
New York Could Become First Major U.S. City to Cap Uber and Similar Vehicles - angpappas
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/nyregion/new-york-city-council-uber-limit.html
======
mancerayder
NYC Cabbies deserve the cold shoulder:

\- They're frequently rude and unaccountable. They'll talk with friends on
speaker (car speaker) and you can't rate them.

\- Oh, sorry sir. Can't go to Brooklyn. Grumble grumble.

\- Smells, garbage and other horrors on the back seat. Why bother cleaning it
when you're a monopoly?

\- Road rage, dangerous driving, etc. that requires a more complicated TLC
complaint while Uber and Lyft let you do it over the app.

Want people to take less car services? Fix the subway and buses.

Passing new restrictions to protect medallion owners (not the drivers) is
similar to the way they killed Airbnb here in that it lets the Council pander
to those who paid to play, while simultaneously couching the exercise in some
moralistic greater good. [edit: Friday-afternoon-inspired run-on sentence
repair]

~~~
a_tractor
Ive lived in NYC for 10 years, and have never personally used Uber/Lyft. Its
surprising to a lot of people, which is funny to me in a place with so many
other options. So, besides taking friend's Ubers, maybe I dont know what I'm
missing completely, but I always have enjoyed and preferred the experience of
walking out into the streets and hailing a cab. It is one of the reasons this
city was so appealing in the first place.

It is a simple act, requiring only your eyes and a working arm, and you can go
anywhere in the city. It can also be challenging, but over time you start
figuring out and mapping to memory the best places to hail cabs going in your
direction, you start learning the fastest routes through different areas at
various times of day. Mastering the cab experience is part of what makes
living here fun, while adding some meaning to the "achievement" of NYC
"experience."

How you describe the situation seems quite exaggerated, to say the least. I'm
reserved to say that you are intentionally presenting a biased or agenda-
driven description here, as you may very well have had a horrible run of luck,
or you may just have higher personal standard, so I'm just going to throw in
my experience as a counter-point.

-I've never had a cabbie that was any ruder than what you are likely to experience from any person living and working in this city at any time. Part of living in NYC is "learning to deal" with lots of different people of every type of temperament and attitude. I could also care less that I "can't rate them." I think this obsession with rating people for basic services is an alienating force in society. They are a driver to get me to point B. Go on reddit and downvote somebody or finish writing that really vicious Yelp review you've been mulling over if you need your need to get your fix "rating" someone.

\- I can't remember the last time I had a cabbie refuse service to Brooklyn,
or anywhere for that matter. 8 years ago? The green cabs that came around ~4-5
years ago were a godsend for the borroughs. I have had hailed (green) cabs
tell me to get out as soon as I got in because they got booked by a friggin
Uber fair with surge pricing as I was opening the door...

\- The only reason I struggle with cabs now is because they are disappearing,
which is a result of Uber/Lyft domination. Everything changed for the worse
following the arrival of Uber/Lyft, for cab drivers and non-Uber users/cab
lovers. Dramatically so, the last couple of years.

-I've definitely had problems with smelly drivers once or twice, but not so much garbage. I certainly can't think of even a single instance where I have been presented by what I would describe as "horrors."

If I were describing the situation realistically rather than with
hypercritically, it seems, for the most part, basic human decency keeps people
from leaving trash in the cars in the first place, with the driver's self-
respect and the desire for a better tip covering the rest. The experience is
adequately clean and professional.

I know from talking to cabbies, who generally seem to be more social and
socialable in a NY kind of way than Uber/Lyft automatons, that things have
been pretty rough for them, and I remember one convo in particular with a
cabbie who was not optimistic about my ability to hail cabs a year or two from
now, at all.

NYC cabs are a cultural institution, especially the analog aspect of hailing a
cab using physical gestures is what I am saying, and it seems people are quite
over-eager to basically throw that away.

It is likely Uber would have thrived on the merits of its premium features and
conveniences, but it should have had to do it on a level playing field, some
way or another. I have no sympathy for Uber or Lyft if the rug gets pulled out
from under them. I also have no sympathy for NYC bureaucracy and the situation
they have created. I do feel bad for the people who got screwed for playing by
well-established, long-standing rules.

Overall, I could care less what happens to Uber or medallion owners, but I
would like to preserve the iconic experience that is the ability to walk out
into the dark streets, scan the roads for a vehicle with a small white light
on top, wave my arm in the air for a bit, tell my new driver friend my
destination, and go.

