Buy TicketsOrder Food
More
ChannelsBuy TicketsOrder FoodEventsYour Home
02Logo WFAN 1010WINS WCBS tiny WLNYLogo
Holiday Weekend: Traffic & Transit | Travel Guide | Weather| Monuments | Listen: 1010 WINS | WCBS 880

News

Medallion Cab Drivers Angry Over Livery Proposal

January 19, 2011 8:06 AM
View Comments
Livery Cab

Livery Cab (credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Kathryn-Brown

Reporting Kathryn Brown

Filed under
Heard On 1010 WINS, WCBS, WFAN, Local, News, NY News, Seen On CBS 2HD, Watch + Listen
Related tags
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

NEW YORK (CBS 2 / WCBS 880) – Woodside is a popular spot for people who need a cab, but yellow cabs rarely come through there. Instead, people say, it’s much easier and more common to hail a livery cab illegally, Kathryn Brown reports.

“They’ll beep their horn and if you’re interested in catching a cab they’ll tell you ‘Where do want to go?’ and then they give you a price,” said Vincent Vinza of Middle Village.

WCBS 880′s Rich Lamb reports

Residents said the yellow medallion cabs that clog the streets in Manhattan rarely pick up fares once in the boroughs, making it frustrating to quickly get from one place to another.

“Especially if you dont know what you’re going to pay,” said Mari Aparo of Elmhurst.

Mayor Bloomberg on Wednesday was expected to propose allowing a new fleet of cars to start picking up the slack outside of Manhattan, letting licensed livery cab drivers pick up passengers who hail them on the street.

“As long as the car has a meter and has markings that allow the public to recognize it quickly as a legitimate car,” said Commissioner David Yassky of the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The City said it wants to legitimize a market that’s now illicit and unsafe, but the idea has medallion taxi drivers furious.

“This gives a legal stamp of approval to this. What if they go to the airport?” said a member of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

The so-called “borough taxis” would not be allowed to pick up street hails in Manhattan but, yellow cab drivers say, what’s to stop them?

“Once they’re in Manhattan, what guarantee do we have that the street hails are not going to continue?” asked Bhairavi Desai of the Alliance.

View Comments
  • smokersodysseycom

    This is the land of competition, tis time to end this freaking yellow monopoly!

  • TonySlim

    The FREE MARKET works. Government create’s monopoly. Fares would reduce and the riders demands would be met.

  • Hardee

    Tommy
    why are you so angry?, sounds like your mother and sister is sleeping with smelly immigrants.

  • pugphan

    Astoria, uh. Well there’s a Yellow cab garage ova da, so it don’t surprise me ya can get a cab into the city from da- they’re all going into the city. smokersodysseycom

  • Tom

    I think this would be great, but ONLY if it happens in the outer boroughs! It would legalize a behaviour that is already occurring. As far as yellow cabs refusing to take ppl to their destination, that is against the TLC rules and the TLC needs to do better enforcement. I have been kicked out of many yellow cabs once I state I am going to Forest Hills. Yelow cab drivers, for the most part, are slimes.

  • STEALTH23

    PERFECT EXAMPLE THIS EVENING AT 430PM, WAITING ON WARREN ST AND NORTH END AVE FOR A CAB FOR 20 MINUTES….APPROX 8 CABS DROVE UP TO ME WITH THE OFF DUTY SIGN ON AND HAD THE ODASITY TO ASK ME WHERE I WAS GOING WHILE KEEPING THEIR DOORS LOCKED…A LIVERY CAR CAME BY AND SAID 15 DOLLARS TO 34 ST…I WAS ON MY WAY IN MINUTES …THIS HAPPENS EVERYDAY AT THIS TIME…SORRY RICHARD, YOUR EXCUSES ARE SAD!!!!!

  • Joe

    The cab drivers don’t pay for insurance, don’t pay for the diamond every year, don’t make car payments, don’t pay for dues of the livery radio, and the percentage. Most of the livery drivers pay out of pocket.

    Taxi drivers rent the yellow cab per shift about 150 dollars a day. As a cab driver you can earn about 3 times that amount a day. But they do pay gas, but some of them have hybrid cars.

    • Jimmy Lim

      Individual and Mini Fleet owners pay for Medallion renewal, Hack license renewal, Insurance, Car payments on a car that needs to be replaced every 5 years, and Medallion payments for an estimated 30 years depending on how much you invest on the down payment.

    • hardee

      Livery cost $1000 for the car and $300 a month insurance and most of the livery drivers don’t have insurance and most of the drivers are illegal and don’t pay taxes.

      On the other hand Cab drivers pay $150 a shift to rent the car or 4500 a month .

  • pugphan

    We should have Green, Red, Black, White, blue, and any other color cabs out there. This monopoly un-American! The city should Create a board of economists to figure out a fair, and equitable way to do way with this system. This freaking monopoly was created during the thirties by La Guardia, and who knows if he was greased to make it happen. It’s about time to do away with it. It is not fair to the riding public. smokersodysseycom

  • smk232323

    Cabbies, you gotta take the good with the bad like the rest of us. We are all trying to make it, but imagine how much harder it would be for you to get by if you couldnt get where you needed to go! Competition is everywhere but in the yellow cab business it seems, so it’s long overdue for another option to come along and offer services you choose not to provide. You cant have it both ways. It might suck for you in one way, but it sucks to be denied a ride you’re willing to pay for too.

