Owners of New York City's taxi "medallions" filed a lawsuit (PDF) against city regulators today, saying their business has been devastated by the decision to allow companies like Uber to compete using "E-hail" services.
A medallion is required to operate a New York City yellow taxicab, the only type of vehicle allowed to accept passengers who hail cabs on the street. Until recently, those medallions could sell for over $1 million. Companies like White & Blue Group, one of the plaintiffs in the case, managed fleets of licensed taxicabs by leasing out the medallions.
According to the suit, White & Blue Group, which manages the largest fleet of leased taxicabs in New York, "has seen its monthly leasing income drop as much as 50% in the past year," and has been forced to idle as much as 20 percent of its fleet each day. The complaint was filed today and reported earlier by Reuters.
Extortionists crying about losing money is about the saddest sight in the world.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Daiv on Friday November 20 2015, @01:12PM
Planet Money did a really good story on NY cab medallions a while ago: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/31/428157211/episode-643-the-taxi-king [npr.org]
Here's what NY should do to keep the value of medallions artificially inflated, which is what these medallion owners seem to want. Revoke 30% of the medallions out there. Then, the resource will be more scarce, thus inflating it's value while reducing traffic!! Win-win-win. No downsides!!
NO DOWNSIDES!!!