~~~
mancerayder
I get the impression you live or spend most of your time in vibrant, perhaps
wealthy neighborhoods like Williamsburg or just Manhattan. Your green cab
story doesn't pan out in most of North Brooklyn outside of Williamsburg, they
are invisible because the market dictates that it's too poor for them to
bother to look for rides. Then there are the wealthier areas like Cobble Hill
and Park Slope and so on - I wouldn't expect to see green cabs in Flatbush or
something.

~~~
dahdum
I got the same impression. While I don't doubt the OP's sincerity, it sounds
like a cliche story of privilege.

IIRC, Uber/Lyft have shown objective data highlighting the improvements of
service to disadvantaged communities and groups.

Taxis aren't at risk of going away entirely any time soon, so the iconic
experience should still be around.

------
CoolGuySteve
Before becoming mayor, de Blasio lived here in Park Slope. I guess he never
used these yellow cabs he’s so interested in preserving because getting one to
go to Brooklyn from Manhattan is fucking impossible.

Seriously, everything about yellow cab service is worse. Why don’t they buy
back the medallions instead?

~~~
bluedevil2k
Why should the city buy them back? They sold the assets, they have no
obligation to re-purchase them. Investment risk is in the hands of those
people (usually companies) who purchase them. Besides, at what price would
they even buy them back at? They're certainly not worth the price that some
people pay for them (last I checked, about $1M each).

~~~
robrenaud
> Why should the city buy them back

So otherwise hopeless drivers/single medallion owners who are severely in debt
don't end up committing mass suicide.

~~~
ihsw3
We live in a free market, they're free to find work elsewhere. Not only that
but these cabbies have the unbelievable fortune of being able to unload these
medallions through declaring chapter 7/chapter 13 bankruptcy.

There are so many avenues for them to relieve themselves from this burden and
better their circumstances that you'd be hard-pressed to take any claims of
mass-suicide seriously.

~~~
vkou
Suppose that your state government embarks on a program of land reform. And
suppose that they institute new/raise existing taxes/restrictions, that cause
the value of your Silicon Valley home to go from ~2.2m to something
reasonable, like ~200k.

Most economists are in agreement that dramatically increasing the cost of
owning property (And, conversely, lowering the market value of existing
properties) is one of the answers to the current housing crisis. Once the
rules are changed, the free market can figure things out going forward!

Are you going to cheer this process on? It will, after all, greatly improve
life for people who don't have millions of dollars to pour into housing.

------
TuringNYC
(Former NYC resident here.) For those who don't know, the state of the NYC
Subway System is abysmal and plummeted several years ago due to neglect and
underinvestment.

I went to NYC last weekend and, just like the previous 7 times i went there,
subways weren't running normally after-hours (growing up, it functioned well
24-7). This time (last weekend) _no_ subways were running to where I needed to
go. The only option was Uber/Lyft. It took me ~$17 instead of the $2.75 for
the subway, but I was just glad to have _some_ means of transportation.

Removing Uber/Lyft is a bad idea. But removing Uber/Lyft without first fixing
the mass transit system is insane.

~~~
forapurpose
> The only option was Uber/Lyft

New Yorkers have relied on cabs for generations before Uber and Lyft.

> Removing Uber/Lyft is a bad idea

They aren't removing them, just regulating the number of cars, of which there
is an oversupply: _the number of for-hire vehicles in the city has surged,
rising to more than 100,000 vehicles, from about 63,000 in 2015, according to
the city._

~~~
derekp7
Isn't that a good thing? Supply goes up due to demand at a specific price
point. So either the supply is increasing to meet demand (which is good), or
the price is falling so more quantity is demanded (which is also good).

~~~
gammateam
the limitation is the capacity of the roads, which this is addressing, for New
York City.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _the limitation is the capacity of the roads, which this is addressing, for
> New York City_

I live on 26th Street. It used to be two lanes of traffic and two lanes of
parking. They redid this to have one lane of bike lanes, one lane of traffic,
and kept the two lanes of parking. (You see a similar issue of self-inflicted
policymaking at the MTA [1].)

