The father who wanted to give up his 6-month-old baby out of desperation has told the police he wants to surrender. Carlos Rodas, 27, was overwhelmed when his 14-year-old girlfriend and the mother of the baby left him to care for their daughter, so he, his sister, and her boyfriend, a livery cab driver, worked out a plan for the driver to leave the baby at a Queens fire house. more ›

After the city was moved by the story of a baby abandoned in the backseat of a livery cab and how the driver dropped off the baby at a fire house, prompting the police and media to look for the baby's relatives, it turns out the livery cab driver was involved in the abandonment scheme. Driver Klever Sailema was arrested today, as were another man and woman. Oh, no. more ›

A 6-7 month old baby girl, strapped in a car seat, was left in the backseat of a livery cab this morning. Tel-A-Car driver Klever Sailema picked up a man and the baby around 9:45AM this morning at 106th Street and Northern Boulevard in Queens. When the cab got to 83rd and Northern, the man said he needed to make a call and left the car. Only he crossed "the street to a pay phone and fled." more ›

Mayor Bloomberg has announced a plan that will require better fuel efficiency for city's TLC-run black cars; the change is part of the broader PlaNYC initiative and follows in the tread marks of the new hybrid yellow cabs. more ›

One of the biggest complains had been taxi drivers refusing to accept credit cards from driver. Even though driers with credit card payment systems are required to accept credit card payment, many are unhappy they have to pay a 5% handling fee per credit card transaction (that cost is not passed onto the rider). more ›

The Post is reporting about a disturbing crime: A woman who took a cab from the Lower East Side back home to Brooklyn says the yellow cab driver assaulted her. more ›

The Taxi and Limousine Commission has announced that it and the NYPD will be embarking on an undercover program to crackdown on bad cabbie behavior. Cabbies are supposed to let passengers pay with credit cards, not to mention not be rude and chatting on a cell phone during the ride, but the TLC says they hear otherwise. more ›

Last week we learned that all New York taxis will soon be held to higher fuel efficiency standards; starting next October new cabs must get at least 25 miles per gallon. But the cab changes don’t stop there – in addition to upcoming GPS and touch-screen video technology, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is considering selling an unlimited card for cab riders, which may feature “fare integration” with buses and subways. Over half the city’s 13,000+ cabs are equipped with credit card readers; the TLC expects all of them to take your plastic by spring ’08 – and Metrocards are being proposed as a next step. more ›

The New York Times recently dispatched no fewer than five reporters to the streets of the city in order to uncover the latest piece of breaking news: cab drivers can be rude and will attempt to take financial advantage of you if given the opportunity. The investigation uncovered a citywide fleet of yellow taxis in which just over half are compliant in installing credit card readers, and many that did have them falsely told passengers that using a credit card would result in additional charges.

Many cabbies, it seems, will use the card swipers only sullenly, and only after a resistance that can be as ingenious as it is misleading. Excuses range from, “There is a minimum cab fare for credit card use” to “The device doesn’t have to be activated until the new year” to “It’s too short a ride.” (Not true, not true, and not true, say city officials.)

The Taxi and Limousine Commission has made it official: Cabs purchased after October 1, 2008 must get at least 25 miles per gallon. Then, after fall of 2009, newly purchased cabs must get at least 30 miles per gallon. As the AP puts it, this means "taxi fleet owners, who must replace their cabs every three to five years, will probably be forced to buy fuel-efficient hybrids, which run partly on electricity." The Taxicab Board... more ›

It's good to see that not all New Yorkers are out to run wheelchair riders off the road. The Taxi and Limousine Commission voted this week to create a new special service that will allow wheelchair users to order cabs by calling 311. more ›

The second taxi strike ended this morning at 5AM and most of the reaction was either that it didn't even seem like there was a strike, what with all the cabs on the road, or that it was a rip-off. Thanks to the zoned-pricing contingency plan the city put into place, drivers were allowed to charge a lot more and pick up more fares. One person told WCBS 2 it was really a "taxi hike": "I wanted go three blocks down the block, a regular $5 cab ride. He wanted a flat rate of $50. I got out of the cab and walked." more ›

