Bloom Berg Taxi Letter

8/4/2019 Bloom Berg Taxi Letter

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MICAH C. LASHER

DirectorState Legislative Affairs

THE CITY OF NEW YORK

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

City Hall

New York, New York 10007

(212) 788-8820 119 Washington AvenueAlbany, New York 12210

(518) 447-5200

September 28, 2011

A.8496 by M. of A. Heastie

AN ACT in relation to authorizing the publicsale of taxicab licenses and permits in the Cityof New York and establishing a task force ontaxicab service in New York City

APPROVAL RECOMMENDED

Hon. Andrew CuomoGovernor of the State of New York Executive Chamber Albany, New York 12224

Dear Governor Cuomo:

The above-referenced bill is now before you for executive action.

This landmark legislation would provide safe and legal street hail taxi service to the 7.1million New Yorkers who live in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Northern Manhattan, Queens and StatenIsland and who are not, as a practical matter, served by the existing fleet of 13,237 yellow taxis,which make 95% of their pick-ups in Manhattans Central Business District (CBD) and at NewYorks airports. The bill would also enhance traditional, yellow taxi service in the CBD and at theairports where passenger demand substantially outstrips the current supply of taxis by authorizingthe sale, by auction, of 1,500 new yellow taxi medallions, which will generate roughly $1 billion in

revenue for the City of New York, without any imposition on taxpayers. This revenue will help backfill repeated cuts to City services in recent years at the federal, state and local levels.

Specifically, the legislation authorizes the Citys Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) toissue up to 30,000 hail privilege vehicle permits to owners of for-hire vehicles in addition to, andseparate from, their current for-hire permits creating a new class of Borough Taxis. Thesevehicles would be allowed to make street hail pick-ups in parts of the City outside Manhattan,excluding airports, and in Manhattan north of East 96 th Street and West 110 th Street. (A task forcecreated by the legislation would have the ability to expand the areas designated as off-limits toBorough Taxis.) These permits would be valid for three years prior to renewal and would be issued


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Hon. Andrew Cuomo A.8496September 28, 2011Page 2

at a fee of $1,500 each. In addition to these hail privilege vehicle permits, the TLC would issue up to450 hail privilege base permits, to allow base stations to affiliate with holders of hail privilegevehicle permits; such permits would also be valid for three years prior to renewal and would be

issued at a fee of $3,000 each. Each holder of a hail privilege vehicle permit would be required toaffiliate with a licensed base station with a hail privilege base permit.

Taxi service outside the Central Business District

At the heart of this legislation is an effort to enhance taxi service for all City residents andregulate what is now common practice the provision of street hail service by livery drivers outsideof the CBD with minimal disruption to any section of the for-hire vehicle industry or itsfundamental economics.

This is a critical point: the core purpose of this bill is to legalize and regulate a service thatalready exists, and upon which City residents currently depend, while minimizing disruption toexisting players in the for-hire vehicle business. The bill will not create a taxi market inneighborhoods where there is none, and it will not divert demand from other segments of theindustry.

Instead, the bill follows the actual industry structure that has been formed over time bymarket forces, in that it allows, and does not require, a dual use model for Borough Taxis (i.e., thesame vehicle performs both hails and prearranged rides). This is the model used, in practice, bymany if not most neighborhood-based liveries today, and it is the model allowed for all taxis in manymajor American cities, including Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, DC:

(1) There are thousands of livery drivers who, today, work hard to earn a living by making street

hail pickups outside New York Citys CBD, meeting demand for a service that the yellowtaxi industry has, for decades, failed to provide. Nothing will change for these drivers exceptthat they will no longer be forced to operate outside of the law. With the purchase of a hail

privilege permit, they will be subject to both the benefits and the obligations of being part of a legalized, regulated industry. Existing livery drivers in good standing for at least threeyears will have a first option on the new permits, and we anticipate that most of the demandfor the permits, generally, will come from existing drivers.

(2) The bill merely allows livery drivers and bases to apply for hail privilege permits it doesnot require them to do so. Nothing will change for livery drivers or bases whose businessderives from legal, prearranged trips. Moreover, in a neighborhood where demand has never formed for street hails, there is no reason to think it suddenly will now, or that holders of hail

privilege permits will migrate there. The cars will go where the fares are, as they alwayshave.

