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Subscribe to RSSNew York City's plan to expand taxi service outside Manhattan is unconstitutional, a judge ruled Friday in a decision that could leave the city with a $1.46 billion hole in its budget.
Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that the plan violates the state constitution's "home rule" provisions, which protect cities from undue interference by state legislators. The taxi plan was enacted by the state Legislature after a failed attempt to get it through the City Council.
City lawyers said they would immediately appeal the ruling, which could leave officials scrambling to remake this year's budget. Officials have said 2,000 yellow-cab medallion sales included in the plan would earn the city $635 million this fiscal year and $825 million more over the following two years.
The plan, put temporarily on hold in June after owners of the city's signature yellow cabs sued, would let the city sell 18,000 permits allowing livery cabs to pick up passengers who hail them on streets in upper Manhattan and the other boroughs. Currently, only yellow cabs can do that.
City Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky said officials owe it to New Yorkers to appeal.
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"The court's decision today is a great loss to millions of New Yorkers outside of Manhattan, as well as for the professional livery drivers whose ability to feed their families by providing a popular service their communities want and deserve is now in jeopardy," he said in a statement.
The Greater New York Taxi Association called the ruling "a win for democracy, due process of law and the right of New Yorkers to decide how their own city works." The group said in a statement it would work with city officials "to address these issues."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the plan would make travel safer, easier and cheaper for millions of people and provide the city a much needed cash infusion in tight budget times. Yellow cab owners have argued it would cut their business.
Under the plan, the livery cab "street hail" permits would initially be sold by the city for $1,500; taxi medallions have gone for as much as $1 million on the open market. The 2,000 new yellow cab medallions would have been restricted to vehicles that are wheelchair-accessible.
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After negotiations over the outer-borough taxi issue stalled in the City Council, Bloomberg took it to Albany, saying it was a goal that had eluded the city for three decades and would expand cab service in areas that are home to 7 million people. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature reached a deal on it in December.
The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade sued in April, on the eve of a city Taxi and Limousine Commission vote to put the proposal into action. The commission voted to approve the plan anyway.
As the suit was filed, the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade's president, Ron Sherman, called the plan "unconstitutional, irresponsible and unconscionable."
Yellow cab owners "are overwhelmed with anxiety, grief and worry over their future as a result of this devastating law, which will completely undermine their livelihood and lifetime investment," said Sherman, whose group represents the owners of 4,000 cabs leased to 16,000 drivers.
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City lawyers said they were confident that the plan met legal requirements.
"A great deal of careful thought and consideration went into the adoption of this important new transportation initiative," city Law Department attorney Ave Maria Brennan said in April.
At a May hearing, Engoron mentioned that he's a former cabbie himself. He drove a yellow taxi for about a year while he was a Columbia University undergraduate in the 1960s.
The proposal would have let 18,000 livery drivers buy permits to pick up street hails above 96th Street in Manhattan and throughout the four other boroughs, but not at Kennedy and LaGuardia airports.
City officials said the medallion sales would generate $1.46 billion for the city, estimating each would sell for an average of $730,000 at auctions staggered over three years to keep from flooding the market. The taxi group's lawyer has said the influx of new medallions still would drive down the price below the city's estimate.
Some $635 million of the expected medallion money is built into the budget the city approved at the end of June. If it becomes clear the $635 million in sales won't happen before June 30, 2013, the city will have to make cuts or find other money to make up for it.
The city routinely adjusts its budget plan several times throughout the year to reflect changes in its finances.
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Sounds like the 'yellow cab teamsters' are complaining to protect their jobs from any possible competition.
True, but these "yellow cab teamsters" have aligned with monied people. See what happens when you do that? You come away with that stink on you. Business is curruption and unions are generally want-a-bees. (Spelling?) Cab fares arn't the only thing that is rotten in New York. I never buy from or trade there. I know I am feeding a bunch of lazy fat cats if I do.
Why are people even bothering to live by these rules? Medallion Owner? Really? You need a special 1 Million Dollar Wiki-Button just to own a cab? I call BS!
You should only need 3 things to own a cab ANYWHERE.
