NEW YORK—It has been just a few months since Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the city had won the right to pursue the outer borough taxi plan. Some of the signature apple green cabs are already on the road.
The cabs are allowed to legally take street hails, something the black livery cabs can not do. Previously residents in the outer boroughs were required to call for a car service, leaving large swaths of the city without the same service found in Manhattan.
“For too long, four and a half out of our five boroughs did not have taxi service and now they do,” Bloomberg said from Cine Magic Riverfront Studios in Williamsburg on Tuesday. “It has turned out to be successful not just for the people who drive the cabs, but also for the public.”
The green cabs have meters, credit card machines, and GPS, just like the yellow taxis in Manhattan.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) already sold the 6,000 licenses allotted for this year, with 1,015 currently on the road. Of the 6,000 permits issued, 1,200 are wheelchair accessible, of which only 49 are currently on the road.
TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg said the reason for the low number of wheelchair accessible cabs was because it takes longer to convert them.
The city plans to sell another 6,000 licenses in June 2014, with 20 percent required to be wheelchair accessible by 2015.
TLC Commissioner David Yassky said his office is looking at locations for proposed taxi stands, much like the ones seen in high traffic areas such as Madison Square Garden.
“We expect in a lot of places, the borough taxis will operate not just by cruising, but by waiting at transit hubs, outside of BAM, or Barclays Center,” Yassky said. He directed New Yorkers to pitch their ideas for taxi stands at NYC.gov.
Here to Stay?
While the current mayor has hailed the program a success, it is yet to be determined if mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will continue the program in its current form. While on the campaign trail, he has been less than warm to the idea of the apple green cabs.
De Blasio has said he likes the idea of street hails, but when asked to elaborate how the industry will look under his leadership, he did not give any details, saying there needs to be a better balance.
“We need to make sure the pieces that are working continue to work well,” de Blasio said at a campaign stop in Breezy Point before the election. “Then we want to add on top of that the ability of people to hail cars on the streets in the outer boroughs.”
The mayor-elect received more than $350,000 in campaign donations from the yellow cab industry, according to Newsday. De Blasio has repeatedly said the taxi money would not influence his decisions regarding the industry.
