Seizure of bogus cabs up big time

From the NY Post:

The city has seized a record number of bogus cabs hustling for customers at JFK through a new enforcement base that was launched at the airport this fall.

Since the base opened in October, Taxi and Limousine Commission inspectors have seized 530 illegal cabs — more than five times the number taken in the same period last year.

“JFK is an exceptionally active transportation hub,” said Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky. “And for that reason, it is a magnet for illegal for-hire activity.”

In all, 980 illegal cabs have been taken off the streets since July at JFK and La Guardia airports.

A team of plainclothes inspectors from Squad 15 hits the terminals at around 4 a.m., targeting cabbies who prey on business people arriving on red-eye flights.

How to spot an illegal cab

From WPIX:

Fernando Mateo President Of The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers describes the so-called “epidemic” of the more than 10,000 illegal livery cabs navigating city streets as “unsafe and it’s unacceptable.”

At a Tuesday afternoon news conference in Flatbush, he asked one simple question to the TLC Chairman, “David Yassky why are you not doing your job? That is our question.”

Mateo along with Tony Herbert, President of the National Action Network Brooklyn East Chapter says that on the same week that legal yellow-cab drivers are being targeted in the city, the TLC should additionally zero in on the illegal cabs and their drivers for the safety of the general public. “Protect our rider. Protect the passengers who just want to get home safely,” said Herbert from sidewalk news conference.

The fake livery cars are easy to spot because they sport plates from nearby states where insurance is much cheaper. Another tell tale sign? Their drivers tend to walk away when a PIX 11 news camera is focused on them.

Bloomberg taxi plan a total failure

From Capital New York:

“We’re gonna have all of our cabs be hybrid.”

So said Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Matt Lauer on the “Today” show in 2007, as they stood in front of a hybrid yellow cab donated by Yahoo! and emblazoned with its logo.

The mayor gestured toward a thin man in glasses to his left: “And most importantly, this is City Councilman David Yassky, who has been leading the environmental fight here in the city.”

Today, Yassky is Bloomberg’s taxi commissioner. And 2012, the year by which the taxi’s fleet was to go hybrid, has come and nearly gone.

In the meantime, not only has the city’s powerful taxi lobby defeated the mayor’s hybrid-cab plan in federal court, but the city is now taking steps that will actually reduce the number of hybrids on city streets.

Atlas Park lot used for towed cabs

From the NY Times:

In sleek black sedans and unmarked blue vans, stretch limousines and family-friendly S.U.V.’s, the city’s unlicensed taxi drivers have long thrived on a simple fact: Officials often could not seize their cars because there was no place to put them.

But about three months ago, David S. Yassky, the chairman of New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, received an e-mail from an old acquaintance. The man had heard about the space issue, he said. Would the city like to use his lot in Queens?

The man was Damon Hemmerdinger, a co-president at his family’s real estate company, ATCO Properties and Management, and the son of Dale Hemmerdinger, the former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

After reading an article in The New York Times about the dearth of available tow pound space for unlicensed taxis, Mr. Hemmerdinger agreed to allow the city to use his company’s roughly two-acre lot in Glendale. The city needed to pay only for electricity, lot security, and an occasional cleaning.

By the beginning of June, the lot could hold more than 100 unlicensed taxis at a time. Turnover is typically rapid, as drivers retrieve their vehicles after paying fines and fees that often rise to over $500. Over the last year, the commission added about 60 enforcement agents, bringing its total to over 150. In 2011, 1,737 cars were seized, according to the commission. This year, more than 2,400 cars have been rounded up already.

Get ready for some really bad acting

It may take you all weekend to recover from this...

Dollar vans not policed enough

Street hails in Queens to be legal?

From AM-NY:

There could be an additional 6,000 yellow cabs designated solely to pick up street hails in the outer boroughs if the city has its way, Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky said yesterday.

Currently, outer borough passengers can only hail down the rare yellow cabs or prearrange for livery cabs to pick them up.

“If you live in Brooklyn or Queens ... you’re either hailing a car that’s not supposed to pick you up or an unlicensed car,” Yassky told amNewYork yesterday. “Neither one is first rate service.”

Yassky is meeting with state legislators today to discuss the plan, since the sale of additional medallions requires city and state approval.

