Taxis, as we traditionally know them with taximeters, began to roll in October Before that, New Yorkers had experimented with other ideas to decongest the city streets such as bicycles, electric and steam cars It was Harry N. Allen who imported the first fleet of 65 new French petrol-fueled Darracq cars, equipped with taximeters and in just over a year, New York had around taxis.
In February , Councilman Lew Haas proposed a bill to limit the number of licenses or medallions to the 13, taxicabs that existed at that time. The current number of taxi medallions is 13,, which is very close to the initial number of licenses approved.
They were unlicensed taxis that operated informally and worked mostly in neighborhoods outside Manhattan where licensed taxi drivers sometimes refused to provide service. The medallion, for many solo operators, functioned as a retirement fund: You drive for your entire working life, pay it off, then sell it to another driver and move to Florida. Then came Uber and Lyft, and the market crashed. Medallions lost three-quarters of their value in just a few years, and on top of that, there were simply fewer street hails to be had as riders switched to the apps.
Nearly a dozen drivers have taken their lives in the past few years, suicides of both despair and protest. Then the pandemic struck, and the market buckled even further. Medallions are currently going for small fractions of their recent value, according to people at several fleets. Bhairavi Desai, of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, says the proposed amount is far too little to actually rescue them — and is essentially a cash infusion for lenders that will leave drivers permanently indentured.
One employee of a major fleet reports that the circumstances of the pandemic have led some drivers to reevaluate whether the job is worth the time and effort. One medallion-owner he knows gave up and went to work at UPS. You know? As the city attempts to stagger back to normal speed, the larger outfits that can afford to take medallions out of storage are the most well-positioned to survive.
Taking medallions out of storage requires TLC inspections and paperwork approval. Usually, several owners said, these inspections can be handled immediately. Lately, you need one of a limited number of appointments, and it has to be booked three or four weeks ahead. If it continues going like that, how many are gonna go out — 20 cars across the industry out every three weeks?
You have over 10, cars parked in storage. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites.
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