Gotham Gazette

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Taxi and Limousine Commission

Taxi and Limousine Commission

  • Examining Midtown Traffic, Former NYC Transportation Commissioner Calls for New For-Hire Vehicle Regulations

    Midtown streets (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    As the MTA and partners prepare to implement congestion pricing in New York City to raise needed funds for transit infrastructure and reduce traffic, a former New York City transportation commissioner proposes that the state and city should primarily target for-hire vehicles that he assesses as the true culprits behind Midtown’s congestion woes.

    In a recent study, Lucius Riccio, adjunct professor of statistics, analytics, and operations at NYU's Stern School of

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  • Coronavirus Crisis Presents Opportunity for the City to Finally Step Up for Struggling Taxi Drivers

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    Taxi drivers push for help (photo: @NYTWA)


    In the past month, the coronavirus pandemic has brought our world to a standstill, causing emotional and financial hardships for Americans around the country. As schools, restaurants, and retailers across New York shutter indefinitely, it is clear that no industry, or worker, will go unaffected. 

    Among those hit hardest, however, will be New York’s over 21,000 yellow and green taxi drivers, who have already been struggling to survive in the wake of the financial ruin of the medallion debt

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  • Attorney General Disrupts Progress on Taxi Loan Crisis

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    Taxi driver-owners protest at City Hall (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    Last May I wrote a column criticizing the practice of including taxi medallion sales revenue in the city’s operating budget and pointed out the perverse incentive it creates to encourage high sales prices. My comments were triggered by the publication of a compelling investigative series on the New York City taxi medallion market ...

  • City Officials Debate What To Do About Taxi Medallion Debt Crisis

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    Council Members Levine & Rivera & drivers rally at City Hall (photo: Jeff Reed)


    City Council Speaker Corey Johnson asked what sounded like a simple question: should the Taxi & Limousine Commission apologize for its role in the taxi medallion debt crisis, in which thousands of taxi owner-drivers have been trapped in predatory loans unchecked by city and state watchdogs?

    Jeffrey Roth, nominated by Mayor Bill de Blasio to lead the TLC, failed to give a direct “yes” or “no.” Johnson asked

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  • Paying New York City’s Debt to Taxi Drivers

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    (photo: @NYTWA)


    When financial bubbles burst, it’s almost always regular people whose lives are ruined. The fraudsters and scammers often avoid serious consequences. So it was with America’s mortgage crisis in 2008. And so it has been with New York City’s own home-grown mortgage meltdown: the collapse of yellow taxi medallion values since 2014, which has had a devastating impact on the lives of thousands of yellow taxi drivers.

    New York City only allows a fixed number of the iconic yellow taxis on its streets--creating over the decades a consistent,

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  • Council to Examine City’s Role in ‘Taxi Medallion Crisis’

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    (photo Credit: Edward Reed/City Council)


    Amid a new flurry of attention to challenges faced by taxi drivers in New York City, the City Council will hold an oversight hearing Monday on the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission’s “role in the taxi medallion crisis.”

    As a New York Times two-...

  • Taxi Medallion Exposé Drives Home Key Budget Lesson

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    (Photo: Ed Reed/City Council)


    Last week, the New York Times published another blockbuster investigative series by reporter Brian Rosenthal, this time on the misleading and predatory practices which led to inflated prices of New York City yellow taxi medallions over the last decade.

    The compelling stories of taxi drivers who thought they were buying into the American dream by purchasing taxi medallions, only to find their incomes drastically

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  • Former City Taxi Commissioner on Regulating the App Companies and Saving the Yellows

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    Meera Joshi, right, at a rally (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)


    Meera Joshi’s five-year tenure as the head of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission coincided with a tumultuous time for the industry she was tasked with overseeing and regulating. Joshi, who left the de Blasio administration in March, joined the What’s The [Data] Point? podcast from Citizens Budget Commission and Gotham Gazette to

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  • What's the [Data] Point? 125,323, with Former Taxi Commissioner Meera Joshi

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 73 -- 125,323, Meera Joshi, former chair of the city's Taxi & Limousine Commission [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    wtdp meera joshiMeera Joshi was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014 to chair the city's Taxi & Limousine Commission, which sets rules for and has oversight over the city's taxi

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  • New York City Shouldn’t Regulate Ride-Hailing Apps - It Should Compete With Them

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    (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Smartphones are transforming transit in cities all over the world, and city governments are struggling to figure out how to best manage the change. If the world was looking to New York City’s recently enacted legislation affecting for-hire vehicle companies, then there will be disappointment given that, once again, the city’s political establishment decided to impose an outdated regulatory regime on innovative firms,

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  • The City’s Bogus Compromise with Uber Would Hurt Riders with Disabilities

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    (photo via nyc.gov)


    The hustle and bustle of New York is a part of its identity: we New Yorkers are always on the move. Our officials must fight for equal access to transportation, but as those of us with disabilities know, accessible methods of travel are shamefully limited. This is why the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) has apparently been negotiating with private for-hire car companies like Uber and Lyft on the issue of wheelchair accessible taxis for several months.

    This could have been an encouraging sign, but last week, it became clear

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  • Uber Scam Calls for Independent Monitor

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    an Uber protest (photo: @CPIsd)


    The following is an open letter from David Beier, president of the Committee for Taxi Safety to Commissioner Meera Joshi of the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission:

    Dear Commissioner Joshi,

    In light of Uber's admission that

    No Surprise Uber Drivers Are Protesting

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    photo via the NYC TLC


    Uber’s New York City drivers continued to rally against the company last week at City Hall — and it was no coincidence that recent reports show most Uber drivers don’t like their jobs.

    In a new survey of Uber drivers published this month, less than half said they enjoy driving for Uber. Almost 40 percent of the drivers said they “strongly disagreed” or “disagreed” with the survey’s question about whether

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  • The Week That Was in New York Politics, August 10-14

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    photo: Stanley Kubrick via Museum of the City of New York


    Gotham Gazette's Week in Review, Friday August 14

    PHOTO OF THE WEEK:a Brooklyn street was officially renamed "Do The Right Thing Way," after the iconic Spike Lee movie, via Council Member Jumaane

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  • The Week That Was in New York Politics, June 29-July 2

    week in review bus readers

    photo: Stanley Kubrick via Museum of the City of New York


    Gotham Gazette's Week in Review, Thursday July 2 - our usual Friday feature a day early this week due to the holiday, enjoy:

    PHOTO OF THE WEEK:Council Member Corey Johnson celebrates at the Pride Parade, via William

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