(3) Hail privilege permit holders will not be allowed to pick up in those New York Cityneighborhoods that generate 95% of the yellow taxi industrys revenue and which, in turn,drive the value of yellow taxi medallions. Nothing will change for yellow taxi drivers or medallion owners, who will continue to have a monopoly on the areas that they

predominately serve and the continued right to pick up anywhere in the five boroughs. Asdiscussed below, the TLC will now have new resources and new mechanisms to


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comprehensively enforce against poaching in the CBD and at the airport the only placesthat livery street hails do, in fact, compete with yellow taxis for business. (This poaching,incidentally, has been going on for years while medallion values have continued to rise.)

(4) The non-transferability of the permits, along with the flexibility granted to the TLC to meetany reasonable expectation of demand through the issuance of up to 30,000 permits, ensuresthat the legislation will not spur the creation of a new, medallion-like asset that could confusethe market or be cost-prohibitive for existing livery drivers who have been serving thesecommunities for years.

What will change is the experience of New York City residents who will be able to legallyhail a Borough Taxi outside of the CBD. Right now, law-abiding citizens who need street hailservice are put in the position of routinely participating in an illicit transaction, and the street hailservice that residents obtain from liveries currently lacks key features of yellow taxicab service:

(1) Fares, determined in a livery street hail pickup by haggling between the driver and the passenger (who is often uncomfortable with this arrangement), are not metered or otherwiseregulated and leave passengers vulnerable to overcharging.

(2) Licensed livery vehicles are difficult to distinguish from unlicensed vehicles, so that many passengers seeking to hail a livery on the street are exposed, without their knowledge, touninsured and possibly unsafe vehicles and to drivers with unknown safety records.

(3) Most livery vehicles are older than taxicabs, have no GPS locator (useful for enforcement purposes and in the recovery of lost property), and do not offer passengers the convenienceof paying by debit or credit card.

With the approval of this legislation, the TLC will take the existing two-tiered system thatoffers high-quality, legal taxi service to some while leaving others with uneven, illegal service andreplace it with Borough Taxi service outside the CBD that matches the yellow taxi service within it.Borough Taxis will be required to have the major features of yellow medallion taxicabs, such asmeters, credit card readers, GPS locators and distinguishing markings (e.g. roof lights and astandardized color scheme). Passengers will have confidence that Borough Taxis and their driversare safe and licensed by the TLC.

It is hard to understate the extent to which this bill represents a long overdue transportationsolution. Despite the fact that 95% of all yellow taxi street hail pickups are in the CBD or at LaGuardia or JFK airports, 87% of the Citys population lives outside Manhattans CBD and illegalstreet hails have become a normal, everyday occurrence in these neighborhoods. Two charts,attached, map individual yellow taxi street hail pickups during morning and evening rush hours; notethe concentration of pickups in the CBD, and their paucity outside of it.

TLC field observations over the past five years have consistently shown a high demand for street hails outside Manhattans CBD: 65 street hails per hour at Mermaid and Stillwell Avenues inBrooklyn, 39 per hour at Jamaica Avenue and Parsons Boulevard in Queens, 25 per hour atWestchester Avenue and St. Paul Avenue in the Bronx, and 22 per hour at East 117th Street andPleasant Avenue in East Harlem in Manhattan. Because yellow taxis were unavailable at these


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locations, all street hail demand was met by livery vehicles or by wholly unlicensed cars. It is long past time to legalize and regulate this industry and, in doing so, substantially improve what has become a necessary transportation option for many New Yorkers.

1,500 new yellow taxi medallions

While the provision of legal taxi service to residents outside the CBD will be groundbreakingin many respects, the authorization of 1,500 new traditional, yellow medallions is no small matter,either. In addition to the meaningful revenue the medallions will generate, the existing supply of yellow taxis currently capped at 13,237 does not satisfy demand that continues to grow.

As compared to other cities that rely heavily on public transportation and taxi service, NewYorks taxi supply is low. New York Citys 8.2 million residents presently share 13,237 taxis. Thisyields approximately one taxi for every 618 residents. In contrast, London has 22,000 black cabs and7.5 million residents, or one taxi for every 340 residents. Even in Chicago, where there is asignificantly higher car ownership rate (71%) than in New York City (46%), there is approximatelyone taxi for every 385 residents.

