Taxis seem to keep their status by being a very focused interest group. In NYC there are never enough. Why not just sell more medallions? I don't buy the "There's too much traffic" argument. Or why not sell regional ones? Try getting a taxi in Harlem. The city's approach has been to look the other way on private cars. I would rather see Bloomberg allow disrupters to break the system. What's he have to lose? He can't get elected anyway...
The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
61–70 of 219 posts
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've brought this up in another thread, but over in the UK, due to a lack of property taxes, its possible to purchase a home, yet stil have to pay a yearly ground rent to a private party. The cost to own land in nothing, so there's little incentive to ever sell it, and instead lease it out. People may complain about property taxes in the USA, but it prevents this very practice from happening. It would be better for e…
I don't understand .. why would you purchase a home without the land it rests on? In a free market, perhaps there is some lower price where you would do this, but there is also a higher price where you could purchase the land as well.
Once there are separate owners (for whatever reason it happened), it's not that easy to arrange that - since the land owner usually does not want to sell.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regardless of origins, I think there's still an important role for city governments to manage the number of cars on the street. NPR Planet Money did a story about the effect of NYC's planned +2,000 cabs (in additional to the existing 13,200) will have on the city: shorter wait times, but longer drive times for everyone. If the story is correct, more deregulation with more cars on the street without other measures (su…
It's far from obvious that demand has outstripped supply. The population of Manhattan was significantly higher in 1937 than it is now 1.9 million vs. 1.6 million. On a population basis it would seem that we would need fewer rather than more cabs. What drives the demand for cabs is the the price of a ride versus the alternative. If the regulated fare is low relative to subways & buses and the overall price level, cabs…
You really can't compare the use-per-capita of cabs between 1937 and 2013...
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#64Structurally this practice is a lot like the preindustrial precursor of taxation, when governments would sell monopolies on the import or production of things in exchange for a lump sum. When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister.
"When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister." How might you propose to compensate people who, in good faith, bought taxi medallions (a legal practice)? (Or do you feel that's not necessary?)
Here in SF they are illegal to sell and must be issued to a person (not a company). People get on the waiting list, get their turn, then rent them to taxi companies for (I believe) ~$100K/yr. Many medallion owners have not driven a cab in years, or never have.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#65Apart from all the obvious externalities of cab driving operations, the extremely high probability of fraud, and the fact that policing cabs is extraordinarily expensive, there's another problem a lot of these analyses miss about why cabs are regulated the way they are. In many large cities, the taxi system is a fundamental component of the transport infrastructure. There are locations in most cities that are not eff…
What you are saying is fine, but that's not why taxi's were regulated, at least in New York. The regulations go back to the depression and were put in place specifically to limit competition in order to keep prices high and protect employment of existing cab drivers. The history is right on the NYC gov page: http://www.nyc.gov/html/media/totweb/taxioftomorrow_history_... -- quoting from the NYC site: "Widespread pove…
"but that's not why taxi's were regulated, at least in New York."
Why does it matter why they were first regulated? It matters just as much why they keep being regulated because the reason can change or morph over time. And even if regulated for the wrong reasons it doesn't mean that in the end there aren't any benefits.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#66Structurally this practice is a lot like the preindustrial precursor of taxation, when governments would sell monopolies on the import or production of things in exchange for a lump sum. When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister.
I've brought this up in another thread, but over in the UK, due to a lack of property taxes, its possible to purchase a home, yet stil have to pay a yearly ground rent to a private party. The cost to own land in nothing, so there's little incentive to ever sell it, and instead lease it out. People may complain about property taxes in the USA, but it prevents this very practice from happening. It would be better for e…
We don't have yearly property taxes in Australia, just council rates which are usually around 0.2% of the house valuation (which is much lower than in the US AFAIK). However we don't have the split land/house purchasing like in the UK (or it's not very common at least) - I wonder why?
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "who used what some considered to be “underhanded tactics,” such as drastically lowering fares, to get more business." Lower fares is not the only consequence of this type of free market. In NYC we've seen a rise of intercity buses competing at cut-rate prices, and one such bus company recently and spectacularly failed every single safety inspection performed on their vehicles. They also have an accident rate sever…
You say, "it's dishonest to pretend that regulation is strictly driven by parasitic behavior," but I was just quoting directly from the nyc.gov site that explains that's exactly why those regulations came to be. You can argue separately for safety regulations, but that's not why NY started to regulate cabs - it was protecting an existing industry from competition. Also, put yourself in the 1935 mindset - was there ev…
> it was protecting an existing industry from competition
Otherwise known as "keeping people employed at a living wage." When the market decides that human labor is worth nothing, it's irresponsible not to contradict it.
I will agree that medallions should have gone away after the crisis, but it wasn't "parasitic" at the time.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#68Apart from all the obvious externalities of cab driving operations, the extremely high probability of fraud, and the fact that policing cabs is extraordinarily expensive, there's another problem a lot of these analyses miss about why cabs are regulated the way they are. In many large cities, the taxi system is a fundamental component of the transport infrastructure. There are locations in most cities that are not eff…
Then any system which fulfills the following criteria should work: - good (safe, knowledgeable, rested) taxi drivers - taxis in good condition - a sufficient number of taxis on the road - a reasonable price to the customer - and a system to handle complaints It seems to me that medallions actually fail on some of these points. Instead, it would be worthwhile to: - license drivers, not medallions. Non-transferable rig…
license drivers, not medallions. Non-transferable right to operate. - license taxis with regular inspections - use technology to track cabs - have the city run a centralized, mostly web-and-touchtone based dispatch system
Which is exactly the model within which Uber et al operate: livery drivers and webapps.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#69By the time they get around to de-regulating the medallion system, self-driving cars will be available, which will put taxi drivers out of business. (Unless they block that too.)
Self-driving taxis will put themselves out of business once they either a) crash, killing/injuring someone, b) are regularly used for illegal activities, or c) deliver someone into a dangerous situation.
If that doesn't happen, the existing taxi industry will surely get into the game to make one of those happen, tout-de-suite.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#70Structurally this practice is a lot like the preindustrial precursor of taxation, when governments would sell monopolies on the import or production of things in exchange for a lump sum. When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister.
"When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister." How might you propose to compensate people who, in good faith, bought taxi medallions (a legal practice)? (Or do you feel that's not necessary?)
The article said it pretty well.
>So, medallion holders speculated in holding a government asset and lost. Some of these people are also taxi drivers or operators of taxi dispatch companies. Like Greek bondholders, they gambled and lost big.