Taxis

I moved to Brooklyn in 2006 after spending my youth in Manhattan. When it comes to cabs, I never realized how good Manhattanites have it until landing an in outer borough, and while I rarely rely on a taxi to get around the city, when I do, I find myself fearing the confrontation. Cabbies who pick up fares in Manhattan begrudgingly go to Park Slope and often don’t know the way. Even cabs in other parts of Brooklyn prefer a return ride to Manhattan that a quick jaunt between neighborhoods, and now and then, I’ll have to restort to threats of a 311 call to get my legally required ride.

That could all change under a new plan unveiled by Mayor Bloomberg during his State of the City speech this afternoon. Bloomberg has proposed allowing the city’s fleet of car services and black cabs to pick up passengers who hail them. It is, in essence, legalizing an activity that has gone on under the table for years and would be entirely voluntary. In exchange for this ability to pick up fares though, these car services would have to adopt a metered fare system and opt in to the city’s credit card cab program.

The basic details are straightforward enough. Later this year, the Taxi & Limousine Commission will issue its proposed guidelines, but the mayor said the program will be in place outside of Manhattan. He noted that while 95 percent of cab riders are picked up in Manhattan or the airports, 80 percent of New Yorkers live in the outer boroughs. It is high time, he said, for those residents to be able to get reliable cab service.

“It will give New Yorkers in all five boroughs another safe, reliable and convenient option for getting around. Because whether you’re standing on 42nd Street in Manhattan, or 42nd Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, or 42nd Street in Sunnyside, Queens, you ought to be able to hail a cab,” the mayor said during his speech in Staten Island.

The Gotham Gazette has already plunged into the issue, and they offer up their instant analysis. Included in the piece is feedback from the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Already, those who organize yellow cab drivers feel threatened. “Legalizing an illegal activity because it’s been done for so long will immediately cut into fares, especially during the rush hours when yellow cab drivers who live in the outer boroughs pick up fares at the beginning or end of their shifts,” Bhairavi Desai said. “As liveries bring more riders into Manhattan, what guarantee do we have that the city will stop the illegal activities in Manhattan or the airports? Already, the city has turned a blind eye on such activity throughout Manhattan and the airports, which cuts deep into taxi driver incomes. This is a slippery slope with long-term implications.”

The problem though with the TWA is their willingness to turn a blind eye to other illegal activities. A cab driver must not refuse a fare to any destination within the five boroughs, but as I mentioned, I’ve had to restort to threats of a phone call to get my passage out of Manhattan. I know I’m not alone in that regard either. Many cab drivers won’t allow Brooklyn-, Queens- or Bronx-bound passengers into their cars and are openly hostile to those who leave the five boroughs. Bloomberg’s plan simply puts the rest of us on a better footing when it comes to cabs.

Livery cab owners feel that this move might cut into their business as well, and the opt-in nature of it doesn’t appeal to everyone. Still, no matter the future of this program, it highlights the inherent tensions between yellow cab drivers, the Taxi & Limousine Commission and the Mayor’s Office. David Yassky, the current TLC commission, is a Brooklynite through and through, and he knows the system needs fixing. Bloomberg’s plan could reform the taxi industry, and as taxi service spreads throughout the city, it could lead to fewer private cars on the road. That would be a forward transportation step indeed.

The Karsan taxi was designed specifically for this project. (Read more at CityRoom)

After a lengthy RFP process, the City of New York unveiled its three finalists for its Taxi of Tomorrow contest yesterday. Designs from Karsan, Nissan and Ford that evoke the boxier history of the city’s long-gone checkers will be battling it out to earn the exclusive right to build out and service a new fleet of New York City taxicabs. No longer will Crown Victorias and a fleet of yellow hybrids roam the streets of city looking for fares.

“We are going to create a new taxi for our City that is safer, greener and more comfortable than the ones we have today,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a press conference.

“Taxis are the icon of our shared urban landscape, and for more than five years the Design Trust and Taxi and Limousine Commission have enjoyed an enormously productive collaboration to improve that icon, culminating in the Taxi of Tomorrow,” Deborah Marton, executive director of the Design Trust for Public Space, a project partner, said. “This project is about much more than getting from point A to point B – the Design Trust and Taxi and Limousine Commission are pioneering an accessible, sustainable, beautiful taxi that New Yorkers deserve. No other city has tried to do this, and we want to make sure every New Yorker has a chance to weigh in and be part of this historic event.”

Right now, the city is hosting a public comment period focused around the new Taxi of Tomorrow website. New York City residents have been asked to participate in a survey about taxis. What parts of the taxi experience need to be improved? How should the city’s taxi of tomorrow incorporate technological innovation, passenger space and environmental concerns?

The Ford Transit Connect is seemingly the tallest of the finalists.

While London has long relied upon a custom-made taxicab, for New York, this attempt at homogeneity is a first. “Cars that are durable enough to be mass-produced are often not durable enough to be a New York City taxi,” Taxi and Limousine Commission head David Yassky said.