That there are fewer taxis per person might not necessarily be a problem if efficiencies, suchas requiring each taxi to work longer hours, compensated for the fact that there are fewer vehicles per

person. However, despite the workhorse nature of the New York City taxi industry in which about75% of taxis operate for two twelve-hour shifts nearly every day, and the remaining 25% operate for one twelve-hour shift nearly every day there is not a sufficient supply to meet passenger demand.

Passengers frequently report difficulty locating an unoccupied taxi when they need one. In particular, passengers report and GPS data on taxi utilization seems to support shortages in the

late afternoon, on weekend evenings, and during instances of bad weather. Since 2009 (when TLC began collecting GPS data), the number of trips per cab per day increased from 36.9 in the firstquarter (Q1) of 2009 to 38.5 in Q1 2010 and 39.0 in Q1 2011. The average number of hours eachday a cab was occupied also increased. In Q1 2009, each taxi was hired 6.8 hours each day. By Q12011, that number had increased 13%, to 7.7 hours.

The sale of 1,500 new medallions (an increase of 11.3%), of which 569 would be restrictedfor use with vehicles accessible to persons with disabilities (increasing the supply of accessible taxis

by 246%), would improve the access New Yorkers and visitors have to taxicabs. As in the past, theCity will auction these new medallions so they will sell at the market rate, in order to avoid impairingthe value of existing medallions.

Opposition and poison pill alternatives from yellow taxi medallion owners

Despite the fact that yellow taxis abandoned Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Northern Manhattan some time ago, yellow taxi medallion owners vigorously oppose the Citys planto allow street hail pickups by Borough Taxis in these communities. It should be noted, however,that the legislation is supported by the Taxi Workers Alliance (the only major association of yellowtaxi drivers ).


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The suggestion by medallion owners that the Legislature addressed this issue hastily, withoutdeliberation or industry consultation, does not reflect what actually happened. In fact, following theannouncement of my proposal in January to legalize livery street hails outside of the CBD, the City

made every effort to be responsive to the concerns of the yellow taxi industry including spendingmonths negotiating with industry representatives, the City Council and the State Legislature in anunsuccessful effort to find a Borough Taxi plan that would be both effective and acceptable to theindustry, attributes that turned out to be mutually exclusive. Ironically, industry leaders are now

pushing an alternative plan for 6,000 Borough Medallions that, just months ago, they previouslyopposed with as much fervor, the same arguments, and with equally dire forecasts as they nowemploy in their pursuit of a veto of this legislation.

It is no surprise, therefore, that industry objections do not withstand close examination:

(1) The legislation was authored by the Assemblys Cities Committee Chair, enjoyed broadsupport from New York City legislators and was not driven by non-New York Citylegislators.

Carl Heastie, Chair of the State Assemblys Cities Committee and a legislator from theBronx, was this bills author and champion in Albany. Assembly members from New York City supported the legislation by a margin of 47 to twelve, and State Senators from NewYork City did so by a margin of nineteen to six. Every State Senator from Brooklyn(excepting one absence), the Bronx and Staten Island, and all but one from Manhattan, votedfor the bill. (Senators from Queens, where many yellow taxi companies are based, split fiveto two in opposition.) The suggestion that legislators outside of New York City spurred thisinitiative is simply not correct.

A home rule message is not required for this bill to be enacted into law. The bills firstsection includes legislative findings stating that access to safe and reliable street hail servicethroughout New York City is a matter of substantial State concern. These findingsreasonably determine that this bill addresses matters of substantial State concern, and theLegislature has proceeded on that basis. In particular, the concerns considered by theLegislature and addressed by this bill include the need to enhance the transportation optionsavailable to a substantial portion of the residents of this State who are now denied access

because they work or reside in geographic areas that have historically been greatlyunderserved by taxi service, as well as the lack of access to flexible transportation options for the many people with disabilities.

Further, the bill authorizes, but does not require, City officials to take certain actions, andtherefore imposes no mandate on the City. In this respect, the legislation before you is nodifferent from a number of other recent legislative enactments signed into law without homerule messages, including chapter 384 of the laws of 2007 (authorizing the Mayor to formulateand submit to the New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission a detailedcongestion pricing plan to address severe traffic congestion in parts of Manhattan), chapter 596 of the laws of 2008 (authorizing the State Office of Parks and Recreation to permit theCity to construct and operate a water-dependent marine transfer station on the GansevoortPeninsula), and chapter 468 of the laws of 2006 (authorizing the Citys Department of


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Transportation to adopt a rule allowing certain trucks to use the Korean War VeteransParkway during remediation of the Staten Island landfill).

