The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion-king/

by MaxQuentero • 11 years ago

28 19 11 years ago

I have no sympathy whatsoever. He still owes on loans taken to purchase medallions. If things get a little worse this lowlife is surely going to walk away from those loans. If I were uber I'd offer to buy them for the pennies they may soon be worth.

>After breakfast, Freidman walks two blocks east to his temporary digs at Trump Park Avenue on 59th Street. (Sandra is occupying the $4.8 million master residence six blocks north.) After he retrieves a Chihuahua named Harry from upstairs—he signs his e-mails “Yes I Am a Dog Lover” or “adopt-a-pet.com”—the plan is to hop into his Ferrari and zip over to one of his several garages in Queens. Not that he wants that written: “Honestly, I would love the piece not to be about ‘We had breakfast at Cipriani, then we walked over to his Park Avenue apartment, then we got into his Ferrari.’

This pic says more than the article ever could: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion-king/i...

stblack• 11 years ago

Burn baby burn.

Seriously.

If there's a paragon of entitlement, this guy is it.

refurb2• 11 years ago

During the Depression, thousands of jobless men became taxi drivers. As a result, the number of cabs ballooned, and suddenly there weren’t enough passengers to scoop up. The industry became as hopelessly unprofitable as any other.

Is that really true? If so, what makes the cab business so different than every other business where limits aren't put on the number of sellers?

If there were too many cabs and it became unprofitable, then you'd expect the supply to dwindle until it was profitable for some.

The whole safety thing is a different regulatory issue. I could understand trying to keep passengers safe.

jacobolus• 11 years ago

Absent regulation, the cab business has very low barriers to entry. Other direct sales businesses with low barriers to entry such as street peddling, door-to-door sales, food trucks, etc. are also typically regulated or banned. Sales businesses which require renting/owning retail space have a much stiffer entry barrier and inherent limits on crowding, but many types of them are still regulated in various ways (liquor licenses, restaurant licenses, salon licenses ...).

Or in other words, cabs aren’t unique.

Eric_WVGG• 11 years ago

Under normal circumstances, maybe. The Depression, though… there’s no jobs, so why not just get in your car and hope to get a lucky fare? You’ll make more cash than sitting in an unemployment line.

npkarnik• 11 years ago

Well, good luck burning gas and filling up your tank during the Great Depression.

rhino3693• 11 years ago

Cabs are a vital part of NYC transportation. Too many cabs will clog up streets causing traffic.

There are other reasons to regulate. To prevent predatory pricing. Without set prices cab drivers would start ripping people off. You can see the trouble with this with Uber's surge pricing. I needed a cab home from the airport but Uber wanted 4X pricing. Luckly cabs still exist, but in 5 years they might not. My 80 buck fare would be 320 bucks.

A lot of pro uber folks want to pretend that taxi regulations are purely protectionist. But it's really just quid pro quo. You can't tell cab drivers what to charge and make them drive people to anywhere in the city. They might not be profitable. Limiting supply is consultation price.

Well now that deal is done since cities allow Uber to compete with them unregulated.

I think the only real solution is to deregulate cabs. But a lot of people are going to be pissed when their cabbie informs them of surge pricing or that he doesn't deliver to certain areas.

refurb2• 11 years ago

I see your point but Uber is unregulated and it seems to be working fine. I'm not sure that cabs stick out as an industry that particularly needs this level of regulation.

shadeless• 11 years ago

Planet Money had an interesting episode about him recently: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/31/428157211/episo...

kleer001• 11 years ago

Certainly a good object lesson in the bite of leverage over long periods of time. As in it's a very bad idea.

rayiner2• 11 years ago

Rant: Uber's shitty navigation is as we speak taking me on a detour through south DC trying to get from foggy bottom to union station. Second time this week (last time it was a random detour to Virginia).

I use Uber all the time, of course, because it's so cheap, but people talking about self-driving Uber cars always makes me chuckle.

rhino3693• 11 years ago

Uber routes me through an alley for absolutely no reason every time I take it to work.

rayiner2• 11 years ago

I love how the only option to get your route reviewed is "my driver took a poor route." There should be a "your navigation is inbred" option.

berberous• 11 years ago

I thought Uber used Google for back-end navigation. Is that not true? Is it homegrown?

rhino3693• 11 years ago

If cities are going to allow open competition from uber and lyft, they need to remove the regulation on cab drivers.

loso• 11 years ago

"Seven years later came Bloomberg’s introduction of green cabs designed primarily to reach the underserved outer boroughs. Prohibited from picking up customers in Manhattan’s central business district, they were nonetheless despised by the yellow cab industry. Freidman sued, contending the new law allowing green cabs was unconstitutional. The courts ultimately disagreed."

This right here is why I hope Uber and other services like them burn the NYC cab industry to the ground. The cab industry in NY treats people like crap if you don't live in midtown. Especially if you live in a minority community. I lived in Harlem when that fight was happening and was astounded by the argument the cab commission put up. They admitted they don't go to minority communities because of violence but they do not want anyone else to service the area either.

My ex was riding home with two white coworkers from her job. They were getting dropped off in the 60's block and she was getting dropped off in Harlem. The cab driver knew that. He dropped off the first two and drove a block up and old my ex to get out of the car. He wasn't driving to Harlem. That is just one of several messed up NYC cab stories. I just stopped taking them and went green car only.

The cab industry is crappy to a lot of the community in NYC. They deserve everything that they are getting right now.

The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King

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