This decision is a handout to medallion owners, who are prolific political
donors in this city [2].

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subway-
crisis-mta-decisions-signals-rules.html)

[2] [https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-
blasio-o...](https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-blasio-
over-550000-for-campaign/)

------
Nasrudith
Sounds like they want a return of the absurd medallions status quo. If
anything non for general hire (as opposed to chauffeurs and such) vehicles
having a limited count in an area at a time would make far more sense in a
dense city like New York. The one good thing Uber did was destroying that
stupid racket and proving that the world would not in fact end - despite the
preexisting oligarchs' insistence.

------
mcny
Previously on HN,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16602151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16602151)

If you care about congestion, address congestion. As much as I would like to
support Mr Mayor, I find it difficult to do so. This mayor points the finger
at Mr Governor and the state legislature -- rightly so I assume about 99% of
the time. However, this last one percent is what grinds my gears. There is not
a lot that the city can do on its own but this isn't something they can't fix.

I think the correct answer is to enforce existing traffic laws and
strengthening them where necessary. Traffic violation? Suspend their TLC
license at the first offense. Ideally, there would be no additional cost to
the driver. The TLC license is simply suspended for a short period of time
(lets say three months). At the end of three months, the driver can apply to
be reinstated at no cost (assuming no further violations -- by which I mean no
Uber or Lyft work -- during this time).

Now the important part: actually enforce this. This is the difficult part
because I frequently see cars with a reflective vest in front of the steering
wheel (which I assume is supposed to signify the car belongs to a police
officer?). I think it is difficult to ask for strict enforcement of traffic
laws when even the police officers so blatantly disregard traffic laws.

New York Times reports ridership on the MTA and MTA bus is stagnating at best
or likely declining. In another world, I would be advocating for turning many
of the existing bus lines into subway lines (at least here in Queens) because
as someone else commented a few months back, a bus every three minutes is no
longer a bus but a very expensive train.

In any case, I thought there was a solution coming in the form of congestion
tax in New York City. What happened of it?

~~~
Eric_WVGG
> Traffic violation? Suspend their TLC license at the first offense.

Seriously, all this city needs is "broken windows" policing for traffic
violations.

~~~
mancerayder
... meanwhile the State killed the red light cameras, and the City explicitly
pushes cops to stop 'overpolicing'. It's increasingly an annoying place to
live.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
I've been following the red-light-camera issue, was not aware of this
"overpolicing" but that certainly explains a lot.

~~~
lovich
Wasn't the over policing they wanted stopped policies like Stop and Frisk
which were targeting people based on race? That's a far cry from policing
people based on actually breaking the law

~~~
mancerayder
It's a loaded term, over-policing. Stop and frisk is one thing, but local
politicians use it to mean other things, too. When the police deployed during
the K2 overdoses in Bed Stuy (the first news incident), politicians said on
record that we needed to be careful not to over-police the neighborhood. What
they meant by this was presence - don't put police everywhere, people dislike
it.

There's more. They reclassified numerous crimes that were deemed quality of
life crimes that deserve at most a desk ticket. They also stopped cracking
down on turnstile jumpers, they became more lax with the homeless by policy
(you can read DeBlasio's quotes on that too).

There's a general Zeitgeist against policing in general. Is it good, moral
social justice policy? I don't know, but I strongly suspect we care more about
equality of outcome (and statistics) than true justice.