In short, the bill should be considered on the basis of the merits of the policies it advances,without the distraction of baseless arguments relating to home rule.

(2) Medallion owners had no reason to believe State law to be immutable when they purchasedtheir medallions.

Yellow taxi medallion owners have repeatedly argued that this bill violates their exclusiveright to make street hail pickups, which they present as somehow sacrosanct. While theywill retain this statutory exclusivity in the areas of the City where, for decades, it has beenexercised and is meaningful to them and while, as a matter of practice, there have beenillegal street hail pickups everywhere in the City, even within the CBD, for many years medallion owners had no basis to expect that the law would never change, other than their run of political victories ensuring precisely that (often to the detriment of New York Cityresidents). Medallion owners have no other contract of any kind with the State or City that

provides such guarantees.

In fact, the law governing medallions has changed over the years. The State has repeatedlyincreased the number of yellow medallions, sometimes with the support of the industry, andsometimes over its objections. In each case, the State effectively expanded the level of legally authorized competition with existing medallions, which had been previously valuedand purchased on the basis of a smaller field of competitors. This bill does so again, andthere are no objections to this expansion on the basis of expectations of statutory stasis.

This history makes it clear that a change of the rules in the middle of the game is a risk thatyellow medallion owners knowingly accept when they make their investment. It is,therefore, disingenuous for them to assert that medallion purchases are made with theexpectation that the parameters of their statutory monopoly will go completely unmodified bythe State. Further, it strains credulity to argue that legalizing service in neighborhoodslargely ignored by yellow taxis represents a more substantial modification of State law witha greater supposed risk of impairing medallion values than allowing new entrants intoyellow taxis core marketplace, which has happened time and again as the number of authorized medallions has increased.

(3) Regardless of expectations, there is no logical or factual basis to believe that hail privilege permits will substantially affect yellow taxi medallion values, which would, in any case,reasonably be subject to market fluctuations.

As outlined above, 95% of yellow taxi pick-ups and attendant revenues are generated in theCBD and at the airports. Increasing competition for 5% of the market will not meaningfullyimpact revenues and this legislation would, in effect, simply legalize competition in theseareas that already exists. If revenues drive asset values a reasonable assumption it is hardto see how those values will be affected by the introduction of Borough Taxis.


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The only other case that has been made for the impact of this bill on medallion values is thata highly sensitive market will react strongly to fear, even unfounded, of a loss of marketshare by yellow taxis. This would require enormous ignorance of on-the-ground realities on

the part of sophisticated players in a multi-billion-dollar marketplace. Investors, lenders andanalysts would have to overestimate the revenues presently derived by yellow taxis outside of the CBD and/or be unaware of the illegal street hail service and poaching that goes ontoday in order to perceive this legislation as likely to have a material impact on the cash flowof yellow taxis.

As it happens, available data do not give any indication that such uninformed fear impacts themarket. I first announced the Citys intention to provide five-borough taxi service as acentral priority of my State of the City Address in January of this year. While just a proposalat that time, it is reasonable to assume that a sensitive, fear-driven market would have reactedin some form or fashion to such an announcement and attendant news coverage. In fact,medallions have continued to trade steadily since that time, with sale prices continuing a 10-year rise. Medallion Financial Corporation, the only publicly held medallion lender, has seenshare values rise substantially since the January announcement.

Even passage of this bill by both houses of the Legislature, which the taxi industry had loudlydeclared an existential threat, did not make a dent in medallion values or the share prices of Medallion Financial suggesting that industry predictions are more rhetoric than reality. Inthe one-week period immediately following passage of the legislation, five sales of owner-driver medallions closed, at an average price of $679,000, up from roughly $575,000 just twoyears earlier. In the weeks since, prices have continued to climb: in late July, the sale of anowner-driver medallion broke $700,000 for the first time, selling at a record price of $705,000 (a 3.8% increase in a single month).