Cracking down on discrimination by taxi drivers

From the NY Times:

The city is seeing a big rise in complaints about scofflaw cabdrivers who refuse rides based on the passenger’s requested destination, officials said on Thursday.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission said it received 2,341 reports of refusals in the last half of 2010, a 38 percent increase from the same period a year prior, when 1,693 complaints were received.

It is illegal for a yellow cab driver to reject a passenger wishing to travel within the city or certain surrounding areas, but refusals remain a perennial problem. Particularly late at night, when taxis are scarce, many cabbies prefer to stay in Manhattan, where they are more likely to pick up another fare.

David S. Yassky, chairman of the taxi commission and a Brooklyn Heights resident, said he was alarmed by the trend. “A core component of taxi service is that the passenger chooses where to go in the five boroughs,” he said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it is getting to be like the bad old days when taxis wouldn’t go to Brooklyn.”

Mr. Yassky and the Bloomberg administration now want to raise the penalties on cabbies who are found to have refused a ride. A proposal floated on Thursday would levy a fine of $500 for first offenders, up from the current $200 penalty. Cabbies could have their licenses revoked if they commit three such infractions in a three-year period.

If at first you don't succeed...

From the Daily News:

For the pilot program that replaced axed MTA buses with commuter vans the logic is: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission's deadline is today for applications to place a new operator on the former Q79 bus line.

The notice, posted on the TLC website, is a second attempt at the Group Ride Vehicle Program that puts commuter vans on defunct bus line routes in Queens.

A new van company was needed along the Q79 after the van owner, Vivian Barnes of Alpha Van Lines, terminated service nine months early.

Barnes made the final trip from the Little Neck LIRR station on Dec. 17, citing dismal ridership and daily revenue loses.

The other pilot route, the Q74, was not tapped for a second try.

"We leave it up to the marketplace to see what works and what doesn't," said TLC Commissioner David Yassky.

Yassky said that he heard from "community folks" in the Q79 service area, giving hope that a second attempt might yield different results.

"We had some reason to think there might be interest," he said.

Civic group officials in the area said despite its shortcomings, the pilot program is vital due to limited public transportation options.

Van service not working out as planned

From the Daily News:

FRUSTRATED riders and hamstrung van owners say the pilot program that replaced axed Queens bus lines with private commuter vans is spinning its wheels.

The Group Ride Vehicle Program was introduced last month by the city Taxi and Limousine Commission, allowing Community Transportation Systems Inc. and Alpha Van Lines to take over the discontinued Q74 and Q79 routes, respectively.

Both companies have reported losing money each day due to extremely low ridership - sometimes only 20 passengers in a 12-hour span - forcing them to scale back the frequency of service.

Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky described the service as "spotty" thus far at a Community Board 6 meeting in Kew Gardens last week.

"The agreement with the operators obligates them to maintain a decent frequency of service. It's not clear that they're doing that," Yassky said.

The sporadic service in both areas has irritated many locals who were excited about what the van service could bring to the area.

Jim Trent, 64, a former city employee, was dismayed when he waited more than an hour to be picked up on a recent Sunday afternoon on the old Q79 route.

"I'm annoyed that we don't have the service we were promised. But I feel bad for the [van operators] - you can lose your shirt for this," Trent said.

MTA news roundup

From the Daily News:

Three months after imposing service cuts, the MTA moved closer to near-certain fare hikes on Monday night at the first of its two legally mandated public hearings.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Jay Walder said he didn't see any way the January hikes to bus, subway and commuter fares would be averted.

Walder said there are no ongoing discussions between the MTA and Albany officials about increasing state subsidies for operations. Indeed, Gov. Paterson and the Legislature agreed to the January hikes to generate about $410 million - 7.5% of fare revenues - when enacting new transit-dedicated taxes last year.

It would be the third increase since 2008, an unprecedented one-two-three punch to riders. The Manhattan hearing drew a much smaller crowd than others in the past - about 150 people.

"People have gotten hip to the fact that these hearings are a sham," one woman shouted, calling for a straphanger revolution.

From the Daily News:

The MTA will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training new bus drivers instead of bringing back some who were recently laid off, the Daily News has learned.

About 125 recruits are being hired from a list of job applicants, while some 185 drivers pink-slipped in June remain out of work, according to NYC Transit and union officials.

And one more from the Daily News:

AS PRIVATE van companies took over axed Queens bus lines starting this week, riders greeted the change with skepticism and some confusion.