Michael Grynbaum, meanwhile, has more from the unveiling:

All three competing designs, submitted by Ford, Nissan and the Turkish manufacturer Karsan, have the bulky appearance of a minivan. Gone is the cramped legroom of a hybrid car: these interiors feature generously sized backseats and, in Karsan’s case, a rear-facing drop seat to encourage conversation among passengers (that, or motion sickness). The winner of the contest will receive the exclusive right to supply the cabs for the city’s fleet of just over 13,000 taxis for at least a decade. Taxi officials said the contract could have an overall potential value of $1 billion…

Ford’s entry, the Transit Connect, is a customized version of a vehicle already on the market, and Mr. Yassky said the submission benefited from Ford’s history of reliable service with the city. A design by Nissan’s North American branch, based on the company’s NV200 van, featured the most legroom and the potential for an entirely electric propulsion system.

Karsan, which builds cars for Fiat and Hyundai, submitted a design that was entirely original for the project. Its entry, the V1, is the only finalist that is fully accessible to passengers in wheelchairs, and the car could potentially include wireless Internet access. Four other submissions were rejected by the city, including a design from General Motors.

Initially, the reaction from taxi officials and city politicians has not been an embracing one. Assembly representative Micah Kellner noted how wheelchair accessibility is “only an option for the winning design, not a requirement.” Bhairavi Desai of the Taxi Workers Alliance bemoaned the focus on the car instead of the driver. “If there is money to be spent, we think it should go to improve the working conditions before it goes to beautify the vehicle,” she said.

Even the city itself isn’t sold on the need to replace its current fleet. Despite the lengthy process, New York will pick a new car only if it up to standards. “Each is promising, but none is perfect,” Bloomberg said “We are not obliged to go with anything if it does not meet our needs.”

The pictures — Karsan, Nissan, Ford — are alluring, but the designs are boring. The cars are almost too square and not very sleek, and while the bigger size will make traveling in packs more convenient, they’ll also take up more space on the roads. The vast majority of trips don’t require a car with so much extra room. But as long as the new taxis — vehicles The City Fix recently called next frontier of sustainable transportation — are as fuel-efficient as the hybrids they’ll be replacing, the city is at least on the right track here.

Nissan's taxi could feature an electric propulsion system.

Could this be the taxi of tomorrow? (Via Human Condition/ToT)

Once upon a time, the Ford Crown Victoria, painted yellow, dominated the streets of New York City. These gas-guzzling behemoths were the darling of the Taxi & Limousine Commission. With spacious trunks and ample space in the back, the Crown Vic proved popular with drivers and passengers alike, and even today, the familiar body, largely unchanged since 1979, still rolls around the city.

In the mid-2000s, though, the character of the taxi fleet began to change. As part of an effort to reduce carbon emissions while modernizing the fleet, the Taxi & Limousine Commission began urging and then requiring the adoption of hybrid taxis. For model year 2006, for instance, the TLC approved the Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner, the Honda Accord, the Honda Civic, the Lexus RX400H, the Toyota Highlander and the Toyota Prius for use among cabbies, and since then, the number of different taxicab makes and models has grown to 16.

The hybrid push was part of a larger effort by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to bring PlaNYC to fruition, but the judiciary had other ideas. On a preemption basis, a judge blocked the hybrid cab requirement, and an appeals court has upheld the decision as well. Instead, the request to move to a hybrid remains voluntary. Still, the city is trying to improve the efficiency of its taxi fleet.

Enter the Taxi of Tomorrow. In late 2009, the TLC pulled out a request for proposal for the next-gen taxicab. As London has done with their iconic cars, so too will New York try to unify its fleet. The main requirements are eight fold:

• Highest safety standards
• Superior passenger experience
• Superior driver comfort and amenities
• Appropriate purchase price and on-going maintenance and repair costs
• Sustainability (minimized environmental impact throughout the vehicle’s life cycle)
• Minimal physical footprint (with more useable interior room)
• Universal accessibility for all users with a goal of meeting ADA guidelines (wheelchair accessible)
• Iconic design that will identify the new taxi with New York City

From an environmental standpoint, sustainability is the key requirement. The TLC should be able to make an endrun around the court’s preemption argument by unifying the fleet and special-ordering a new car. The finalists in the RFP competition will be announced early next year, and the new cars should hit the road by 2014 as part of a three-to-five year replacement effort.

Earlier this week at the Museum of the City of New York, the taxi industry presented some preliminary designs and discussed the impetus behind the project. I couldn’t attend this session, but WNYC’s Kathleen Horan did. She reports on the divergent opinions on the one-car project:

The President of the Metropolitan Taxi Cab Board of Trade, Ron Sherman, also worries that malfunctions could cause headaches if there isn’t more variety. “We feel that there should be at least 2 or 3 choices — that stakes are too high to rely on just one provider to accomplish this.”

Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky says the benefits of working with a single automaker are worth the risks. “Only the city government can act on behalf of the entire industry in getting the best deal possible from the manufacturers. I think that’s worth it.”

He says that no other city has ever tried this, but that the only way to meet all the goals is by being pro-active and not picking from what is already on the market.

