81–90 of 141 posts
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> Why should the city buy them back So otherwise hopeless drivers/single medallion owners who are severely in debt don't end up committing mass suicide.
People who bought million dollar homes and then saw them plunge in value to $300k didn't commit mass suicide, so why would you assume it would happen in this case?
Previously on HN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16602151 If you care about congestion, address congestion. As much as I would like to support Mr Mayor, I find it difficult to do so. This mayor points the finger at Mr Governor and the state legislature -- rightly so I assume about 99% of the time. However, this last one percent is what grinds my gears. There is not a lot that the city can do on its own but this…
Seriously, all this city needs is "broken windows" policing for traffic violations.
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Why should the city buy them back? They sold the assets, they have no obligation to re-purchase them. Investment risk is in the hands of those people (usually companies) who purchase them. Besides, at what price would they even buy them back at? They're certainly not worth the price that some people pay for them (last I checked, about $1M each).
> Why should the city buy them back So otherwise hopeless drivers/single medallion owners who are severely in debt don't end up committing mass suicide.
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Would you mind sharing what stops you were trying to travel between?
I was traveling from Manhattan into Ft. Hamilton Parkway on the F Train. There were no F Trains running to the stop without having to transfer to two other trains, which would have their own problems and outages. On the way back, it was even worse: PICTURE EVIDENCE: https://imgur.com/a/p4JCaPP EVIDENCE NOTE 1: Monitor claiming F trains would arrive EVIDENCE NOTE 2: Sign contracting what monitor says EVIDENCE NOTE 3:…
Haven't lived in NYC for more than a decade, it's a shame to hear how far downhill the subway has gone.
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Why should the city buy them back? They sold the assets, they have no obligation to re-purchase them. Investment risk is in the hands of those people (usually companies) who purchase them. Besides, at what price would they even buy them back at? They're certainly not worth the price that some people pay for them (last I checked, about $1M each).
They sold the medallions based on a guarantee that they would enforce a monopoly around those medallions. Then they didn't enforce that monopoly. Sounds like the city is in the wrong.
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> Why should the city buy them back So otherwise hopeless drivers/single medallion owners who are severely in debt don't end up committing mass suicide.
We live in a free market, they're free to find work elsewhere. Not only that but these cabbies have the unbelievable fortune of being able to unload these medallions through declaring chapter 7/chapter 13 bankruptcy. There are so many avenues for them to relieve themselves from this burden and better their circumstances that you'd be hard-pressed to take any claims of mass-suicide seriously.
Most economists are in agreement that dramatically increasing the cost of owning property (And, conversely, lowering the market value of existing properties) is one of the answers to the current housing crisis. Once the rules are changed, the free market can figure things out going forward!
Are you going to cheer this process on? It will, after all, greatly improve life for people who don't have millions of dollars to pour into housing.
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So true, my girlfriend had a driver pull his emergency brake then claim his brakes "didn't work" and she had to get out, because he didn't want to drive to Brooklyn. I have 0 sympathy for yellow cabs, Uber and Lyft have raised the bar. If cabs want to compete they need to completely rethink their experience.
Haha, that's a good one. I had a guy take his seatbelt off, and try to tell me that the dinging I was hearing was an alarm about oil pressure. The only sympathy I have for the yellow cabs is that the city screwed them with those pricey medallions, the city should refund a substantial portion of the money.
Most of the drivers out there don't own their own medallion, they just pay a lease fee to the medallion owner.
- They're frequently rude and unaccountable. They'll talk with friends on speaker (car speaker) and you can't rate them.
- Oh, sorry sir. Can't go to Brooklyn. Grumble grumble.
- Smells, garbage and other horrors on the back seat. Why bother cleaning it when you're a monopoly?
- Road rage, dangerous driving, etc. that requires a more complicated TLC complaint while Uber and Lyft let you do it over the app.
Want people to take less car services? Fix the subway and buses.
Passing new restrictions to protect medallion owners (not the drivers) is similar to the way they killed Airbnb here in that it lets the Council pander to those who paid to play, while simultaneously couching the exercise in some moralistic greater good. [edit: Friday-afternoon-inspired run-on sentence repair]
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I had so many similar issues with NYC cabbies. Off the top of my head: 1. Cabbie turning off his meter right before my stop, then quoting me a price that was x3 times the meter when I last caught glimpse of it. 2. Cabbies flat out refusing to accept credit cards. Forcing me to withdraw cash on an ATM to pay them. 3. Cabbies rudely demanding tip after being rude and inconsiderate the whole ride. There's a reason why U…
Cab driving is a low skill job, which is why it's so important that proper competition can exist. My first ever Uber driver had water bottles and gum and even throw pillows and a blanket in the back. He was in a suit. He was really polite and all that. Because he's looking for 5 star rankings. Dump all taxi drivers into the same market as this guy and they'll have to improve or be pushed out of business when they get…
I see the offers of water bottles and gum as expressions of desperation in the face of precarity: a 4.6 average will get you fired from Uber (https://therideshareguy.com/10-things-that-can-get-you-deact...). I want good service, which means a driver that does his job well, not a driver that makes me cringe because he feels pressured to humiliate himself in a performative display of over-the-top customer service.
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The city would never buy the medallions back, because the price was based on an assumption of monopoly- they are worth much less now with the ubiquity of Uber and Lyft. The cabbies have gotten the short end of the stick though.
The cabbies or the cab companies?