Why should the city even have to buy back the medallions? It’s not like they were sold for a profit in the first place (except for a few recent ones). The medallion system should simply be aboloshed, and replaced with triennial leases, with price determined by auction.

Unfortunately, the existing taxi polygopoly seems to be very well-connected in New York politics, so I don’t expect much reform in this area.

–Ian

All of that aside, the combined effects of this recession/unemployment and the taxi fares going up steadily for the last 10 years is gradually making the taxi a choice only for the upper-upper middle class and above (NYC used to have one of the cheapest taxi fares amongst First World cities – no more), so if you want to soak those folks to pay for cheaper bus fares, sounds great to me.

“A side benefit is that the discouragement of taxi use due to the surcharge should cause travel speeds in Manhattan to rise, saving time for car and truck drivers and bus passengers.”

Who cares about saving time for car drivers? As far as I am concerned they shouldn’t be on the island at all. Congestion pricing is positive because it helps us work towards the end goal of removing car traffic from manhattan (which would also make taxi trips shorter, and as a result, more frequent.) I also agree with ManhattanDowntowner, that a taxi surcharge creates a needless social barrier against the middle class. Having more people in taxis is better for pedestrians and bikers than having more private cars.

Let’s also not forget that hybrid taxis are more fuel efficient than most of the private cars that drive on the road. We should be bolstering the efficiency of our taxi fleet, not encouraging the low mpg of private drivers.

Taxi drivers benefit from reduced congestion because they can pick up more fares in a given period of time. Because of the fare structure, taxi drivers make more revenue picking up new fares than sitting stuck in traffic.

The reality, however, is that it doesn’t matter how these fees change taxi revenue, because all the extra profit is soaked up by taxi medallion owners. You could give an extra million dollars a year to taxi drivers, and they’d still be working class, because the cost of a medallion lease would increase accordingly.

Cheers,

–Ian

Real considerate. Let’s put the working class taxi drivers out of work just to satisfy the ‘green’ fad of the moment. More B.S.

As far as congestion pricing, have you read any of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry reports? Since 2003 the LCCI has consistently reported financial downturns for small businesses in the zone – I guess you want more of the soul of NYC to be done in. It’s taxes like these that will favor rich yuppies who can afford $4-5 cups of starbucks everyday and pay for a 12 dollar cab ride to go 20 blocks – sorry, that’s not a good picture for middle-class NYC’ers.

Charlie can you explain how raising the cost of taking a cab reduces the amount of driving cabs do? Why won’t drivers cruise more to try and make up for the reduced number of hails? JK, I don’t know whether cruising would increase in response to fewer fares (or decrease in response to more fares). I welcome your and others’ input. The nice thing about the Kheel-Komanoff Plan is that, on paper at least, the cross-cutting factors (cab rides cost more, but are faster) are almost perfectly offsetting, so the total number of fares stays approximately constant, and we shouldn’t have to worry about cruising effects.

Also, the bigger the difference between medallion and livery fares, the more demand for liveries there will be (substitution) and the more incentive livery drivers will have to cruise south of 96th street in Manhattan. JK, I’m assuming that medallion cabs, like other autos, will pay to cross 60th Street and enter the CBD, whereas medallion taxis (and only medallions) will be exempt. I guess the liveries would service more riders north of 60th Street at the expense of medallion taxis, though. That’s worth examining. Thanks.

How do you proposed to determine how much goes to owners and how much goes to drivers? Isn’t that like haggling over whether renters or landlords should pay property tax?

–Ian

I was going to mention this in my post but it was already too wonky.

While it is fair to have the riders pay more as a way to decrease total motor vehicle use, and to have them pay for some of the externalities they creates, one consequence is that drivers will see a decreasein revenue from reduced demand. In the interest of fairness, some portion of the increase could remain with the driver to compensate for the reduced demand.

In addition, an increase in driver income could help to reduce some of the most aggressive and dangerous tactics currently used by taxi drivers.

It continues to bewilder me why private medallion owners are permitted to be the beneficiary of the state-created polygopoly; is there any good reason at all not to sell the medallions by auction?