Uber and Lyft offered to bail out taxi drivers; New York said no
theverge.com
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This is such an upsetting characterization of the situation.
The city government sold a bunch of medallions to investors/"speculators" (depending on your politics). Those medallions declined in value. Who should bear that loss?
The entire situation was created by a government monopoly that never needed to exist in the first place. Now that someone's figured out how to go around it, all the investors in the manufactured, useless regulation are losing their shirts.
It's really hard to feel bad for these guys. They were willing participants in a system designed to line their pockets by fleecing ordinary people, choking supply to ensure their prices were kept artificially high. They're basically the OPEC of transportation. Do we feel bad because electric cars are disrupting OPEC?
Lyft and Uber really aren't the bad guys here, at all.
Where was that promise codified?
Perhaps do just a modicum of research before making such false and uninformed assertions:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/media/totweb/taxioftomorrow_history_...
Coincidence?
There leverage in the student loan market is much lower for the time being.
FHA and student loans allowed mortgages and higher education to be accessible to more people. This is not the same thing as propping up the value of my degree and my home's valuation in the market place after I have acquired them. The Middle Class in the US was built by former(and other New Deal policies) not the latter.
Their actions are so transparently market friction and corruption.
I'm tired of the majority career politicians who have no knowledge of reality other than 'sound good' politics.
Companies would be able to build more housing and pay more in wages if they didn't have to grease the government's palms to do anything.
They need to go. All of them.
Bring back empiricism
Why should investing upwards of a million dollars or more in a taxi medallion be treated differently than any other large investment with real risks involved? So when were profits from these medallions those were private but now that there's risk it should be socialized?
I realize a reply to this can be that bail outs lead to increased risk taking. I would still argue that it's better to risk the system and help those who can not recover from this kind of loss.
There have been 3 restaurants on my block that have opened and failed inn the last 18 months. Shouldn't we help them too by your logic? Should the city council pass legislation?
>"But should the result of it be their lives ruined because "you lost the game, screw you"?
Yeah that's a false equivalence. Empathy and bailouts are not the same things at all. I can have empathy and be against a bailout and that doesn't amount to me saying "screw you" to anyone.
If the restaurant industry collapsed next year I'd say the same thing for them too. But there is a qualitative difference between ad hoc business failures and a systematic change.
But I agree that bailouts != empathy. Still, bailouts aren't the only option, and as a society it is in our interest to help a sector when it goes under. It may happen to you or me next.
EDIT: I should specify that I'm speaking about owner-operated cabs.
The "industry" is not failing. There are still 13,586 yellow taxis on the streets in NYC[1] picking up and dropping off fares. And there no shortage of New Yorkers on the street raising their right hand and intently scanning for the "on duty" lights of yellow cars.
The "industry" is not the valuation of metal medallions bolted to the hood of the cars. You seem to be conflating the too.
Or how about "when about 18% of taxi drivers nest egg devaluates and their retirement evaporates..."
To claim there is no difference between a restaurant failing and all independent taxi cab drivers in NYC simultaneously taking a giant hit that they did not see coming based on an (admittedly bad) policy of protectionism, is intentionally missing the point and I would say is intellectually dishonest.
Is a bailout the best way to fix this? I have no idea, seems like a relatively low cost way to fix what the city did but these things are complicated. I'm open to that discussion.
Are failure rates of the restaurant industry totally incomparable to this singular situation? Most definitely, and any argument based on this is flawed IMO.
You seem to be missing a bit of history.
It sounds like you are unaware that the original call for regulation of the taxi industry was by the taxi drivers themselves. Yes, the passage of the Haas act in 1937. During the Depression there were far more drivers than there was demand for taxis. This resulted an abundance of "wildcat" cab drivers who were threatening the livelihood of legitimate taxi drivers.[1][2]
>"Now that the market collapsed it's the moral thing to do not only to liberalize the medallion restrictions but repay those who were hurt the most."
Lastly the overwhelming majority of medallions are leased out as part of "fleets." The people that have been "hurt" the most have been the drivers who are required to lease the cab for a 12 hour shift for $130 and are also responsible for paying the insurance and gas on top of it. This is basically a feudal system where medallion owners are lords and the actual taxi driver is a serf.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/11/nyregion/medallion-limits...
[2] http://www.nyc.gov/html/media/totweb/taxioftomorrow_history_...
If some company ever called me up to rally political support, that'd be the immediate end of any business. Ever.
This isn't an all or nothing thing.
Looked at another way, smaller buildings are a necessity. From that point of view, the NYC politicians allowed people to cram too many buildings in too small of a space.
Or, maybe there are not enough roads. NYC could go double or triple-deck roads. It would be ugly as heck, but would ease the problem.
Not disagreeing with you, just pointing out that the root cause of the tragedy of the commons is that each person is fine with such a small space. If we made a minimum amount of space that people could own/rent/live in, then the problem would never exist. (for instance, Kansas doesn’t have this issue)
If anyone thinks "bribe" is too strong of a word, they were offering $100m "to help medallion owners" in exchange for the city dropping a proposal that would limit the number of Lyft/Uber drivers and set a minimum wage for the drivers. Again, in any other world this would be called a bribe in exchange for making favorable laws. In this world I guess it would be called lobbying.
