Green taxi drivers say their business is on the fast track to failure due to the pandemic and the increase in ride shares.
A longtime green cab driver tells CBS2's Ali Bauman the city is leaving drivers sidelined.
Nancy Reynoso has proudly held the city's first ever green taxi permit for nine years, but now she's hanging up her meter.
"Today I turned in my Taxi and Limousine Commission plates at DMV," she said Wednesday.
Reynoso was first in line to drive a lime-colored car when City Hall introduced them in 2013 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg as an outer-borough alternative to yellow cabs and black cars.
"This is the dream that we were sold for a better perspective, a better future, and I guess the dreams have just fallen," she said.
Ride-sharing apps have been cutting away from business for years, and Reynoso claims the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission has done little to help drivers like her.
"It's just gradually sinking, and I see my drivers leaving every single day and I don't see any change," she said.
"Those drivers are going to lose their jobs. They're going to be on the street," said Javaid Tariq, co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
According to TLC data, there were 1,162 green cab drivers working in January. That's an 80% drop from five years ago when there were 5,751 green cab drivers working in a month.
"The yellow cab and green cab industries are under so many rules and regulations," Tariq said.
In 2021, City Hall agreed to cap medallion loans for yellow cabs.
The green drivers don't pay for medallions, but Reynoso says TLC requires they pay higher insurance and get more inspections, and with fewer fares, it's hard to keep up. Unlike yellow cabs, green taxis are not allowed to pick up fares at the airports or below 96th Street.
7 comments:
Waiting for the name calling Troll to blame Trump !
Don't think any of the NYC democrats actually care about the environment or the working class.
Calling them "Green" cabs is a lie !
My issue with everything after two years is companies using COVID as an excuse why they don’t offer certain service they once did. Especially when the customer experience is one of the reasons why you buy said product. They want you to pay more for less. I’ve already sworn off a couple companies because of this.
Even if the cab ride was free I would not use it.
Come back to work in a city where criminals will be allowed to assault you and rob your business with impunity while prosecutors do nothing...? Yeah not so much.
Well, things change. Uber and others simply have a better business model, for the consumer anyway. That's how it goes. You can't hail a horse-drawn cab anymore either.
I think they really need to cap lyft and uber drivers. A trillion cars on the streets anymore and half of them are taxis. All they do is take up parking spaces and create traffic. I can't even count how many times I see one of these cars without any passengers at all in them. I think I remember a judge turning this law down in court a few years back. But I think that was a huge mistake.
@"Waiting for the name calling Troll to blame Trump !"
Stop your name calling, Troll!
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