Reinventing the wheel certainly carries with it substantial risk, and Sherman’s points are a valid one. If the TLC opts for a custom-made car, it’s going to need to ensure that New York mechanics have the expertise necessary to repair these cars when they inevitably break down. These cars will have to be affordable for the city and taxi medallion owners and will have to be both handicapped-accessible and environmentally friendly. How the city resolves this design debate will have an impact well into the next decade.

If the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade has its way, subway and bus riders won’t be the only New York commuters faced with the prospect of higher fares come 2011. As The Post reported late last night, the largest group of taxicab medallion owners in the city has requested a substantial fare hike. The new rates would represent a 19 percent increase, and the base fare would go up to $3 from $2.50, making a five-mile ride spike from $13 to $15.50.

Officials from the Board of Trade, which represents 3500 of the city’s 13,000 medallion owners, say it is requesting this hike to combat higher operating costs. “Operating costs have continued to increase over the last six years,” Michael Woloz, board spokesman, said. “The only way we’re able to offset costs is through an increase.”

Tom Namako and Bill Sanderson summarized the details of the fare hike request:

• Simply getting into a cab would increase from $2.50 to $3 — and that doesn’t include the 50 cent “MTA” tax Albany slapped onto the base fare last year.
• Increasing the flat fare to Kennedy Airport from $45 to $53, which is an 18 percent hike. That figure doesn’t count tolls or tip.
• Tinkering with the number of times a 40-cent “click” occurs — essentially speeding up the number of times a passenger is charged. Riders would therefore be charged 40 cents every sixth of a mile the cab moves — right now the charge occurs every fifth of a mile. That would increase the distance charge 20 percent.
• The owners also want to change the definition of an idling click to every minute a cab idles, or travels at 10 mph or below. Right now, per-minute idling clicks are charged at speeds of 12 mph or below.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission will eventually hold hearings on this proposal and vote on the measure. The Post notes that the last time the MTBT asked for a large request, they got their 26 percent fare hike in 2004. “The taxi industry has the right to petition for a fare increase, and we will evaluate that petition,” TLC Chairman David Yassky said. “Of course, we will examine that request. But the fact that the industry is requesting it – that, by no means, means the request will be granted.”

Meanwhile, if this request is approved, the taxi industry anticipates fewer riders but higher revenues. When the rates have gone up in the past, ridership has dropped by just three percent, but revenue in an industry with razor-thin profit margins increased by 15 percent. Those who eschew cabs will more than likely head underground for travel.

I have nothing against a taxi cab fare hike, and if it leads to fewer car trips and more subway riders, the city as a whole should benefit. I would though like to see the same level of hand-wringing over this fare hike as we do over increases to the subway fare. If people are willing to pay $30 for a shleppy cab ride form the East Side to Wall Street, they can stomach a more modest MTA fare hike as well.

Early yesterday morning, as I dressed to head out for the day, I turned on NY1 to catch the weather. The lead story of course was about the MTA and how officials in Albany were floating a plan to institute a $0.50 taxi surcharge as a way of driving money to the transit agency.

This plan has gotten varying degrees to treatment in the press. A report on WNYC made it seem as though it was just another half-baked idea a few State Senators were tossing around. A more recent report on NY1 from last night made it sound as though it were a real proposal under consideration and one the Senate might actually support.

That’s neither here nor there though. My biggest issue with the NY1 report was a statement from Bhairavi Desai, the head of the Taxi Workers Alliance. Now, the TWA is a great organization. It’s a union of 3000 taxi drivers, and Desai has been instrumental in earning better working conditions and higher pay for drivers. She clearly knows nothing about the MTA though.

“I didn’t think the MTA could sink any lower,” she said on TV yesterday, “but I was wrong.”

There you go. That’s a direct quote from one of the city’s leading transit advocates. While the MTA was not behind this plan — agency heads obvious prefer the more robust Ravitch Plan — Desai channeled all of the ignorance from Albany and all of the uninformed New Yorkers going around to bash the MTA for something the authority did not even propose.

Meanwhile, the TWA’s website, while directing people to contact the Senate, still seems to blame this on the MTA. “Don’t let MTA balance their budget failures on our backs!” screams Desai’s site. She continues:

We know the Governor and legislature is out of touch with ordinary New Yorkers who do the daily grind of driving a taxicab for a living—considered the most dangerous job in the country by the Department of Labor—but they are also out of touch with our riders. Many of the men and women we serve everyday are the elderly visiting a doctor or a janitor going home from the night shift or a parent with a baby stroller or a businessperson running to meet their job’s demands.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. First, according to the Department of Labor, mining, logging and slaughterhouse jobs are far and away the most dangerous in the nation. To even mention taxi drivers in that statement is a joke.

Second, those janitors coming from their night shifts — they can’t afford taxis. They need the late night subway service set to be cut. But again, that’s neither here nor there.

Like so many other advocates, like so many politicians, Desai is taking the truth and throwing it out the window. Add another one to the list of people out of touch with New Yorkers and the needs of this city.