The purported problem is taxi drivers bought medallions. The medallions then dropped in value. (Put aside, for a moment, that most NYC medallions are owned by large corporations.)
Uber and Lyft are saying "instead of capping our numbers to help the taxis, we'll help you buy back the taxis from underwater medallion owners." That is good policy. Extending the medallion system to ride sharing freezes market shares. That's a handout to Uber, who have recently been bleeding share to Lyft and Juno. It's also stupid in the midst of a broken subway system and ahead of the L train shutdown.
Of course, none of this matters. This bill's purpose is to hand out cash. Our mayor is in the medallion owners' pockets [1]. And apparently they've also been doling out money to this bill's sponsors on the City Council. The hope is this passes in August while nobody is looking. From ground level, it seems they're right.
[1] https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-blasio-o...
It's a huge problem. And the minimum-wage proposal is a good idea. (I'd go further and extend it to taxi drivers.)
There is no need--apart from paying off the mayor and Speaker's cronies--for it to be tied to the cap. (I even believe they're presented as separate bills, though someone might have later combined them.)
This isn't a bribe. It's a fair deal which offered the money to medallion owners who lost value, not politicians.
If you want to see bribes, you should look at all the money the taxi companies have spent on politicians over decades to create the (now broken) monopoly in the first place, bribes which are still continuing to affect policy despite immense public support for ride-sharing against taxis.
The companies who tanked the value of medallions by ignoring the law and are now facing regulation similar to the medallion system: "What if we bought current medallion holders out of their medallions in exchange for you looking the other way and letting us not pay drivers a living wage."
They're not literally bribing the politicans but they're effectively putting up cash to make it easier for them to vote against the public interest.
If your gripe is with money in politics, the taxi industry is the greater and more-persistent evil [1][2][3].
[1] https://sunlightfoundation.com/2014/07/31/will-big-taxis-mas...
[2] https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-blasio-o...
[3] https://nypost.com/2018/01/27/taxi-committee-head-got-thousa...
The medallions lost value because a better transit system was developed, which they could've done themselves but failed to do so. They are attempting to via new apps but it just isn't enough, and is nobody's fault than their own. Perhaps uber and lyft skirted some laws (nothing outright broken) but the law needs to serve the public, not the other way around, and when times change then policy needs to change as well.
The money quote:
"Lyft and other high-volume for hire vehicle companies are welcome to establish such a fund with a non-profit and assist drivers who are experiencing serious financial difficulties,” he added. “They don’t need any Council authority to do that."
There is popular support for the minimum-wage bill. The opposition is to the cap. Note, too, that amendments to subject drivers working for corporate medallion owners to a minimum wage were struck down.
> by mostly ignoring the law
Cab drivers still refuse drop-offs in Brooklyn (last week), are on their phone for the entirety of the ride (Monday evening) and refuse to pick up my black friend (two weeks ago). I'm not sure either side can claim strict adherence to the law.
Of course it was, because it's a law bought and paid for by the big taxi corporations.
It's not for the benefit of the drivers, or NYC residents. It's for the sole benefit of these corporations, who "donated" millions of dollars to the mayor and other politicians enacting this law.
Did someone say "bribe"?
And it's terrible that cabs do that but this is really about ride sharing services in a vacuum. Just because cabs can be terrible doesn't give others a pass. Assuming that ride sharing companies can provide for their employees and serve the public good I have no problem with them putting taxis out of business.
Is there a law that says taxi drivers can't refuse to take someone ?
Because this happens in pretty much every country.
Yes. The "unjustified refusal to transport passengers within NYC or defined counties" is punishable by fines and "revocation of license" [1]. (Same with the driver "seeking [the] destination before [the] passenger is seated inside [the] vehicle.")
[1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2011rulebook_ch54.... page 4
Nevertheless, I take taxis many times a week for work in Ottawa (Canadian Capital), and they regularly refuse rides they deem too short or too long (or, grudgingly accept them and complain or yell the entire time). This is #1 reason I've used Uber last year, because it's a more civil, pleasant, safe experience (work covers expenses so cost is a non-issue, and Taxi would in principle be more convenient as they're waiting at the hotel).
Six horse carriage drivers committed suicide in the past year. </parody>
Most taxis are horrendous. They barely speak English or have some sort of hygiene issue or try and take me on some wacky route like I don't live here,
With uber starting to do stuff like upfront fares and uber pool, it's pretty much over with. I've seen a LOT of new yorker trends over the past two decades, and I can safely claim that Uber has reached an indispensable point for the average upper class new yorker.
The last linchpin imo for uber will be something like uber pool with better dedicated routes. Like a bus, but without all the people that ride the bus. That will be awesome.
They already launched a feature called Express Pool in some areas (at least the Bay Area) which does something like that: it's like Pool, but you might need to walk a little bit from/to your final destination. The routes aren't fixed, but the spirit of the idea is the same.
Please don't post urls that redirect; it's important that HN show the real domain.
Sorry–shall do.