The dream of the Green taxi driver

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.

If Bloomberg's numbers are correct the Green taxis are a failure

Mike Bloomberg is happy as a pig in excrement to tell the works that his 1000 green taxis have booked "nearly " 300000 trips in three months. Thus say the Daily News and the Village Voice. 300 trips per taxi over 3 months. How many trips do yellow cabs complete in a month?  Roughly 1000 a month each. For argument's sake let' s say these 300000 trips were accomplished by these green cabs in one month. That is less than a third of what the yellow taxis do.  My educated guess though is they do quite: more than ten trips a day. They're off the meter off the books and off the tax rolls.

Talking with Green Taxi drivers in Harlem And the Bronx: "Up here they don't like taxi meters".

"And so we work the same way as before - no meters.

GPS must be telling the real story which is the following: Uptown in the ghetto, where the cops stop and frisk  at will there is and has been for decades a no meter taxi street hail culture. Mike bubble boy to the contrary there was no hue and cry for taxis with meters. Ask the TLC if their GPS data bears this out: Green taxis rolling around uptown not putting on their meters.

What you need to know about the upcoming New York medallion auction

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/industry/medallion_auction.shtml

That's the official page for official information.

They will be auctioning 200 medallions for wheelchair accessible taxis. These type vans have more maintenance problems than other vehicles Deadline to get your bid packages together and delivered is November 13. Minimum bid will be $850,000 for one medallion . $1,700,000 for 2.

These taxis will be required to respond to wheelchair  customers. There are reasons driver's dislike thrse fares.

More green taxis hit the road and infiltrate downtown daily. T L C enforcement t is ineffective  and the material foundation of medallion values gets shakier 
by the hour but  a sucker is  born every minute.

Green taxis in the ghetto. Trouble ahead. Are you sure you want to buy a New York yellow taxi cab medallion at auction?

Yesterday for the first time I got into one of those new  no medallion outer boro taxis and I had a brief chat with the driver. I hailed him up here at 158th and Amsterdam Avenue  which is about as ghetto as it gets.
I asked him how it was going. He said it was very tough working the hood because the riding public up in these parts do not like metered taxis, they want a flat rate so they shun him for the old gypsy no meter taxis. Shit, I could have told you this was coming. Greenie has to pay bills and he is headed downtown. Are you sure you still want to buy a medallion?