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Last year's taxi fare increase has caused ridership to fall, but the silver lining is that drivers' revenues have increased "by at least 20 percent." While it's no fun for people who regularly take taxis, Gothamist thinks it's a good thing, especially if it helps drivers earn a "livable wage"; interestingly, the NY Taxi Workers Alliance's Bhairavi Desai told Newsday that it didn't do that much to "offset cost-of-living increase" and that they were mulling asking for another fare increase. Could it be the exorbinant cost for medallions or paying the company that might own them? If you look at the individual medallion auction results from the TLC (here's the PDF), the lowest bid was over $290,000?
Ever since the fare increase, Gothamist has been careful with our taxi trips. In fact, it's even caused us to watch our alcoholic intake and think about becoming slight party poopers by going home early (but we never totally manage it). NYC taxis are still amongst the more affordable ones in the country. And Gothamist's readers weighed in on the taxi fare increase after 10 days.
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I'd just be happy if I could get a cab in the boroughs. They should make borough-specific cabs so all of us would have an option safer and more affordable than those damn livery cabs.
Walk mofos!
I fondly remember some walks all the way from SOHO to the theatre district after partying... helped to regain sobriety too.
G.
Unfortunately, most New York news outlets seemed to take the TLC press release that this story is based on at face value: Ridership went down 4%, and revenue went up 20%.
These numbers are misleading. A 20% increase in revenue says nothing about an increase in profit. The TLC is run by fleet management and medallion owners, not by drivers, so it would make sense for them to paint a rosey picture of the fare hike.
I believe I heard on WNYC that the average cabbie now brings in about $314 a day. First, that's a 12-hour day. Second, the cost of a 12-hour lease has gone up more than the price of gas has. (Most drivers lease a car for one shift for a fee which includes the car, the medallion, and insurance. Some drivers work in pairs and lease a car for a week, each taking the car for half-days.) There are no hard statistics -- or at least no publicised ones -- but it's my understanding that some taxi companies charge up to $150 for a 12-hour shift. Add $50 for 25 gallons of gas, and that works out to less than $10 an hour.