1. A valid drivers license.
2. A qualified vehicle that meets safety regulations.
3. A background check so axe murderers and convicts aren't picking victims up off the streets.
What more is really needed?
Money to buy off polititions.
That's funny. I thought monopolies were illegal in this country. Then again, I also fell for the whole "land of the free" thing too.
There's no way a taxi medallion is worth $1mm. That's called 'rent seeking'. If taxi medallions cost $100, then there would be taxis available in the rain.
What's next? He'll probably make a law that requires taxi drivers to wear only NYC Mayor approved hemp clothing and shoes; AFTER, of course, he invest in the only NYC Mayor approved hemp suppliers and manufacturers. I really feel sorry for you people that have to suffer under this moron. Can't you get him elected to the state legislature or something, just to get rid of him?
The chickens are coming home to roost. This is what we get for allowing our idiot politicians to create and twice vote for the Patriot Act. You want to know when Government started gaining powers it was not due, look no further than the fallout of 9/11. It is not even Government's fault either. It is our fault. We allowed them to create the Patriot Act. We even encouraged it. We allowed them to start wire tapping our phones, we allowed them to put the TSA into place. We allowed measures that were too extreme and now the Government has expanded in ways that it should not have because of our decisions.
If you supported the Patriot act at anytime in the past or present then your are one of the causes of what is going on today on both state and federal levels. You told the Gov. it was all right for them to take away some of your freedoms if they could protect you from the big bad terrorists and now the Gov. has started going too far. We could have pressured Congress into scrapping the Patriot Act recently, just like what we did with SOPA. Instead we did nothing, we were complacent and we expected Obama to veto it in vain without any assistance from us to get Congress on-board with getting rid of it; instead the predictable happened, Obama signed it knowing it was going to be reaffirmed either way since more than 3/4ths of Congress voted yea on it (enough to override a Presidential veto).
Government's only go out of control when the populous allows them to. It is our job to keep Government in check by voting out those politicians that advocate for expanding the Government into areas they have no power to legislate. We failed at our job and now we are facing the consequences of that failure.
When a government acts in such a manner it is called National Socialism. It is the form of socialism that was practiced by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany. It is a socialism where the government understands the fact that companies/corporations are actually needed to conduct an economy. And since all bureaucracies i.e. governments are inherently corrupt "national socialism" allows the government to pick which company they will allow to monopolize the industry. And for allowing to be able to do so the companies selected always give "kickbacks" to the elected officials. Usually these kickbacks come in the form of campaign contributions or insider information on the markets etc.
New York is almost as bad as Chicago The gangsters AKA politicians have got their grubby little fingers in EVERYONE's pie.
Victor: The reason that half of the civilized world liked Hitler was that he really did shepherd Germany through the depression spreading the pain and what bounty there was so no one felt it like here in America. Very few fat cats walked away with the spoils of the German meltdown like the surviving bankers of our depression. Until he began gasing people most business people thought very highly of him.
New York, and any other city who has adopted a "medallion" system of doling out taxi licenses, is an unqualified disaster FOR THE RIDING PUBLIC. It's quite a boon to the city and those privileged few who have access to this ridiculous monopoly system. Leave it to a bankrupt cesspit like NYC to try to ram through at the state level what it could not do at the local level. Maybe they could consider laying of some of their 300,000+ public employees to make up for the shortfall.... NAH, just raise taxes.
This monopoly is of no value to the city or the consumer. It should be eliminated so that people can build heir own business, one cab at a time.
The city have created a high threshold with the medallions, that only let the rich get richer, while making it hard for someone to work their way up. The medallions should be eliminated and the city can license and tax cabs in a way that encourages competition and low prices.
The holder of a New York City cab license has a chattle worth in excess of a million dollars. What if I bought mine one or two years ago and financed half of it? The state is going to devalue my chattle by some factor aproaching half. It seams the only people who can sleep soundly knowing that their fortune is safe are those that have bought the right politition, and that is a crapshoot. I don't like the dirrection that bankrupsy is taking this country. Polititions are increasingly lashing out at productive Americans to cover their malfeasance.
Not being from NY city I cannot say I know much about the medallion system, but it sounds suspisiously like mafia shlt to me....