I've been talking with newly minted green taxi drivers as well as Bronx and Harlem livery drivers who do not intend to or do not want to change the way they work.
Drivers tell me that TLC and NYPD enforcement has increased against the non green livery drivers for illegal passenger pick ups which has been their main way of working for four decades with perfunctory complaints coming only from the medallion cartel.
Green drivers hope to become a green cartel and they are looking hungrily at the million dollar yellow taxi medallion.
A problem the greens have now is the prohibition on picking up that they face in lower Manhattan and the airports and some refuse to go there saying that the meter fare does not make such voyages worthwhile. At the same time many Bronx and Harlem residents resist the notion of taxi meters for local trips preferring to strike bargains.
A possible remedy is to cap the number of livery licenses, allow legal pick ups in " underserved" outer borough neighborhoods (not places like Williamsburg) and allow the drivers to go meter or not as they wish.