Back to the cameras. There's a terrible irony here: the police union was
instrumental in pressuring to not renew them. Fear of being automated out of a
job? That's a strong HN topic if I ever saw one.

~~~
mcny
> They also stopped cracking down on turnstile jumpers, they became more lax
> with the homeless by policy (you can read DeBlasio's quotes on that too).

I am still waiting on Germany to make mass transit "free of cost" or paid for
completely by tax payers. I think we can learn a lot from their experiment.
What worries me here in the US is that everything costs so much more. I think
I will be salty until the day I die about the WTC Path terminal being 100%
over budget. I mean those FOUR BILLION DOLLARS I think would be better spent
toward the second avenue train for the MTA or the signal problem on the Newark
WTC Path bridge at Harrison (Disclaimer: I use neither of those two services
but I still think either of those would have been a better choice.) I don't
know the details but I think we ought to walk away from a bad deal at some
point. If we are sure we can control costs, I am all for a fully taxpayer
funded MTA subway and buses as well as a fully taxpayer funded Path train. I
hope people understand that $2.75 does not fully cover the cost of a bus ride.
I don't have any numbers but as someone mentioned here some time ago there is
a lot of taxpayer money already going into building and maintaining the roads.

> Back to the cameras. There's a terrible irony here: the police union was
> instrumental in pressuring to not renew them. Fear of being automated out of
> a job? That's a strong HN topic if I ever saw one.

The main thing is we have to be willing to cut costs. Everything I say is a
pipe dream until we can cut costs. This means automating as much as possible.
This includes train conductors, bus drivers, and yes, the police (and the
administrative staff at all these places).

Feels like a chicken and egg problem, right?

------
CPLX
Why is everyone treating this news like it's all or nothing ("oh noes they
want us to go back to medallion cabs!") rather than assessing it at face
value.

The number of TLC cars has skyrocketed recently. Which, in many important
ways, is a good thing. But this is a crowded city, literally _everything_ that
is at risk of runaway growth in this city is regulated, and for good reason,
all the way down to hot dog carts.

This city could rapidly be unlivable otherwise. The growth of TLC cars has
created obvious problems, they are often oblivious to their surroundings,
blocking streets while they stare at the screen trying to find a pickup,
creating localized congestion, etc.

I'm not sure if a numerical limit is the answer, or geographic restrictions,
or who knows, but what it sounds like is the city is starting to think about
it. Good.

~~~
nradov
A market based mechanism such as a variable congestion charge would probably
be a better way to restrict traffic.

~~~
dsr_
A market based mechanism such as a strong labor union of drivers would
probably be a better way to ensure livable wages.

~~~
notsofastbuddy
This seems orthogonal to the parent comment.

------
Daishiman
I'm sorry but everyone here is completely ignoring the congestion arguments,
which like it or not, are actually very valid, just as much as the race to the
bottom and long-term unsustainably low prices.

I dislike yellow cabs as much as the next guy but street space is definitely a
limited resource and not being regulated in a healthy manner.

~~~
jamiequint
They should charge a congestion fee then and let the market sort it out, as
opposed to artificially regulating one small source of cars (100k for hire
vehicles vs 2.7m vehicles entering the city per day). Why would the thought
even be to regulate 3% of cars vs. attacking the actual core problem (2.7m
cars/day). It makes absolutely no sense (aside from protectionism of the taxi
industry)

~~~
jdanp
Why not just let the market sort it out without a congestion fee? Surely
there's a point at which there is so much traffic that people will stop taking
uber/lyft and prefer to take the subway. Why should the government set an
arbitrary bar to that?

~~~
steego
> Why not just let the market sort it out without a congestion fee?

You realize that the roads are property right? They're owned by the city.
They're funded by the tax payers. Are you telling me they are obligated to
share their roads for free?

I simply cannot fathom how someone who is advocating a "free market" solution
doesn't understand the important role that property rights play in a market
system.

I realize you want free access to the roads, but who says you're entitled to
free access? You don't own the roads. I don't care if your tax dollars pay for
them, you're not entitled to drive on them just like you're not entitled to
roam around on a military base.

If _I_ owned the roads, you bet your ass I'd charge you an arm and a leg to
ride on my roads. I would do whatever I could to maximize revenue. This means
getting as many paying customers on my roads as possible.

Let's say I owned 10th, 6th and 3rd Avenues and series of cross streets. I
could be a conventional thinker and simply turn them into premium express
lanes for car services and the wealthy, but that's peanuts.

I could make a lot more money if I turned them into efficient roadways for a
fast bus service that's competitive with the MTA. I'd try to make my roadways
the fastest and most efficient way to get around the city so I could charge as
much as I could to make a profit. For less capital investment, I could get
better coverage of the city at a fraction of the price of the subway system.

Who gives a shit if cabbies and people from New Jersey can't drive on my road
for free? It's my road! Why should I let your crappy car drive on my roads
when I can pack far more customers in my driver-less buses?

If you want a free market solution, then let companies buy/lease the roads.
Your solution is not a free market solution. It gives away access to the roads
at the tax payer's expense, so taxi/car companies can leach off it. You've
socialized the costs and privatized the gains.

Stop telling tax payers what they can and can't do with their roads. It's
_their_ roads and they don't owe you shit.