  • pugphan

    Capitalism’s about competition, Yellow cabs have a monopoly hea. It’s about time it
    was put to bed. Competition means lower prices, let it be a consumers market, not
    a cab market, where they decide whom to pick up, when and where they want to go. Enuff ahweady. smokersodysseycom

  • TJ

    Good! Maybe they can fill the void in Manhattan when all of the yellows go off duty at once, right before rush hour – a phenomenon I’ve never understood.

    • Richard

      Well TJ, that phenomenon is called “we are human beings as well” believe it or not, and simply can’t work 24 hours a day, which I understand you would rather prefer. Working day for taxi drivers at fleets is divided into two 12 hour shifts and 5 pm and 5 am is when the shift change occurs. This way day time driver and night time driver have more or less similar incomes potential. And it is not true that ALL OF THE YELLOWS go off duty at once. Only a percentage since not all of taxis are double shifted. And personally I don’t think it is possible to fill that void or any (snow, rain, wind, blackout) void anyway, since we have to be able to find passengers throughout the entire shift not only when for whatever reason there is a “void”. This keeps taxi rates reasonably low, almost lowest in the country as far as I know.

    • hardee

      TJ I dove Yellow cab a year ago while attending college and trust me its not easy, most of these drivers work 12 hour shift and they change cars between 3pm and 5 pm. I know its hard to get cab around that time, but allowing the livery to pick up in the city would not be fair for those who paid tremendous amount of money for the yellow cab medallion.

  • Ellen

    I cant believe the yellow cabs are complaining. As already said, except for the airport there are NO cabs cruising in Queens. When in Manhattan I have the luxury of walking to the curb and sticking my hand out. –hey I can even get a ride to Queens. ( I am one of the get in first an then tell destination folk, cause I’m no dummy) But if I am shopping in Queens and I want a cab–I have to take my cellphone and call a car service. –Ridiculous. I’d be more than happy to get into a yellow cab if there were some in the boro.

  • LouD

    Richard, you and all you yellow drivers are so selfish. You refuse to take a fare to the outer boroughs because Manhattan is the big money maker for you guys. Yet at the same time, you have the audacity to object to livery cabs picking up those very same fares. What the hell do you care? If you don’t take to take those people there, let someone pick them up who does. It is your obligation to take a passenger where HE or SHE want to go, not where YOU want to go. There’s no such thing as selective destinations. You are licensed to drive passngers to all the 5 boroughs. That includes Brooklyn, Queens and even Staten Island. So if you don’t like, get a new jopb.

    • Richard

      The thing is LouD, livery cabs don’t pick-up passengers to other borough while they illegally work in Manhattan. They are looking for sbd who will pay 25-30 bucks to go from Midtown to somewhere else IN MANHATTAN, NOT OUTER BOROUGHS and yes I have an audacity to object to that. If you ask a black car driver who stops when you hailing a taxi how much he will charge you from Rockefeler Center to East New York he will tell you $100 just to scare you off. They don’t want to go there no less than we. But there is technically no way of making sure that a car from Brooklyn will take a passanger just to Brooklyn and not Lincoln Center while it is looking for a fare in Manhattan.
      And if Bloomberg’s intention is to do away with medallion system all together he should have courage to say so. But that’s another subject…

      • dontlikeyellowcabs

        Why do none of the seemingly articulate cab-driver posters comment on taking out their dissatisfaction with the current rules for outer borough transport with the TLC? Why do we have to care what happens to yellow cab commissions if they don’t care about us? Most cab drivers I’ve met that are congenial, knowledgeable, and fair with their pricing(not to mention willing to go where I want to go) have been livery cab drivers.

    • Shawn

      Well everybody have good with bad remember mr passenger you don’t know how hard we work you must be sitting in an office and just doing ur thing and making money wht abt us we are hymen beings too not everything you tell me we have to do what happen then when sone of you guyz don’t pay us and just run away you guyz throw up in our cabs and t end say sorry about that and leave you fight with your girl friend wife or husband and take it out on a cab driver. You take it out on us bcz we get no respect fon you people out there.

    • Shawn

      You think we r selfish you guyz are more selfish than us can drivers if you are in a hurry you will tell us go fast as fast you can we I get a summons on the way you you r the one would say o I am sorry and just leave right there bcz ur time is being waisted if there is an accident no matter even ur mother is dying you would not leave you will lay down right there and call te ambulance ni matter how log that takes you will sue my ass right there
      I hope you don’t mind that we always hive favours to the public but public will never give us the respect that we deserve

1 2
blog comments powered by Disqus
Listen Live!

Latest News Video

Summer Guide Drip Pan

Summertime = Fun Time!

NY VOTES DRIP PAN

Help Shape The Debates

Wfan-sports-and-health-expo

At Harmon Meadow 6/15

880 Small Business Breakfast DP

Great Networking Event