We just can’t hack it anymore

Last week, as we were mourning four professional drivers who were pushed to suicide in the past four months, Albany passed a surcharge on the very same New Yorkers who are facing financial hardship like never before.

A new fee tacked onto fares below 96th St. will cost $2.50 per yellow cab ride and $2.75 for rides with Uber, Lyft and other for-hire vehicle services.

The congestion pricing surcharge is a slap in the face to a workforce in crisis. Drivers like me will lose business — the goal of the surcharge — and lose tip money we rely on to make ends meet in these difficult times.

I started driving a yellow cab more than 30 years ago — before I married and raised six kids in this city. My oldest is now 28. The mother of my children, Ranjeet, is also a professional driver; she drives for Uber.

In all the years I’ve been driving, I have never had a customer complaint with the Taxi and Limousine Commission or a license suspension. I have served about a quarter-million people. But my income has dropped to poverty level.

I haven’t had a day off since 2013. Every day, I wake up around 2 p.m., then I drive my yellow taxi from 4 p.m. to around 6 a.m. I try to get about seven hours of sleep a night, which leaves me with precious few hours of free time a day.

Of the four recent driver suicides, one, Douglas Schifter, was a black car driver; two were livery drivers in the Bronx, Danilo Corporan Castillo and Alfredo Perez, and the most recent, Nicanor Ochisor, was a yellow cab owner-driver like me.

This attack on our incomes comes at a time when streets are packed with so many vehicles than none of us can earn a living anymore. Congestion is a problem because the city refuses to regulate corporate bullies like Uber and Lyft and cap the number of vehicles they can dump onto our streets.

This surcharge is particularly egregious for yellow cab drivers, who have already contributed close to $1 billion toward the Metropolitan Transportation Authority since 2009. Yellow and green cabs pay a 50-cent surcharge to the MTA on each ride. In one year alone, we added $95 million to the MTA’s income through that surcharge.

On top of the existing surcharge, yellow cab lease drivers pay a sales tax of $4.77 a shift; that’s also earmarked for the MTA.

I’ve given close to 10% of my income since 2009 to support the MTA. Even when the credit card company takes 5% out of my fare, I pay the full amount out of pocket to keep the subways and buses running.

Meanwhile, Uber spent $100,000 lobbying crooked politicians in the statehouse for this version of the surcharge. Why? Because it only tacks on 75 cents per UberPool passenger.

UberPool, Via and Lyft Line — all ridesharing services — are in direct competition with the MTA. They pull passengers off public transit and put them in cars, taking away funds the MTA needs and slowing down buses.

This is patently unfair. Yellow cab medallions are regulated by the Taxi and Limousine Commission and capped at 13,600 — unlike Uber and Lyft, which can drown us in unlimited number of vehicles, choking traffic.

Owning my own medallion was supposed to give me economic security. No longer would I have to lease a medallion from a fleet owner. And like a house, my medallion was an asset that was intended to help support my family and allow me to retire with dignity.

But the city broke its promise to me and the other drivers who’ve served New York.

When the city went from about 50,000 total taxi and for-hire vehicles to around 100,000, I watched my income plummet. Traffic has ground to a halt. Ranjeet’s income as an Uber driver also plummeted.

My health has worsened as I’ve had to work longer hours, too. I am diabetic, and I now have less time to take care of my well-being. This surcharge will only make things harder.

The real solution — the one that will require politicians to stand up to these Wall-Street-backed corporations — is to put a cap on the number of vehicles on city streets, not keep taking more money out of drivers’ pockets.

The city can cap the total number of cars now, not add new ones as drivers leave, then require the TLC to watch over driver incomes, customer wait times, and congestion. And let those factors not Wall Street greed determine how many cars are needed to protect professional drivers and the New Yorkers we serve.

It’s easy to make this problem out to be yellow cab drivers versus Uber drivers, but as my own family can attest, we are all suffering now.