~~~
freeone3000
Congestion fees are usually levied on all road users. The 2017 New York City
congestion charge would have been levied essentially as a bridge toll.

The problem is, this affects poor people disproportionately. Your starbucks
barista in Manhattan likely does not live in Manhattan. As a cool map by
citylab[1] shows, people in low-rent areas that work in Manhattan
overwhelmingly drive. Save some miracle involving housing prices, it's hard to
levy a consumption-based tax that isn't regressive based on income.

Really, the best solution here would be provide alternatives that suck less
than driving 2 hours in New York City traffic - then people would stop driving
all on their own.

[1] [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/09/manhattan-
com...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/09/manhattan-commutes-
port-authority-bus-terminal-capacity-study/501515/)

~~~
steego
You're reading way too much into that map if you think people in low rent
areas drive into Manhattan. Driving into Manhatten is slow, expensive and
finding free parking is a pain in the ass.

Most of the red dots on that map are in Bergen and Rockland county. The
concentration of red dots just above the George Washington bridge is where
Chris Rock lives. My friend's hockey teammate lives there too. He owns a hedge
fund and has his own hockey rink in his backyard.

I'm not saying everyone driving into the city is a millionaire, but they're
not working at Starbucks. You'll need a much better job to afford living in
Bergen and Rockland county.

> Really, the best solution here would be provide alternatives that suck less
> than driving 2 hours in New York City traffic - then people would stop
> driving all on their own.

We have those alternatives. They work pretty well, and the result has been
that most people don't drive into the city. This is old news here. You don't
have to sell people on not driving into the city, most abhor the idea. Look at
the map again. Most use trains and buses.

In the map, you'll sometimes see clusters of red squares where people normally
take buses. Some neighborhoods are more likely to use dollar vans and other
unofficial shuttles.

If you are taking the bus from New Jersey, you're not sitting in the same
traffic as the cars. In the morning, a long parade of buses flow into the Port
Authority terminal in their own lanes.

Like most people here, I'm all about expanding mass transit whether it be
trains or buses. People shouldn't have to rely on car services like taxis or
Uber/Lyft when buses and shuttles could be a fast & cheaper alternative.

The bottom line is metro areas should take control of their roads and put them
to more efficient use. Getting around on the subway is pretty good, but buses
could be a fast alternative if certain streets and avenues were marked transit
only.

~~~
et2o
I agree. It's extremely unlikely a large number of lower income individuals
commute by car into Manhattan. Parking alone in Manhattan often costs more
than minimum wage per hour and street parking wouldn't be reliable enough.

------
dr_
Whereas I'm sure they are useful in the outer boroughs, I feel ride hailing
apps are becoming less useful in Manhattan itself. It's not uncommon for me to
request Lyft or Uber, be told to expect a car in 5 minutes or so during which
time the driver gets stuck in traffic or is unable to make a turn somewhere
because of construction, etc - and that 5 minutes turns into 10 minutes or
longer. In the interim, several yellow cabs will have gone by and I'm left
wondering why I didn't just take a taxi.

I find the apps to be incredibly useful outside of Manhattan, and especially
when I'm traveling to other cities, but in Manhattan I've nearly stopped using
them.

------
forapurpose
Right now space on NYC streets is free, leading to a 'tragedy of the commons':
Businesses are each incentivized to overuse the resource because the costs,
congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, are externalities for them - Uber and
Lyft don't pay for them. With no cost to supply, it also leads to an
oversupply of drivers, which depresses their incomes (another reason I don't
like the 'contractor' model - the drivers take on all the risk and cost).

The obvious, market-based approach is that businesses bid for street capacity
(and greenhouse gas emission capacity, but that's a different political
issue), to shift the costs from an externality born by the public to the
people consuming the resource, the businesses. If I understand correctly, that
is how medallions work (it's funny how ideas suddenly make sense when you come
to them on your own). But maybe there are more modern solutions: Remember
Bloomberg proposed congestion pricing; I oppose that because it distributes a
public good, the public streets and transportation, to citizens unequally
based on ability to pay. However, if we think of congestion pricing as
dynamically priced medallions, that seems like a more efficient solution for
businesses who are consuming public goods. It also would seem to make the
market more open; rather than long term reservations of capacity (medallions),
anyone can buy in at any time; on the other hand, that might discourage long-
term investment.

~~~
JJMcJ
In fact, besides lobbying by wannabe monopolies, was the reason for medallions
- there were so many cabs in Manhattan that driving was becoming untenable. I
think Midtown has room for only 9,000 cars driving at any one time.

