In Plain Sight: The Taxis of New York City

"area man" (hurrburgring) 09/10/2013 at 12:47 • Filed to: In Plain Sight, Taxi, Taxi of Tomorrow, Crown Victoria

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Welcome back to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , where we're doing something a little different this week. Pop quiz, hotshot - how many taxi cabs are there in New York City? If you guessed a shit-ton, well, read on to claim your prize (hint: it's KNOWLEDGE).

There are few cars and places so inextricably linked as New York City and the yellow taxi. For decades, massive sedans sporting that iconic paint job and a little numbered light bolted to the roof have flooded the streets, ferrying tourists and New Yorkers alike. You hear complaints all the time – they’re dirty, the drivers are rude/slow/smelly/on a cell phone, traffic is a bitch, and let’s not even talk about !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! – but really, this wouldn’t be New York without those 13,000+ yellow cabs.

The history of taxis in this city can be traced directly to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , when the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company began running 12 electric hansom cabs - a small fleet that was soon expanded to over 100 (Yes, horse-drawn cabs existed long before that, but this isn’t horselopnik). These crude, unwieldy contraptions are responsible for both the first speeding ticket AND the first motor vehicle accident death in the United States. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Thankfully, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! destroyed hundreds of the damn things and put the company out of business, ending the scourge of electric cabs before they could fully take over. Gas-powered cars were introduced, and as automobile manufacturing took off in this country, so too did the number of cabs on the streets. By the 1930s, the number of taxis on the streets rose to as many as 30,000 as more people tried to make a living driving a cab during the Great Depression. In response to this rapid growth, then-Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia (of airport fame) introduced !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which restricted the number of licenses that were required to legally operate a taxi in the city to around 16,000.

But with the market artificially constricted like that, illegal taxi services started to crop up. This really took off during the social unrest of the 1960s, when urban decay and rising crime made many official drivers unwilling to drive into poor and troubled neighborhoods, creating !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for the bootleg cabs. In response to the growing competition, the city ordered that all official cabs with medallions should be painted yellow so they’d be more recognizable. Why yellow? It had become the industry standard across the country since John Hertz (of Hertz rent-a-car) founded the Yellow Cab Company back in 1915 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that suggested yellow-red was the most visible color from a distance.

Of course, the Checker Taxi/Marathon A1 is the most recognizable of the yellow cabs, but in reality many different vehicles have donned that noble coat and been thrashed to death in a few short years over the last half century. More recently, and especially since the end of the Chevy Caprice in the mid-90s, the Ford Crown Victoria has become the iconic taxi. In reality though, the taxi ecosystem is surprisingly diverse. The Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) actually has a list of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that fleet owners are legally allowed to paint that magic yellow and convert into a taxi – 23 models total, spanning three years (taxis are forced into retirement after a set number of years unless the fleet owner can prove it can’t afford to replace it). There are a few surprises on there that will never hit the streets, while others actually have, as you’ll find out over the next few days (What? Read on, friendo!).

But with the continual rise in fuel prices and production of the Crown Victoria ceasing more than a year ago, change is coming, and change is not good, at least to people like us who like interesting cars. Mayor Michael Nanny Bloomberg decreed a few years ago this craziness must end, that there !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! – ironically, not the Highlander. The city held a battle royale between multiple manufacturers, narrowing it down to three – the Nissan SoccerMom, the Ford Transit Connect, and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! – and allowed the public to voice their opinions !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Of course, everyone wanted the Karsan, but sudden “concerns” over the company’s ability to carry out the plan made Bloomberg regret giving the people a voice, and he decided we’d be better off with a god damn minivan. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

And though certain advocates have tried to stop the impending taxipocalypse by arguing the Nissan’s lack of total wheelchair accessibility and a hybrid option violates certain city and state laws, the day when the streets are flooded by slope-faced toasters draws near. It’s a melancholy time in the Big Apple, let me tell you.

But we can’t just let this era peter out, fade slowly into the rising tide of identical vans. We must celebrate it! And while there’s no shortage of flickr albums of all the different taxi models, I’ve yet to find anything in writing about how each one performs its duties and represents the history of yellow cabs here.

So over the next couple days I’ll be bringing you a two-part guide to all the cars currently in service on these mean streets. Consider it a primer to the Wild West of New York City’s taxis; which, like the real West, will end sooner than we can even imagine.

Forgetful > area man 09/10/2013 at 11:00

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Pop quiz, hotshot - how many taxi cabs are there in New York City? If you guessed a shit-ton, well, read on to claim your prize.

Damn. I guessed 'fuck-load'. I hate pop-quizzes.

area man > Forgetful 09/10/2013 at 11:05

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Well now Dennis Hopper is going to come after you.

GhostZ > area man 09/10/2013 at 12:55

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Thankfully, a garage fire in 1907 destroyed hundreds of the damn things and put the company out of business, ending the scourge of electric cabs before they could fully take over.

Clearly some time-travelling jalop did this.

area man > GhostZ 09/10/2013 at 12:57

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IT WAS ME HAHAHA

[twirls moustache]

FCV-8311 > area man 09/10/2013 at 21:08

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Remember; crazy, not stupid!

 > area man 09/10/2013 at 21:16

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I'll just shoot the hostage.

Spasoje > area man 09/10/2013 at 21:36

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taxis are forced into retirement after a set number of years unless the fleet owner can prove it can’t afford to replace it

I don't mean to sound like a twat, but isn't it 3 years for fleet cabs and 5 years for owner-operator cabs? (i.e. nothing to do with lack of funds for a new cab)

area man > Spasoje 09/10/2013 at 21:49

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There's a three-year rule on fleet vehicles, but each owner operated cab has a different number of years allowed depending on the model. It ranges from 3 to 7. And owners are allowed to apply for a hardship extension if they can prove economic distress: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/…

It's for independent medallion+car owners or long-term fleet drivers who have purchased the car but not the medallion.

Spasoje > area man 09/10/2013 at 23:45

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Good info. Thanks!

While we're here, there's something else that's been picking at my brain: can somebody buy a cab that's still tied to a medallion without also buying the medallion?

area man > Spasoje 09/11/2013 at 08:31

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No problem! And yeah, drivers who have been at it for a long time will often purchase the cab they drive while the fleet owner still possesses the medallion. It works out for both parties because the fleet no longer has to pay for repairs to that particular vehicle, and the cabbie brings his lease fees down immensely. It's actually pretty common because medallions are prohibitively expensive (hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Spasoje > area man 09/11/2013 at 16:43

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In that case, would the cab still have a lien on it when the fleet owner owns the medallion and the driver the cab?

area man > Spasoje 09/11/2013 at 16:55

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Honestly not sure.

gtr225 > area man 09/12/2013 at 14:38

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"Production of the Nissan NV200 Taxi – New York's "Taxi of Tomorrow" – is now underway at the company's assembly plant in Cuernavaca, Mexico." Really?

area man > gtr225 09/12/2013 at 15:01

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That's the future right there.

gtr225 > area man 09/16/2013 at 20:06

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If not China, it's made in Mexico