The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King | Hacker News Reader

The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King

bloomberg.com

28 pointsMaxQuentero19 comments

"Seven years later came Bloomberg’s introduction of green cabs designed primarily to reach the underserved outer boroughs. Prohibited from picking up customers in Manhattan’s central business district, they were nonetheless despised by the yellow cab industry. Freidman sued, contending the new law allowing green cabs was unconstitutional. The courts ultimately disagreed."

This right here is why I hope Uber and other services like them burn the NYC cab industry to the ground. The cab industry in NY treats people like crap if you don't live in midtown. Especially if you live in a minority community. I lived in Harlem when that fight was happening and was astounded by the argument the cab commission put up. They admitted they don't go to minority communities because of violence but they do not want anyone else to service the area either.

My ex was riding home with two white coworkers from her job. They were getting dropped off in the 60's block and she was getting dropped off in Harlem. The cab driver knew that. He dropped off the first two and drove a block up and old my ex to get out of the car. He wasn't driving to Harlem. That is just one of several messed up NYC cab stories. I just stopped taking them and went green car only.

The cab industry is crappy to a lot of the community in NYC. They deserve everything that they are getting right now.

Planet Money had an interesting episode about him recently: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/31/428157211/episo...

During the Depression, thousands of jobless men became taxi drivers. As a result, the number of cabs ballooned, and suddenly there weren’t enough passengers to scoop up. The industry became as hopelessly unprofitable as any other.

Is that really true? If so, what makes the cab business so different than every other business where limits aren't put on the number of sellers?

If there were too many cabs and it became unprofitable, then you'd expect the supply to dwindle until it was profitable for some.

The whole safety thing is a different regulatory issue. I could understand trying to keep passengers safe.

Absent regulation, the cab business has very low barriers to entry. Other direct sales businesses with low barriers to entry such as street peddling, door-to-door sales, food trucks, etc. are also typically regulated or banned. Sales businesses which require renting/owning retail space have a much stiffer entry barrier and inherent limits on crowding, but many types of them are still regulated in various ways (liquor licenses, restaurant licenses, salon licenses ...).

Or in other words, cabs aren’t unique.

Under normal circumstances, maybe. The Depression, though… there’s no jobs, so why not just get in your car and hope to get a lucky fare? You’ll make more cash than sitting in an unemployment line.

Well, good luck burning gas and filling up your tank during the Great Depression.

Cabs are a vital part of NYC transportation. Too many cabs will clog up streets causing traffic.

There are other reasons to regulate. To prevent predatory pricing. Without set prices cab drivers would start ripping people off. You can see the trouble with this with Uber's surge pricing. I needed a cab home from the airport but Uber wanted 4X pricing. Luckly cabs still exist, but in 5 years they might not. My 80 buck fare would be 320 bucks.

A lot of pro uber folks want to pretend that taxi regulations are purely protectionist. But it's really just quid pro quo. You can't tell cab drivers what to charge and make them drive people to anywhere in the city. They might not be profitable. Limiting supply is consultation price.

Well now that deal is done since cities allow Uber to compete with them unregulated.

I think the only real solution is to deregulate cabs. But a lot of people are going to be pissed when their cabbie informs them of surge pricing or that he doesn't deliver to certain areas.

I see your point but Uber is unregulated and it seems to be working fine. I'm not sure that cabs stick out as an industry that particularly needs this level of regulation.

Uber is actually highly regulated in NYC. When you get an uber, the car that's being driven is a licensed livery cab with the city, and the driver is a licensed livery cab driver with the city. They're subject to all of the regulations that the other livery cab companies have to follow.

> I see your point but Uber is unregulated and it seems to be working fine.

They violate transportation laws flagrantly in most jurisdictions. That's not "unregulated", that's breaking the law.

I have no sympathy whatsoever. He still owes on loans taken to purchase medallions. If things get a little worse this lowlife is surely going to walk away from those loans. If I were uber I'd offer to buy them for the pennies they may soon be worth.

>>After breakfast, Freidman walks two blocks east to his temporary digs at Trump Park Avenue on 59th Street. (Sandra is occupying the $4.8 million master residence six blocks north.) After he retrieves a Chihuahua named Harry from upstairs—he signs his e-mails “Yes I Am a Dog Lover” or “adopt-a-pet.com”—the plan is to hop into his Ferrari and zip over to one of his several garages in Queens. Not that he wants that written: “Honestly, I would love the piece not to be about ‘We had breakfast at Cipriani, then we walked over to his Park Avenue apartment, then we got into his Ferrari.’

This pic says more than the article ever could: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion-king/i...

Rant: Uber's shitty navigation is as we speak taking me on a detour through south DC trying to get from foggy bottom to union station. Second time this week (last time it was a random detour to Virginia).

I use Uber all the time, of course, because it's so cheap, but people talking about self-driving Uber cars always makes me chuckle.

Uber routes me through an alley for absolutely no reason every time I take it to work.

I love how the only option to get your route reviewed is "my driver took a poor route." There should be a "your navigation is inbred" option.

I see this regularly, it's pretty insane: if I do uberPool, my route home typically involves an illegal (but safe) right turn into a do-not-enter / buses-only street followed by an illegal left turn the wrong way up a one-way street.

I also tried it once when I actually got matched to another fare (a first) - the route was going to take us within ~3 blocks of my home but then go 20 minutes further to drop off the other fare and then 20 minutes back on the same route. (I got out when the car was stopped at a red light and walked).

AND YET FOR SOME STRANGE REASON I STILL FIND UBER INFINITELY SUPERIOR TO TAXICABS. FUNNY THAT.

I thought Uber used Google for back-end navigation. Is that not true? Is it homegrown?

Certainly a good object lesson in the bite of leverage over long periods of time. As in it's a very bad idea.

If cities are going to allow open competition from uber and lyft, they need to remove the regulation on cab drivers.

Burn baby burn.

Seriously.

If there's a paragon of entitlement, this guy is it.

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