~~~
forapurpose
> I think Midtown has room for only 9,000 cars driving at any one time.

Very interesting way to frame the issue; thanks. Do you know where I could
read more about that?

------
closeparen
_Number of drivers_ is a nonsensical metric; there are huge variations in
activity between drivers and over time. Trips is better, but it should really
be something like hours or miles.

~~~
TuringNYC
True. Also, with the Uber economy, numerous drivers are not full time drivers,
they are fractional time only. Also, in some cases, more drivers are good --
ever try to catch a yellow cab at 2am? What are the chances one will happen to
pass by?...but with Uber I can find one at almost any time of night. I spoke
to some Uber drivers who only drive at night. Before, it wasnt worth it
because the thin supply couldnt meet the thin demand over a vast region.
Beaconing solved the problem.

------
ttul
Vancouver is going to cap Uber at the outset. The taxi industry here is highly
concentrated within eight key electoral ridings that you have to win in order
to take a majority in provincial political. It’s the most powerful taxi
industry in the world.

NYC: we feel your pain, but spare us a thought as we suffer without any Uber
at all, and only the dimmest prospect of ever having Uber, let alone an
adequate number of cabs.

------
j-c-hewitt
This is good news if you hate people who live in NYC and want them to suffer!

------
pteredactyl
More 'sound good' politics at play here.

When will the state start to focus on fixing problems instead of regulating
solutions?

------
pteredactyl
No thanks. Why should the state decide this?

There's already a basic mechanism already in place. It's called supply and
demand.

------
Simulacra
When a corrupt system is gasping for breath, they will do anything to hang on.

------
yrafkjkhj
Government quotas! That'll solve the problem.

------
troydavis
As other commenters noted, medallions were (are) intended as an exclusive
license to pick up street fares/hails. For many years before Uber existed, a
separate class of service called "for-hire vehicles" (FHVs), commonly known as
black cars or Town Cars, existed and doesn't seem to have been part of the
medallion exclusivity (at least in NYC).

Here's the closest I could find to a primary source documenting the difference
between a medallion and a black car in NYC:
[http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/industry/for_hire.shtml](http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/industry/for_hire.shtml)
(see related links from that page).

At least based on what I can find on the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission site,
the TLC never required that FHVs use a central base/dispatch, and even
clarified in 2015 that a central dispatch/base was not required
([http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/newly_passed_rule_...](http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/newly_passed_rule_fhv_dispatch.pdf)).

If this assessment is accurate, that is (a) medallion owners never had
exclusivity for prearranged rides and (b) a central base isn't required, then
as soon as smartphones were everywhere (and thus almost all rides were easier
to prearrange in an app), medallion demand was eventually going to drop.
Medallion owners didn't realize that they legitimately competed with any new
methods of prearranging a ride, including smartphone apps -- their competition
wasn't black cars, it was prearranged rides. If Uber hadn't created the
market, a black car operator probably would have eventually.

Presumably they'd have started with existing FHV drivers (as Uber did when it
was UberCab), but the NYC FHV requirements are straightforward enough that
they could have recruited and licensed new drivers as demand grew
([https://nyc.drivewithvia.com/get-a-tlc-fhv-
license/](https://nyc.drivewithvia.com/get-a-tlc-fhv-license/),
[https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/get-license-drive-taxi-
or-...](https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/get-license-drive-taxi-or-livery-
vehicle)).

(And to play out the medallion exclusivity: if a new, improved method of ride
hailing was created, medallion owners would have exclusively benefited. If
you've seen a taxi line/taxi hub serving multiple hotels in a downtown
business district, one could call that an innovation which made hailing more
competitive. Imagine if taxis had installed tiny kiosks with taxi call buttons
and self-service credit card readers throughout the city, and guaranteed a
taxi would be there in 2 minutes after a fare swiped.)

