DC Cab Rider

NY Cabbies on Strike

Hey, actual news on this blog. I don't do that much LOL. Anyhow, apparently many of NYC's cabbies have started a two-day strike. Why? Well the CNN brief piece played it like this - Bloomburg gave the cabbies a raise a while back, and in exchange they were to upgrade their cabs technologically-speaking. Village Voice offers options for needy riders and Newsday gives us drivers' views about their strike against GPS technology and credit card machines:

"The group has met with the mayor's office and the taxi commission to voice concerns, including that the GPS technology unfairly tracks cabbies and includes credit card machines that will charge the drivers more than $1,000 yearly, Desai said. Some drivers also say the machines are unreliable and will cut into their income. Fare rates enacted in 2004 bumped the initial cost of a ride from $2 to $2.50 and added an extra $1 during the evening rush, among other increases. The TLC expected the rate hike to increase drivers' after-expenses salaries to at least $13 to $20 per hour, from between $9 and $17."

A site called David Havslaib's Jossip has an amusing piece, Taxi Strike Mainly Affects High Maintenance Women, Jerks On Wall Street:

"Can you survive two days without being able to stick up your hand and scream “TAXI!” in the dirty and overcrowded recesses of midtown? Most likely! Fortunately, however, you won’t really have to since the “strike” only seems to have moderately diminished (rather than eliminated) the presence of yellow cabs circling around Manhattan."

posted by DC Cab Rider @ 9:56 AM