The Q74 bus line that ran between Kew Gardens and the Queens College area was taken over by Commuter Transportation Systems on Monday.

On its inaugural day, only 20 people boarded the vans, said company owner Hector Ricketts.

The main problem is riders don't know the program exists, said David Yassky, head of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which launched the pilot program to fill the service gap created by Metropolitan Transit Authority budget cuts.

"The biggest hurdle will be customer awareness and getting potential passengers to know the service is available," Yassky said.

Reining in out-of-control illegal vans

From the Daily News:

Queens lawmakers are calling for a crackdown on illegal commuter vans, blasting them as dangers to public safety for riders and pedestrians.

The vans are especially popular in far-flung neighborhoods where subways don't reach and bus lines were recently reduced or eliminated.

"These are vehicles that haven't been inspected for safety and are operating without proper licenses," City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) said during a press conference in Maspeth yesterday. "It's a growing problem."

Crowley recently introduced a bill that would require the Taxi and Limousine Commission to train NYPD officers so they could more easily spot illegal commuter vans. The commission would also have to create a comprehensive book of operating guidelines for commuter vans.

The city has sanctioned the use of licensed commuter vans in some sections of Brooklyn and Queens as part of a pilot project, but that hasn't stopped other operators from swooping into neighborhoods and targeting bus stops.

"People need to know that when they get into these vans, they are safe," said Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone).

More from the NY Times.

Bloomberg announces commuter van program

From the NY Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a yearlong pilot program Tuesday that will allow commuter vans to pick up passengers in parts of Brooklyn and Queens with limited access to public transportation or where bus service cuts will take effect next week.

To commuters, there are advantages and disadvantages. The vans will provide them with a means of reaching transportation hubs or other parts of the borough. But because the vans are privately operated, passengers who are connecting to a subway or bus will have to pay $2 to ride the vans as well as public transportation fare, which is $2.25 for a single trip.

“The issue here is not whether it’s more expensive or less expensive; it’s whether the service exists or not,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference near Queens College in Flushing, by a stop for the Q74 bus, one of the lines that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will eliminate on Sunday.

The pilot program will establish three to six new commuter van routes in Brooklyn and Queens. The routes will be determined in the coming weeks, said David Yassky, the city’s taxi and limousine commissioner. It is scheduled to last a year, but it could be expanded depending on the results, he said.

Mr. Yassky said that enforcement would be a key to the pilot program, as well as to all of the industry, which carries an estimated 15,000 passengers daily from outlying areas of Queens and Brooklyn to transportation hubs, the financial center of Manhattan, a mall in Nassau County and other locations.

Last week, during a few hours in central and southern Brooklyn, taxi inspectors and officers from four police precincts seized 35 illegal vans and issued 73 summonses to unregulated drivers. Similar operations are planned with more frequency than in the past, Mr. Yassky said.

If there's such a big problem already documented, is it wise to introduce this program before the problem is resolved?

Lotsa cab licenses to be revoked

From 1010WINS:

The city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission announced Friday that it plans to take away the licenses of 633 cab drivers, who are accused of overcharging passengers over the past two years.

The commission had initially accused 35,558 cabbies of illegally charging a rider at least once. However, new figures released on Friday showed that 21,819 drivers overcharged passengers a total of 286,000 times. Of those drivers, 13,315 ripped-off passengers once or twice, according to the TLC.

The new findings showed that most of the scamming came from a group of 633 cabbies -- who are said to have overcharged riders 50 or more times. The TLC is in the process of revoking the licenses of those drivers.

David Yassky, Chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, says that New Yorkers should now feel comfortable that they can get into a cab and know that "they’re going to be charged the proper amount."

Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Bhairavi Desai, says the original numbers were inflated and that the comparatively small number of cabbies now accused of wrongdoing shows most cab drivers are honest and hard working.

From tweeder to TLC commish?

From the Village Voice:

Mayor Bloomberg announced today that Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Matthew Daus is stepping down from his job. Guess who's being considered for the job? David Yassky, the former city councilmember who lost last year's primary for the Democratic nomination for comptroller (which was won by John Liu, who presently holds the gig).

Bloomberg favored Yassky over John Liu in that race, during which Liu made much of the fact that Yassky flip-flopped and finally came down in favor of Bloomberg's term limits extension in 2008. (Liu was opposed.) Since taking office -- indeed, since before taking it -- Liu's been a pain in Bloomberg's ass.

