Representatives of Uber, Lyft and yellow taxi drivers gathered at City Hall to demand measures against saturation of the industry and exemptions from paying the congestion fee.
They demand that the municipal government stop issuing new plates to electric vehicles.
José Parada, who has been driving a yellow taxi for 40 years, says this will hurt him.
“Less work and more traffic already affects us enough. Now everyone is going to want to buy electric cars. Now we have more than 100,000 Uber and Lyft cars and where are they going to put more cars?
In 2018, the municipal government passed a law to limit the number of license plates for drivers of apps like Uber and Lyft in the city.
But members of the city’s Taxi Drivers Alliance say that three weeks ago the Adams administration suddenly lifted the cap on the number of electric vehicles. This, as part of the “Green Rides” initiative that seeks to make all vehicles used by applications such as Uber and Lyft electric by 2030.
Something that according to them will saturate the industry even more.
“If more and more cars enter without limit, that means that everyone will earn less,” says Gabriel Starchota, organizer of the Taxi Drivers Alliance.
Last week, the taxi drivers union managed, through a lawsuit, to apply a temporary restriction to prevent TLC from processing new license plate applications.
“Yes we won this temporary legal victory but now we need a political solution for all drivers.”
Members of the Taxi Drivers Alliance suggest to the city that the new plates be assigned to current Uber and Lyft drivers who currently rent vehicles and want to become electric car owners.
In addition, they ask that the municipal government pass a law to prevent companies like Uber and Lyft from permanently deactivating drivers’ accounts. Just like what happened to Daniel Díaz.
“You feel the anger, how is it possible that they take away your job? Because that is a way of taking away your job, that is what makes you angry as a taxi driver, as a worker because you have a family, you have children to support.”
And in the case of deactivation, they give 14 days prior notification and the right to request information about why they were deactivated.
