Daus, who lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, said that he found car services to be more convenient than yellow cabs in his neighborhood, and that he stored the numbers of several cab companies in his cellphone.
The Transportation Committee also considered a related bill that would give taxis that run on alternative fuels, like a hybrid of electricity and gasoline, preference in line at the proposed stands. Mr. Daus said he also opposed that bill, claiming that it could create safety problems. The committee did not vote on either bill yesterday, and lawmakers said they may hold a second hearing.
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Juliette 03.23.09 at 6:58 am
Why do stands have to be operated? In Europe taxis just wait in line at a stand, and passengers to go the taxi at the head of the line. Total waste of money to have a dispatcher who anyway does nothing what so ever except waving the taxi forwards. Another example of American inefficiency, misorganization and waste of people’s money.