Many taxi drivers are prepared to go on strike again tomorrow to protest the mandatory installation of expensive GPS equipment, credit and debit card readers, and video screens in the rear seats of their cabs. The effect of the first strike seemed negligible to many New Yorkers. more ›

more ›

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Waring Ave. and White Plains Rd. in the Bronx, a water rescue at the foot of East 79th St. in Manhattan, and a pedestrian fatally struck at Cropsy Ave. and the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. A Jewish family had to have their housekeeper call animal control to report a five-foot-long snake in their Brooklyn driveway. The definitions of midtown and the stress of establishing boundaries. New... more ›

The Taxi Workers Alliance announced plans for a second taxi strike on October 22. Last month, members of the TWA taxi union participated in a two-day strike to protest new technology, including GPS and credit card payment systems, in cabs. Many drivers feel the technology is unproven and useless (for one, if it breaks down, then the entire meter breaks down), while the Taxi and Limousine Commission says that the new technology benefits everyone (for example, if you lose something in a cab, you could call 311 and mention where the cab dropped you off, instead of needing the medallion number, to track the cab). more ›

While last week was definitely Long Island City week on Gossip Girl, this week's version of the "exclusive" Upper East Side dropped squarely in Brooklyn Heights. The opening scene, featuring some sort of perverted choir singing Fergie's "Glamorous," was shot on location at Packer Collegiate Institute's 3rd floor chapel. The gang revisited Packer later on at the contrived 'Ivy' reception, which went down in the school's backyard garden. From there, the gang didn't have to travel too far for their extracurriculars. The fantastic field hockey practice/Serena-Blair catfight took place only a few blocks away from the school at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in Cadman Plaza Park. more ›

Monday will mark the entrance of a new taxi logo on New York cabs, in a move to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the iconic yellow cab. Cars that appear for their annual inspection will be required to sport the new logo, so the sooner you see a cab with the new look, the more recently they've presumably been inspected. The redesigned graphics feature a checked motif that is supposed to be reminiscent of New York's old checker cabs, the last of which was sold in 1999. more ›

The taxi strike is over and rates are back to normal, but many people may have discovered that ride-sharing in a cab is a great way to save money. Fortunately, there are a few online services that can facilitate sharing a cab and splitting the fare to the airport or around town with fellow New Yorkers. Consider it yellow-carpooling. Last year we wrote about hitchsters.com, the online service that formalizes ride shares by matching users through its database. Hitchsters.com works by matching flight information with time, dates, and locations of passengers to make splitting a cab to the airport easier. Similarly, the recently launched SplitaCab.com also focuses on sharing rides to the three major area airports using a GoogleMaps mashup. Both services focus on rides to the airport to and from Manhattan, although hitchsters.com has a beta version that includes Brooklyn. more ›

Here we are - day two of the taxi strike by a group of taxi drivers upset with the changes that the Taxi and Limousine Commission has enacted. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which organized the strike, claimed that 90% of -owned cabs were on the streets (versus 93% last Wednesday), but that doesn't include owner-operated cabs (fleets comprise only 30-40% of cabs). A taxi industry group reported that 72% of the city's 3,200 cabs were on the road. more ›

Thousands of workers from the New York Taxi Workers' Alliance have started their two-day strike this morning. These drivers, who represent about 7,000 of the 44,000 drivers total (there are 13,000 cabs), are striking over unhappiness with the city's plan to install new, some say unproven and useless technology in cabs. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city was prepared for the possible two-day taxi strike that some taxi driver groups have threatened for tomorrow morning, starting at 5AM. About 7,000 of the city's 44,000 taxi drivers (there are about 13,000 cabs in total) have reportedly promised to strike over new technology that the Taxi and Limousine Commission wants to install in all cabs. Some drivers' issues with the technology, which includes GPS tracking systems and credit card payment systems, are that (a) the GPS has no navigational capabilities and (b) when the technology breaks down, the taxi fare meter breaks down, too, costing them money. The city,though, views these measures as necessary customer service initiatives. more ›

