–“Hello… good afternoon, to request a service”
–“Sorry, we don’t have cars available at the moment; call later”
This is the conversation that hundreds of users of so-called “livery” taxis, also known in New York as black cars or limousines, now tend to have when calling taxi bases.
The service that industry used to provide, which came to have 34,000 vehicles in their golden age, has been seriously reduced in the last decade, and especially since the 2018 when the City chose to freeze the issuance of new public car service plates: now there are only 5,079 drivers available.
This was reported this Monday on the steps of the Mayor’s Office in the Big Apple by dozens of drivers with mo Santiago Cruz, who despite being an expert driver, has not been able to provide his services driving livery taxis, so they asked the Administration of Mayor Eric Adams to reach out and have the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC ) issue new license plates so they can work and get more cars rolling.
“We don’t come here to protest. We come to say we need help. Measures taken in the previous Administration put a limit on livery cars, something that is strangling us because they do not give us the option to replace drivers who have died, or who have retired or retired so that we can get new license plates,” said José Altamirano. , president of the NY Livery Base Owners Association (LBO). “Our industry has been reduced in 63% in the last 8 years and we want to implore TLC to give us more license plates so that the vehicles that left can be recovered.”
The livery taxi driver activist assured that the impact of this reduction in “livery” cars and drivers has had a double impact on the lack of employment options for drivers, a large part of them immigrants and Latinos, and in vulnerable communities, where public transport does not reach, which have lost a good part of the service. More than 34% of incoming calls to the “livery” taxi bases ” are not answered, because there are not enough vehicles.
“Our communities are suffering the impact of this downturn, especially those who live in transportation deserts where public transportation doesn’t flow. They are poor people who cannot afford the extravagant prices charged by other taxis or applications to be able to go to work, to the hospital or take the children to school,” added Altamirano. “We are disappearing. A general measure to alleviate congestion, for the entire industry, does not work”.
The “livery” taxi drivers defended themselves in addition to the signs that support the limit and freezing on new license plates, supposedly because they are a control for the traffic congression in Manhattan, and they warned that their services are given in almost the 70% in The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn and off the street 96 of the island. That premise does not apply to the service they provide.
“TLC has the authority to use its power and authorize more plates to our industry. We are hanged with an unfair solution and if there is no immediate remedy, they are going to exterminate us”, added Altamirano.
Cira Ángeles, defender of livery vehicles, mentioned that the City must recognize that the taxi industry “ livery” suffered the impact of the appearance of applications such as Uber, the pandemic and the freezing in the issuance of new license plates, for which it urged that the delivery of new rolling permits be authorized in the coming weeks.
“We are not talking about a specific number. We are talking about 2, 400, of 5, 000… What we want is for them to see the data and understand that if there is a number of daily calls and the 40% cannot be served because we have recently lost 7,368 livery taxis recover,” said the activist, who warned that if the City does not throw the lifeline to the industry, the service will continue to drop and the bases will continue to close.
“Before we had 437 small taxi bases and now there are 349; so we lost 96 and what is going to happen is that the contracts that these bases have to move people are going to end up in the hands of large companies because they are finishing small ones by not being able to replace the vehicles that are withdrawn,” added Ángeles.
Damian Rodríguez, owner of the First Class Car taxi base in Inwood, who assured that in your business you have seen how they went from having 349 vehicles less than 100, asked Mayor Adams and TLC to do justice to taxi drivers and the communities they serve and that are being neglected due to the absence of cars.
“What we ask is to help us cover the demand for service that exists in our industry, which is now larger than before. Right now we don’t have enough drivers because TLC doesn’t give license plates, they have been frozen since 2018, they do not sell them and you have to see that there are many drivers who have retired and there are lost license plates,” said the Dominican. “It is enough to do the analysis in each base and the calls that are not taken and they will understand that the solution is to sell us more plates. We have hundreds of drivers ready to work”.
Joziel Andujar, driver of a “livery” taxi, who has been working with a car base for five years, joined the call, because despite Having a job, he assures that he sees daily how passengers suffer from the lack of vehicles and how fellow drivers have their hands tied or rush to operate their cars without permission.
“I see a lot of frustrated people because they are left waiting because there are no vehicles and they complain, and I understand them, but I think the authorities are misguiding this matter because opening the sale of license plates is going to be beneficial for everyone and it will not promote more congestion”, said the taxi driver. “If more plates are given, more drivers who are standing still, they would go back to doing their job, feeding their families, and those who are choosing to work in the underworld, without a license to do so, which is something I do not support or encourage. , they could be calmer and the passengers safer”.
In their demonstration at the Mayor’s Office, the taxi drivers also insisted that they are essential workers, since they provide transportation to disadvantaged and marginalized communities and asked to review the findings of a working group that was formed in 2018 to review that industry.
Although the policy of suspending the issuance of license plates sought to curb and regulate the disproportionate proliferation of digital transportation applications freight, is having an adverse effect on the traditional freight forwarding industry.
Robert Rodríguez, driver of the base First Class Car & Limo Service of Upper Manhattan, assured that he hopes that the Municipal Administration listens to the voice of taxi drivers and base owners and does the right thing immediately, otherwise the panorama is going to get worse.
“We need action before it’s too late,” said the driver. “We want this Administration to fix the damage that we are suffering with these limits.”
Alicia Colón, a user of the “livery” transportation service in Upper Manhattan, declared herself frustrated by the effect that the reduction of cars has passengers like her.
“It does not make sense for the City to defend that they do not give more authorizations to more cars to provide a service that we need. I don’t want to catch the train anymore because of so much insecurity and so when I want to call so they can send me a taxi, I can’t either because there isn’t… that’s not fair and they should fix it right now; give license plates to those people”, the user complained.
And given the demands of the taxi drivers, the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) assured that they are reviewing whether they will give new plates to increase the flow of public vehicles.
“TLC is currently considering whether to issue new licenses for for-hire vehicles, in addition to wheelchair accessible vehicles, which are already exempt from the license pause” , assured a spokesman for that agency of the Adams Administration. “We are taking into account the concerns of all stakeholders, including drivers, passengers and base owners.”
TLC added that they carry out a review of the licenses of rental vehicles every six months, the next one will be this August, and they clarified that they can issue licenses immediately if the vehicles are wheelchair accessible, as they have been since the start of the freeze four years ago.
At the end of the demonstration, the driver Santiago Cruz seemed to resort even to divine requests in the hope that TLC will soon unfreeze the issuance of public service licenses so that he can do the little miracle of starting to work as he longs for. “God loves taxi drivers”, read the poster that accompanied him in the call to the Adams Administration.
The NYC “livery” taxi industry in data
- 5% grew each year in this industry in recent years 30 years to ago and 8 years2855850
- 80% it has been reduced that industry in the last 8 years
- 40% vehicles were reduced from 2018
- 100, families depend on the work of these drivers
- 10,515 there were drivers a few years ago
- 5,079 is the current number of drivers
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- 40% of passenger calls to bases are not answered due to lack of vehicles
- 30,000 Vehicles provided service at their best
- 3,366 drivers of green cars there were before
- 7368 Vehicles were lost in recent years
- 437 small livery taxi bases existed a decade ago2855846113 are the current taxi bases in NYC
- 120 bases closed in recent years