This is not to say that medallion values, or the share prices of Medallion Financial, willcontinue their uninterrupted march upward. The volume level of the industrys concernabout market fluctuations which should, even more than statutory change, be an anticipatedrisk associated with medallion investments suggests unrealistic expectations on the part of medallions owners that their asset values will move in just one direction: up. Suchexpectations are unhealthy for any market, be it housing or taxis, and may have already ledmedallion owners to take on dangerous levels of downside exposure that could at some pointmake for a rude awakening for the industry, having nothing to do with this legislation. Mostmarkets do, after all, fluctuate over time.

The alternative plan pushed by opponents of this bill yellow taxi medallion owners and asmall handful of large, corporatized car service firms is filled with poison pills designed to cripplethe prospects for five-borough taxi service and the opportunities it would create for working liverydrivers. The concept of Borough Medallions assumes a limited supply in order to create value inthe medallion, but that would necessarily mean pricing medallions beyond the reach of many currentlivery drivers. (Given that the bills opponents have already objected to the fact that existing liverydrivers in good standing would have the first opportunity to purchase hail privilege permits, one canonly imagine how the medallion owners would react to any proposal to limit their ability to speculateon and/or buy up assets that grow in value i.e. Borough Medallions in order to ensure thatlivery drivers would be able to access and afford them.)


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Similarly, the push for single-use permits which would only allow a livery driver to do pre-arranged calls or street hails, but not both would mean the perpetuation of a system where

thousands of drivers across the City who serve a legitimate consumer demand through dual-useservice would continue to operate in the shadows. The business model that works today in practicefor many drivers is a dual-use model relying on both prearranged calls and street hails. Precludingthe legalization of this dual-use practice might benefit the handful of large livery companies withcitywide name recognition, like Dial 7 or Carmel, but would endanger the smaller neighborhood

businesses that rely on street hails to supplement their income. Simply put, this would gut a coreobjective of this bill. By establishing a hail privilege permit that drivers have the option to purchasein addition to their existing livery permits, the bill as drafted allows drivers and bases to continuerunning their business as they do today whether providing pre-arranged service, street hail service,or a mix of both.

Enforcement

Medallion owners are understandably concerned about poaching within the CBD and at theairports, where their money is made. Such poaching, however, has gone on for years. There is noreason to believe that legalizing Borough Taxis, in and of itself, will have any impact at all on this

problem. Some have suggested that still-illegal poaching within the CBD by clearly markedBorough Taxis will feel more comfortable for passengers and, therefore, become more common.This is a tenuous argument, at best, and ignores the fact that it is precisely those cars that becomeBorough Taxis that will have GPS locators in them, making poaching by these cars automaticallydetectable and enforceable. In fact, this legislation will provide unprecedented resources and tools tosupport enforcement that will enable the City to bring poaching to new lows.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade (MTBOT), in its memo of opposition to the bill,argues: Enforcement only works when the entity has something to lose. In this case, a holder of a$500-a-year street hail permit has nothing to lose. It is worth noting that the three-year permitsmust be purchased for $1,500 (not $500), which is not a trivial amount for most livery drivers, andthat drivers will incur additional expense to hack up the vehicle with the required equipment. Theact of forfeiture of a yellow taxi medallion is extremely rare and does not, as a practical matter, playa role in the TLCs day-to-day enforcement efforts. More important, it is patently absurd to suggestthat enforcement efforts by a government agency can only be effective when the agency can directlyseize a valuable asset. Examples to the contrary abound the medallion construct is the exception,not the rule, in government-business regulatory relationships. Restaurants, for example, do not

purchase valuable medallions; proprietors still go to great lengths to comply with the regulations of the Citys Department of Health, which can put violators out of business by imposing hefty finesand/or revoking their licenses. The same will be true for holders of hail privilege vehicle permits,who, unlike yellow taxicab medallion owners, generally do not have substantial assets on which torely in the event that their ongoing revenues are interrupted by enforcement actions. The one assetmost of these drivers do own is their vehicle, which is and will continue to be subject to confiscation

by the TLC. Finally, repeated violations by drivers affiliated with the same base would threaten the base owners license a real threat to often profitable businesses.

Presumably with these issues in mind, your staff early on expressed concern about the Citysenforcement capability. Accordingly, the TLC has substantially increased enforcement against


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poaching in central Manhattan and the airports and will maintain and expand this level of enforcement if the bill is enacted:

(1) Double the number of personnel devoted to field enforcement against poaching.