The TLC commissioner's job is something of a patronage plum -- Rudolph Giuliani gave it to Diane McGrath-McKechnie, a former sacrificial-lamb Republican candidate for Mayor versus Ed Koch -- though some commissioners have served with distinction. Liz Benjamin says Yassky has been "mentioned for a number of posts in the Bloomberg administration since losing the election."

Looks like screwing his constituents will pay off for the wimp in the end!

Maybe instead of community boards and borough presidents, the charter commission should dump 6-figure salaried commissioners as qualifications obviously are not required.

Broadway Triangle tweeding plan passes City Council

From the Brooklyn Paper:

The City Council strongly backed a plan to encourage residential development inside the now mostly commercial “Broadway Triangle” on Monday, but the battle isn’t over as a coalition of 40 North Brooklyn community groups announced an expansion of its earlier lawsuit.

Councilmembers voted 38-10 favor of the rezoning, with the majority believing that the plan’s promise of affordable housing — at least 850 of 1,851 apartments would be set aside at below-market rates — outweigh the ugliness that characterized the plan’s creation, which featured a no-bid city contract awarded to two politically connected groups allied with the borough’s Democratic Party boss.

The Council vote didn’t surprise the dissenters in the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition, but the group is not going down without a fight. This morning, lawyers will file an amended lawsuit in state Supreme Court against Mayor Bloomberg and the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development that will be tacked onto the earlier suit filed in September.

The suit contends that a politically corrupt process cut out dozens of community groups from partaking in developing the triangle’s 31 acres of industrial land into a mixed-income community, and that the city acted unethically when it granted development rights to two politically connected groups — the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizen Council, both tied to Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D-Bushwick).

City officials maintain that the arrangement was legitimate because both groups submitted proper applications. And on Monday, several councilmembers agreed.

“This is not an Atlantic Yards project that circumvented [the process],” Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights) said at what would be his final hearing in office. The Triangle is in his district and, as such, he played a large role in seeing it get through the Council.

“We’re going to have 800 affordable apartments. We went through the process and had public input.”

1) The Atlantic Yards scheme did "circumvent the process" on many levels.
2) Both AY and the Broadway Triangle rely on eminent domain abuse, something not mentioned in any of the articles I have read thus far regarding this rezoning vote.
3) David Yassky is an asshole.

Bloomberg's SCA made dirty deal with developer

From The Real Deal:

The School Construction Authority allegedly colluded with a Brooklyn developer to propose a sub-standard middle school on Dock Street in Dumbo. According to Freedom of Information Law documents that Council member David Yassky's office obtained, the SCA knew that the proposed Dock Street middle school would be at a size "compromised from [the SCA's] standards with premium costs due to the mixed use with the high-rise residential building." According to a report from Yassky's office, the SCA knowingly withheld information on making the safest, largest, most cost-efficient school, while promoting the Dock Street plan.

Yeah, but then Yassky made a dirty deal with Christine Quinn to get it passed.

Suzannah catches Yassky volunteer red-handed

Yassky breaking law yet again. He is not alone. Primary day brought out sheer madness and complete disregard for the law by to many people that clearly have no respect for the law and I wonder if they pay for fines from campaign donations?

http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/200...
The blog link has photos of the candidates breaking the law in the East Village.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqnzvc...
Here I catch another young man breaking the law on behalf of David Yassky. When I confront him he does stop which is more for the young man I caught today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7HIYQ...
I tell you about confronting David Yassky and I believe -- oops he told me a "white lie" that he did not vote for a third term for himself. I believe he did. He did so to win favor with Mike Bloomberg so he did vote for a third term for himself and he envisions himself as Mike Bloomberg's comptroller.

Katz makes her pick

From the Queens Campaigner:

“I enthusiastically endorse David Yassky because he will bring honesty and integrity to the Comptroller’s office and be a trustworthy custodian of the city’s books. We can count on him to root out waste and inefficiency throughout government. And we can count on him to make smart investments with our pension dollars that catalyze job growth right here in the city of New York.” - Melinda Katz

Ladies and gentlemen, we finally have the answer as to which of the two remaining candidates is sleazier!

Citywide race results - we'll have 2 runoffs!