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance said that it definitely will strike on Wednesday and Thursday to protest the city's plans to put new technology, including GPS systems, in all taxi cabs. NYTWA spokeswoman Bhairavi Desai said, "Leave the car parked at home or at the garage. No yellow cabs for hire." more ›

Port Authority police arrested a man and impounded his Rolls Royce after he allegedly offered an undercover cop a ride from Kennedy International Airport for $70. Police told the New York Post that Mark Henig approached an undercover officer at Kennedy and asked "Do you need a ride? I have a Rolls-Royce." After Henig led the officer to a parking lot where the Rolls Royce was waiting, the cop arrested him for operating an unlicensed for-hire vehicle and Henig was charged with unlawful solicitation of ground transportation, which carries a possible fine of $1,000. more ›

If you rely on taxis, you may want to adjust your transportation plans: The Taxi Workers Alliance says that drivers it represents will strike on September 5 and 6 to protest the Taxi and Limousine Commission's decision to add GPS systems to all yellow cabs. But then the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, another advocacy group, said that there would be no strike (with spokesman Fernando Mateo saying, "Read my lips: There will be no strike."). Our thoughts: Pray there's no unusual weather event and take mass transit or your bike. more ›

City Council member Gale Brewer criticized the Taxi and Limousine Commission's disorganized lost and found process and urged the TLC to make some changes. Brewer said, "A New Yorker misfortunate enough to lose her property in a taxi is more likely to find overwhelmed hotlines and contradictory instructions than she is to recover her missing possession. The TLC procedure is rarely followed and is hopeless without a receipt. The TLC’s system does not work, if it could even be called a system." more ›

The NY Taxi Workers Alliance says that its drivers will strike in September over GPS tracking systems will be coming to taxis starting in October. The city has said GPS systems will help passengers retrieve lost items (even if they don't have receipts or medallion numbers) because the Taxi and Limousine Commission will be able to find the taxi that dropped them off at a certain location. more ›

The New York Post has a story today on the seizure of an old checkered cab from its owner, who uses it to give free rides to people around the city. 80-year-old Ray Kottner had his hack seized when Taxi and Limousine Commission investigators spotted him accepting a $10 gratuity from a grateful rider. Kottner's been driving a cab for 64 years but decided to quit "working for the man" a few years ago. A CBS News profile of him in 2006 described his unique business model. He offers people free rides in his old checker cab. In addition to the ride, he offers an irascible personality and doesn't suffer fools gladly. People love it, and the money he makes in tips from grateful riders far outstrips anything he made as a cab for hire. more ›

Yesterday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg announced that every yellow taxi on the streets of NYC will go green under the hood in five years. His latest implementation of PlaNYC involves using requirements set by the Taxi and Limousine Commission to have cab owners upgrade their hacks to hybrid vehicles so that the entire fleet will be hybrid by 2012. Yahoo! exec Patrick Crane was on hand at City Hall to donate ten of the new hybrid vehicles as part of Yahoo!'s green initiatives, which seemed pretty nice, but proved that purple interiors can be a matter of taste. Council Member David Yassky (Brooklyn) has been hailing this issue for the last five years. We're glad he finally managed to flag it down. more ›

Come October, your experience in the backseat of a taxi could be a little more high-tech. The Taxi & Limousine Commission unanimously approved touch-screen "passenger information monitors" for all 13,000 yellow cabs on the streets. In addition to showing information, entertainment, and advertising, these monitors will show a map of the taxi's current location using GPS. The new systems would also accept credit card payments. Some cab drivers expressed their opposition to the systems, citing the large costs and privacy issues of the GPS systems. The systems (medalion owners have 4 to choose from) are supposed to have a maximum three-year cost of $7,400. more ›