TLC has doubled the number of field officers dedicated to enforcement in the CBD and at theairports, and is strategically deploying them to locations with high incidences of poachingactivity such as hotels, transportation hubs, tourist attractions, the Meatpacking District onFriday and Saturday nights, and midtown Manhattan during evening rush hours. In addition,we are coordinating with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to enforce against

poaching at the airports.

The results of this initiative demonstrate the ability of the TLC to conduct effectiveenforcement against poaching. As depicted in the chart below, the TLC issued only 877summonses for poaching in the CBD in all of 2009; by contrast, TLC officers issued 1,424such summonses in August 2011, alone.

This increased level of field enforcement strength will be maintained and, if necessary, wewill devote an additional thirty personnel no later than January 2012. Funding for all of thesenew personnel was included in the Citys budget for Fiscal Year 2011-2012 in anticipation of this legislation and the revenue it will generate. Revenue from the Borough Taxi programwill enable the City to continue to staff anti-poaching enforcement at levels needed to protectlegitimate operators business.


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(2) Technology-based enforcement.

In addition to field enforcement, the TLC will use sophisticated, technology-based

enforcement to prevent Borough Taxis from poaching in central Manhattan and the airports.Today, there is no requirement that livery vehicles have GPS locators, so efforts against poaching are limited to field enforcement. This legislation enables the TLC to require eachBorough Taxi to be equipped with a GPS locator that tracks the movement of the vehicle andthe use of the meter, and feeds the captured data continuously to the TLC. This will provideadditional capability to monitor their activity and prevent encroachment into centralManhattan. If a Borough Taxi driver accepts a passenger in a prohibited area, the system willimmediately detect it and the TLC will issue a summons.

Further, the TLC will hire a specialized squad of data miners experts in data and analysis who will monitor GPS data from the Borough Taxis and develop algorithms to detectviolations, by identifying Borough Taxis that are cruising for passengers in centralManhattan, or that fail to leave central Manhattan expeditiously after dropping off a

passenger.

The TLCs ability to use GPS data for enforcement is not speculative; in fact, the TLC has been conducting GPS-based enforcement for more than two years. In 2008, the TLCrequired yellow taxis to install GPS trackers, enabling the TLC to collect electronic tripsheet data, which includes the starting and ending location, fare, time, distance and other information about every trip. Going forward, the GPS trackers will not only record thelocation of every pick-up and drop-off, but also the precise route each taxi takes on each trip.

The TLC has used these data for a variety of enforcement and customer-service initiatives.

Last year, for example, the TLC used GPS data to investigate a widespread practice of overcharging by taxi drivers. The TLC discovered that a segment of drivers were using aspecial fare category (an out-of-town rate that is twice the in-City metered fare) for in-Citytrips. Through data-mining, agency staff members were able to identify instances whendrivers overcharged passengers and issue them summonses. Additionally, the TLC routinelyuses data from the taxis GPS locators to identify drivers who fail to use EZ-Pass whentransporting passengers across tolled bridges or through tolled tunnels (a violation of TLCrules.) The TLC also uses GPS data to assist passenger who have left valuable property intaxicabs. If the passenger does not have a receipt or medallion number, the TLC can use thelocation and time of the trips origin and destination to identify the taxicab in which the

passenger traveled and help contact the driver.

The TLC will take further advantage of mobile technology by exploring a program toencourage yellow-taxi drivers, other licensees, and interested members of the public to reportpoachers through 311. TLC enforcement staff would follow up on these reports and, whenevidence is sufficient, use them as a basis for prosecution.

(3) Use technology in aid of field enforcement .

In addition to increasing the number of personnel devoted to field enforcement against poaching, the TLC will invest in technology to increase each officers effectiveness. The


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Citys budget includes funding for the initial costs of acquiring handheld electronic devicesto create and issue summonses in the field. Handheld devices will decrease the time it takesfor an officer to create a summons, while eliminating most of the human error associated with

manual summonsing, making it less likely that summonses will require dismissal atadjudication due to poor drafting. TLC expects to begin using the handhelds next year.

The handheld devices will improve efficiency in several concrete ways:

The handheld devices will automatically scan a New York State drivers license or TLClicense and populate data about the driver or the vehicle into a summons. This both savestime and increases the accuracy of the summons, making it less likely that a summonswill be dismissed based on a human error that occurred when the officer was entering theviolator's information.

