Photograph of cab driver in Times Square by nschaden on Flickr 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. The program is named "Operation Secret......

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......

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......

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......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water rescue off West St. at Battery Place in Manhattan, missing children on Grimsby St. on Staten Island, and a DOA floater in the Harlem River off Manhattan. New Yorkers may have just seen their water bill rates hiked 11.5% three months ago, but officials are now saying property owners can expect a rate increase of another 18% as early as the start of next year. Idle speculation......

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......

A federal U.S. district judge decided not to block the City of New York from requiring the installation of GPS and credit card equipment in taxis. The Taxi Workers Alliance went to the courts after a strike by its members earlier this month had a less than dramatic impact and failed to sway public and political opinions. Some drivers are opposed to the installation of the equipment because they say GPS tracking invades their privacy......

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......

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 all drivers were on strike yesterday, but Mayor Bloomberg contradicted that claim, saying the strike had a "limited impact, if at all." To combat the strike, the city has added buses and......

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." The city has said that the new technology, which also includes the option to pay by credit, is useful; for instance, the......

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......

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,......

Car makers are flocking to the city with the New York International Auto Show opening this weekend (media previews start tomorrow) at the Javits Convention Center, and there's one particularly NYC-focused exhibit: Taxi '07. In honor of the taxi's 100th birthday, the Design Trust for Public Space has corralled many taxis "transformed" for the future to be displayed outdoors in an inner roadway at the Javits Center. There's “The World’s Fastest Taxi" (a hydrogen-powered......

The city's desire to keep closer tabs on taxi drivers may prompt the drivers to strike. The city wants to install a GPS-tracking video monitor in cabs, which the city claims 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. While that sounds good to taxi riders, drivers......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission revealed new features for taxis of tomorrow, and Gothamist is in love with many of them. For starters, since the taxis will have GPS tracking, when if you lose something in a cab and don't have a medallion number, if you call the helpline, the TLC will try to track the cab, based on where you were dropped off. Brilliant! (But you should still collect a receipt, because that has......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission has approved an 11% taxi fare hike. The hikes are meant to better compensate drivers, given rising gas prices (not to mention that NYC still has one of the least expensive taxi rates in the country). There are two changes: + Charging a flat fee of $45 from Manhattn to JFK + New "waiting time" charge - 40 cents per minute while going under 12 MPH versus the old 20......

That's a lotta taxi medallions! The Taxi and Limousine Commission yesterday had an auction for 54 new wheelchair-accessible taxi medallions and with a surprise bid 35-year-old Russian immigrant Gene Friedman snatched up all of them for $477,666.50 - a pop! "Individual medallions have privately sold for more, but this marks the highest price paid at auction" - nearly $25 million total! Friedman now owns nearly 700 medallions, not bad for a guy who bought......

A cab carrying a group of friends early Sunday morning crashed into a building, causing one passenger to be thrown from the car and then fatally hit by an oncoming cab. The accident claimed the life of Danielle Ricco, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, as the cab headed south on the West Side Highway. The cab's other passengers claim the driver, Hassan Afzal, was trying to scare them by driving quickly, after......

It's two follow-ups in one: Two people have filed separate lawsuits against the NYPD for excessive police force. Playboy's Miss November 1992, Stephanie Adams, complained about the police treating her roughly last month, after an altercation with a cabby. Adams's cabby refused to drop her off outside her Chelsea apartment building, leading them to argue and each call the police. But the cabby claimed Adams had a gun (which she didn't), so when police arrived......

Usually when Gothamist is riding in a cab in New York, we're just happy if we can communicate, get to our destination in one piece, and that the driver doesn't get lost. All reasonable expectations, we think. The Taxi and Limousine Commission announced their cab driver of the year yesterday, who, by most standards seems to have done his job very well. Hossam Abdalla, an Egyptian cab driver, has been driving a taxi since 1999,......

Chewing the Fat Despite an August advisory by the health department to cut the use of trans saturated fats in NYC restaurants, very few kitchens have actually changed their recipes, according to AM New York. Apparently taste and cost are driving factors. Notable exceptions are the Whole Food Markets, which don't carry products made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and Dive Bar, an Upper West Side burger joint that only uses trans-fat free oil in......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission thinks that summons issued to cabdrivers for rudeness dropped 26% because of 311, since it's much easier for NYers to call up and complain about bad behavior. Well, here's Gothamist theory for the better mood: The taxi fare hike! While other taxi driver behavior complaints from riders have dropped, there's a spike in complaints about drivers breaking traffic rules. Which is intriguing to Gothamist, because we always thought the unofficial......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission is looking to redesign taxi cab partitions for the future. The NY Times notes that the partition was originally created to prevent crimes, like robberies and murder, but now things like legroom and giving riders a view of the city are making the TLC wonder if they need to shake things up. The article also waxes nostalgic about cabbie conversations, but lately, Gothamist would imagine most riders think they are......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission has given the okay to introduce hybrid cars as new taxi cabs, starting as soon as this fall. The six new car models, two Hondas, two Toyotas, a Lexus (!), and a Ford, will be more expensive than the old stand-by of the Crown Victoria, but they will be more fuel efficient. Commissioner Matthew Daus says the Crown Vic gets 18 miles a gallon, while the hybrids get at least......

- Strange dispute with landlord and tenant turned fatal - The Taxi and Limousine Commission considers Metrocards for taxis - That eternal debate: Is drinking good for you? - The fencing of Washington Square Park has its many detractors - Purple carrots are in season - The Star Wars nerds are in full force in the city! - The U.N. thinks about moving to Brooklyn temporarily - Check out Chris Ofili's lovely watercolors at the......

Yesterday morning, a taxi that rear ended a station wagon and then tried to escape the scene ended up hitting a pedestrian and causing more crashes that left cars in mangled shape. At 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, a station wagon had slowed down to let a pedestrian walk across. A taxi, driven by 54 year old Syad Zia, had been speeding and hit the station wagon, causing the wagon to hit the pedestrian,......

Does the TLC regulate fares in black cars? Actually, no. The Taxi and Limousine Commission calls these cars (they come in other colors, too) For Hire Vehicles. The TLC tells Ask Gothamist that they regulate For Hire Vehicles, but don't set the fares. In an email, they tell us: For-Hire Vehicles operating in New York are also the responsibility of the Commission. These are the limousines, the 'black cars' that mainly service corporate accounts and......

What is the fare for a trip from JFK to Manhattan with a stop in Brooklyn on the way? I'd be happy to pay the flat $45 OR the metered rate, but my cabbie wanted me to pay $45 PLUS the metered rate from Fort Greene to Manhattan -- which means that my $45 wouldn't even get me onto the island! At first glance, it seems fair to us that you'd be charged more......

Chris Eigeman, Actor...

Taxis drivers are now required to take people to Bronx, Queens, Harlem, or even parts of Brooklyn in spite of their misgivings or lack of borough knowledge, in a new ruling by the state appeals court. And if cabbies do refuse to drive to those places, their licenses can be revoked. The Taxi & Limousine Commission said the ruling was "clear victory for [the] riding public. ... The handful of drivers who illegally refuse service......