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Comment by chaz | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of origins, I think there's still an important role for city governments to manage the number of cars on the street. NPR Planet Money did a story about the effect of NYC's planned +2,000 cabs (in additional to the existing 13,200) will have on the city: shorter wait times, but longer drive times for everyone. If the story is correct, more deregulation with more cars on the street without other measures (such as congestion pricing) would be bad for the public. NYC traffic is already bad enough.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157477611/does-new...

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This is why it's so annoying that Albany vetoed the congestion pricing plan. Congestion pricing would keep vehicle traffic down to acceptable levels without discriminating based on type of vehicle.

Still though it should be recognized that the medallion system leads to massive returns for a tiny minority of existing medallion holders who are basically just extracting rents. The system could have easily been set up so as to distribute the returns to riders, or drivers, or taxpayers.

It's far from obvious that demand has outstripped supply. The population of Manhattan was significantly higher in 1937 than it is now 1.9 million vs. 1.6 million. On a population basis it would seem that we would need fewer rather than more cabs.

What drives the demand for cabs is the the price of a ride versus the alternative. If the regulated fare is low relative to subways & buses and the overall price level, cabs will be in high demand. If the fare is high, demand for cabs will decline.

You really can't compare the use-per-capita of cabs between 1937 and 2013...

Why not? An ellipsis isn't an argument.

I thought calling attention to it would be enough. Life, wealth distribution, transportation modes, etc. are very different now than they were 80 years ago. Treating it as a roughly apples to apples comparison is ludicrous.

> It's far from obvious that demand has outstripped supply. The population of Manhattan was significantly higher in 1937 than it is now 1.9 million vs. 1.6 million. On a population basis it would seem that we would need fewer rather than more cabs.

Wrong population number, in the case of Manhattan where real estate prices are so high that 'number of people officially living there' becomes the wrong metric, and the right one begins to look like 'number of people physically present on the island each day', which is closer to 4 million people: http://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/publications/dynamic_pop_m... (Significantly higher than 1.6 million!) And these commuters are also much more likely to need transportation - like taxis - for obvious reasons.

You miss the point -- it's not about the number -- it's about the change since 1937. No where in the reference you provide is there any evidence that this number has grown since 1937.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/subways_on_roll_fDYxgwu92...

From the Apr 10th NY Post: "More than 1.65 billion straphangers used the system in 2012 — numbers that haven’t been seen since 1946 when ridership was more than 2 billion, according to MTA statistics released yesterday"

Has the relative income of the residents changed since then? I.e. if the average income in 1937 was on par with the national average and now its 200x that, perhaps there's greater demand for a luxury service such as cabs from a greater slice of the population.

> Many New Yorkers then worked six days a week and many of today’s free-transfer points required a second fare.

What I don't get is why a city as dense as NYC supports any transportation method that puts a few individuals above the public good. Cars in a dense urban area epitomize the tragedy of the commons. Buses and delivery trucks are the only vehicles that must have access to the street. Everyone else should be walking, taking public transportation, or bicycling.

Not having to wait on a street corner for a crosswalk signal or only doing so sparingly would save NYCs on average more time than the occasional taxi ride. On top of that, the absence of cabs would set many minds on the problem of moving all New Yorkers around the city as fast as possible. If you're rich and you think that your time is valuable, then vote for spending on public transportation innovations that benefit everyone equally.

If you eliminate cars and time truck deliveries well, you can engineer a transportation system that runs like a well engineered clock with many complications. Cars are responsible for most of the non-detrminism in a public transportation system.

Taxis are not the problem. Private cars are the problem, and the city does a pretty good job keeping them out of Manhattan as well, with tolls on many of the bridges (any bridge into Manhattan connected to a highway is tolled; local street bridges are not) and a 19% parking tax.

But there are certain situations where you need a taxi and the bus or subway won't do. Think the elderly, families with small children, etc.

I would love to see a city mandate something the size of the Lit Motors vehicle for the cases you mentioned. However for many of the cases you mentioned, taxis still aren't the solution. There are plenty of families and handicapped people that get by with public transportation. They can use things such as scooters, wheelchairs, motorized wheelchairs and strollers. Technology has advanced to the point where a motorized wheelchair or scooter is no longer a rare luxury.

While I can see the argument for taxies, I;m totally in agreement about private cars and especially parking. Parking has no business in the modern urban dense city.

> What I don't get is why a city as dense as NYC supports any transportation method that puts a few individuals above the public good.

Well, for one thing, NYC is answerable to NYS. Lots of people commute into NYC from its suburbs, they like to drive, and they do vote.

There's a solution for that. Grand Central Station. Thousands upon thousands of people commute to NYC by train everyday, leaving their cars at the suburban train station parking lot.

Are you suggesting that there will be not be an increase in the number of cabs in NYC if more medallions are opened up?

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