Cab riders were handed two big courtroom wins yesterday.
The bigger triumph came in a case challenging City Hall’s plan to let riders, for the first time, legally flag down up to 18,000 livery drivers and “gypsy cabs” in the outer boroughs and Upper Manhattan. The suit had also sought to stop the city from adding 2,000 yellow cabs, with corresponding medallion sales bringing in $1 billion for City Hall. In shooting down the challenge, the state’s top court gave the city a green light on both measures.
A second, unrelated court ruling lifts a temporary restraining order that blocked plans to let riders hail cabs via smartphone apps. Though that won’t end the litigation, it will let the city proceed with its plans.
But here’s the question: Why is the city involved in all this litigation in the first place?
“In New York City in 2013, common sense and the free market say that you should be able to use your smartphone to get a cab,” said Mayor Bloomberg, in praising the ruling on the phones. But New York has no free market at all when it comes to taxis.
Let’s face it: The industry is a decades-old cartel created and managed by City Hall. Indeed, the city has a whole bureaucracy dedicated solely to overseeing car service in New York. It regulates nearly everything about a taxi ride, from the number of yellow cabs to who can pick up which passengers where and for how much. Bureaucrats even dictate the style of car (the Bloomberg folks call their newest model “the Taxi of Tomorrow”; that, too, has been hit with a court challenge).
We know it may be difficult — politically, logistically, financially, legally — to restore a working market here for the taxi industry in a fair way. But as we noted recently, there are ways to do this, such as by buying back medallions from owners.
Bloomberg’s right that in a free market “you should be able to use your smartphone to hail a cab.” You should also be able to raise your hand and have anyone at all who wants to give you a lift do so legally — at whatever rate is agreed upon.
Riders will certainly benefit from these two rulings, which open the door to more cabs and a new way to hail them. But so long as City Hall remains in the driver’s seat, New Yorkers will never have the taxi service a great city deserves.