The handheld devices will be pre-programmed to automatically generate summonses for violations associated with common illegal activities, saving officers the time of lookingup and writing out various codes that drivers have violated.

TLC officers often cannot complete a summons in the field because they requireadditional information. In these instances, they must return to the office for thatinformation to complete the summons. This drains a significant portion of officers timeaway from field enforcement, and it also creates additional opportunities for human error.The handheld device will enable officers to access more of the information needed to

complete and serve summonses in the field. Accordingly, this will reduce downtime andallow officers to stay in the field to do further enforcement.

(4) Toughen penalties for poaching and enhance the TLCs ability to seize and forfeit vehiclesused for poaching.

I have asked the City Council to strengthen penalties against licensed individuals/vehiclescaught poaching, and the TLC will take steps to enhance its ability to seize and forfeitvehicles used for poaching:

Currently, the TLCs ability to seize vehicles is severely restricted by available space inthe Citys tow pounds. The TLC will acquire, by means of contract, the capacity to storeas many seized vehicles as necessary for effective enforcement against poaching.

Under current law, the fine for a livery driver who accepts an illegal street hail is $350for the first violation and $500 for the second violation within two years. In addition, thevehicle owner is subject to a fine of $100 for the first violation and $200 for the secondviolation. I will submit to the City Council a bill to increase the penalty for a liverydriver who accepts a street hail in the areas prohibited by this legislation to $500 for thefirst offense and $750 for the second violation within two years and to providecomparable penalties for vehicle owners.


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Under current TLC rules, a livery driver is fined for poaching, but the affiliated base isnot fined. TLC will amend rules to fine bases as well. This will give bases, whichfunction in some respects as the employer of affiliated drivers, an incentive to monitor

drivers behavior and discourage them from poaching. Current law permits the City to forfeit a vehicle if it has been used for poaching on three

separate occasions within a three-year period. In practice, however, the TLC has notforfeited any vehicles in several years. I will submit to the City Council proposedlegislation that would allow forfeiture of a vehicle after two poaching violations, and theTLC will seek forfeiture of vehicles used for poaching in all appropriate cases.

Current law also obligates the City to return a seized vehicle that is not subject toforfeiture after payment of the fine incident to the violation for which the vehicle wasseized even if the vehicle owner owes the City other outstanding fines. I will submit tothe City Council proposed legislation that would require the owner of a vehicle seized bythe TLC to pay all outstanding fines before reclaiming the vehicle.

TLC enforcement officers often encounter resistance from drivers engaged in poaching.It is common for a driver stopped by a TLC enforcement officer, or a driver whom a TLCofficer has attempted to stop for an observed or suspected poaching violation, to flee thescene. Since TLC inspectors are not armed or authorized to give chase, violators canevade enforcement officers at a relatively low risk. To deter this behavior, I will submitto the City Council proposed legislation that would establish criminal misdemeanor

penalties for flight from a TLC inspector.

(5) Collaborate with taxi industry to monitor enforcement effectiveness .

Finally, the TLC will collaborate with leading representatives of taxi medallion owners anddrivers to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of TLC enforcement efforts. The TLCwill also include indicators measuring poaching activity and enforcement effectiveness in theannual Mayors Management Report.

The MTBOT, in its memo of opposition, argues generally that notwithstanding any specificmeasure, enforcement is something that the taxi industry knows is done at the whim of the TLCChair. Even if this TLC Chair demonstrates a commitment to enforcement, which is entirelyuncertain, what guarantee does the taxi industry have that the next TLC Chair will be committed toenforcement and not cut enforcement agents, re-direct priorities to the latest policy shift or simply

give up and allow liveries to pick up anywhere the death knell to the multi-billion dollar taxiindustry.

It is true that the level of resources committed to anti-poaching enforcement has varied over the years, and that enforcement has been unable thus far to wholly eliminate poaching by liveries and

black cars. It is indisputable, however, that the level of enforcement in the yellow taxis core servicearea has always been sufficient to ensure the health of the industry no more proof is needed thanthe rising prices that taxi medallions command in the open market. If would-be taxi owners believedthey could successfully enter the taxi business without a medallion, they would not pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per vehicle for the privilege.


