Seriously, everything about yellow cab service is worse. Why don’t they buy back the medallions instead?
1. Cabbie turning off his meter right before my stop, then quoting me a price that was x3 times the meter when I last caught glimpse of it.
2. Cabbies flat out refusing to accept credit cards. Forcing me to withdraw cash on an ATM to pay them.
3. Cabbies rudely demanding tip after being rude and inconsiderate the whole ride.
There's a reason why Uber/Lyft are so popular. Yellow Cabs in NYC were never a pleasant experience, and all too often - an awful one.
Dump all taxi drivers into the same market as this guy and they'll have to improve or be pushed out of business when they get too many "1 star: tried to defraud me" reviews.
Maybe we need an app that lets us photograph the legally mandated ID card so we can collectively leave reviews. But even then it's too late. You're already in the cab.
I typically travel for business, so I don't care about the price so much. Uber/Lyft are great because they provide a much better experience.
I hate cabs because of all the friction: rude drivers imposing their personal preferences upon me, often illegally.
The biggest improvement Uber introduced is accountability for drivers. Efficiency improved too, and reduced the price. But if you look at the comments here and in TFA, a lot of them are about service quality. Most of the worst offenses, like refusing to accept credit cards, are illegal. But the city has done a terrible job of enforcing it, so cab service has been terrible for decades.
Then came Uber and Lyft and finally brought service that people love. So the city tries to take them down. Just like SF is harassing successful companies with bizarre new rules and regulations, such as banning cafeterias.
It would really be nice if there were a standard API and naming system so that a global hierarchical registration system could be used by any application speaking that standard to provide the functionality presently provided by Lyft and Uber.
I see the offers of water bottles and gum as expressions of desperation in the face of precarity: a 4.6 average will get you fired from Uber (https://therideshareguy.com/10-things-that-can-get-you-deact...). I want good service, which means a driver that does his job well, not a driver that makes me cringe because he feels pressured to humiliate himself in a performative display of over-the-top customer service.
4/5 stars in a movie is pretty great. 4/5 stars in an Uber is, for some nonsensical reason, abysmal. What's the point of having 1-3 at all at that point?
Moreover, they will ask you for the rating several days later if you don't take frequent rides and open the app again. Unless it was terrible, I probably don't remember the details.
He's doing that because a small amount of ratings, however fickle or unfair, can make or break his ability to make money while driving for Uber.
Most of the drivers out there don't own their own medallion, they just pay a lease fee to the medallion owner.
Why? Let the free market take care of it.
De Blasio is also significantly backed by the taxi industry [1].
[1] https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-blasio-o...
So otherwise hopeless drivers/single medallion owners who are severely in debt don't end up committing mass suicide.
There are so many avenues for them to relieve themselves from this burden and better their circumstances that you'd be hard-pressed to take any claims of mass-suicide seriously.
Most economists are in agreement that dramatically increasing the cost of owning property (And, conversely, lowering the market value of existing properties) is one of the answers to the current housing crisis. Once the rules are changed, the free market can figure things out going forward!
Are you going to cheer this process on? It will, after all, greatly improve life for people who don't have millions of dollars to pour into housing.
except taxis aren't currently a free market, and definitely weren't when many of those medallions were originally purchased. the government shouldn't have been mucking with the market, but it did.
Most medallions are owned by corporate owners [1]. The drivers work for the medallion owner. The medallion owner collects rent.
I think 29%, 12,187 * .29 ~ 3500 cab drivers, is not insignificant numbers. I don't know though anyone who owns their own medallions -- a few I knew worked for a company that leased their medallions and they paid something like $1000 per week.
The cabbies have gotten the short end of the stick though.
This isn't exclusively a protectionist issue. It is an anti-congestion issue.