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It is also true that the legislation before you will pose new enforcement challenges for theTLC. That is why the City has undertaken the dramatic expansions of our enforcement capacity

detailed above. These increases in the number of field enforcement personnel, and in the technologyand legal tools available to them, together with the requirement that Borough Taxis be equipped withGPS locators, will all combine to ensure that anti-poaching enforcement against the Borough Taxiswill be more effective than past enforcement efforts against poaching by liveries.

Most important, the suggestion that the TLC may give up on protecting yellow taxisagainst poaching is simply illogical. The yellow taxi network is a jewel of the City it is anindispensable part of the transportation system serving the City's economic hub. As much as I amdetermined to improve service in the currently underserved areas outside Manhattan and in NorthernManhattan, I am equally determined to preserve the excellent service that exists in the ManhattanCentral Business District and there is no reason whatever to think that a future Mayor would be anyless determined to preserve this critically important service.

To be clear: the City is committed to both expanding New Yorkers transportation optionsand protecting the investments that existing stakeholders have already made in the Citys taxicabnetwork. I have no doubt that with this enforcement plan, we will be able to provide protection for those investments that is stronger than ever before, now and long into the future.

Taken together, both the creation of Borough Taxis for underserved neighborhoods and of the issuance of new, unrestricted yellow taxicab medallions, as authorized by this legislation, wouldsubstantially improve the ability of City residents and visitors to get where they need to go quicklyand easily, without having to own a car, and would make living in or traveling to New York Citymore affordable, enjoyably and environmentally sustainable. This bill would also provide much-

needed revenue for the City at a time of fiscal constraint and, under an agreed-upon chapter amendment, revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority through the application of a$0.50 surcharge to all street hails made by Borough Taxis.

These vital public interests should not be trumped by the opposition of yellow taxi medallionowners who, despite their State-sanctioned monopoly, have ignored large swaths of the City thatwould finally get legal taxi service under this legislation particularly when industry objections donot withstand basic tests of fact and logic.

Accordingly, it is urged that this bill be approved.

Very truly yours,

MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, Mayor

By: Micah C. Lasher Director

Enc.


14/15

2

8

0

5

0

3

0

1

4

0

0

0

1

0

0

0

2

1

6

0

1

5

4

75

1

1

148

0

12

3

1

0

6

100

0

4

0

6

2

3

64

13

0

13

1

98

12

0

3

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02

0

0

424

0

3

1

0

63112

156

1991,260

1,341

2,681

747

2,7391,783

251

1,001

0 52.5 Miles

NYC Yellow Taxi DataTuesday

June 21, 20118:00AM to 8:30AM

13,376 Trips

Taxi Pickup Locations

Source: NYC GIS DataNYC TLC Data

Tuesday 6/21/2011

# %Manhattan CBD 12,175 91.0%Airports 399 3.0%Subtotal ye llow zone 12,574 94.0%

Brooklyn 206 2.6%Bronx 26 0.2%Queens 227 1.7%Staten Island - 0.0%Northern Manahattan 343 2.6%Subtotal boro taxi zone 802 6.0%

Total Trips 13,376

8:00 to 8:30AM


15/15

4

0

7

5

0

0

5

7

13

1

0

0

2

0

5

0

5

0

0

4

0

3

6

49

0

0

54

221

3

8

27

0

1

7

0

1

1

3

0

0

4

0

31

0

13

0

73

2

0

2

11

0

1

468

0

3

0

0

41

157

132

2201,295

1,758

2,513

768

4,1001,648

346

1,309

0 52.5 Miles

NYC Yellow Taxi DataTuesday

June 21, 20116:00PM to 6:30PM

15,328 Trips

Taxi Pickup Locations

Source: NYC GIS DataNYC TLC Data

Tuesday 6/21/2011

# %Manhattan CBD 14,079 91.9%Airports 567 3.7%Subtotal ye llow zone 14,646 95.6%

Brooklyn 151 2.2%Bronx 21 0.1%Queens 173 1.1%Staten Island - 0.0%Northern Manahattan 337 2.2%Subtotal boro taxi zone 682 4.4%

Total Trips 15,328

6:00 to 6:30PM

Bloom Berg Taxi Letter

Documents

Transcript of Bloom Berg Taxi Letter