Blas: We won’t a$$ist un-appy cab owners

Mayor de Blasio said Friday he won’t bail out the yellow-cab industry — even as the value of cityissued taxi medallions is plummeting because of competition from Uber and other ride apps.

“I think you will see some leveling off [of the market] over time, and that could strengthen the medallion values again, but I am not ready to commit to reversing course,” de Blasio said on his weekly WNYC radio show.

“I also think there were free-market dynamics that created an opening for Lyft, Uber and others, and the taxi industry has to learn from that . . . in every way possible.”

Hizzoner was responding to a question from a Manhattan cabby who said he bought his medallion from the city in 2014 and is having a hard time making payments.

The cabby said he and many others put down 10 percent of the purchase price and financed the rest through a bank or credit union.

The price of medallions peaked in 2014, with some going for as much as $1.3 million.

But there were warning signs even then.

Fifty-eight prospective buyers who bid a combined $47 million in the 2014 city auction of medallions ended up backing out.

Now, some medallions are being dumped for as little as $250,000.

The cabby who spoke to the mayor identified himself as Suresh and pleaded for the city to intervene.

But de Blasio said that isn’t in the cards.

Without explaining how, the mayor expressed confidence that the medallion market would rebound.

“They still have a lot of intrinsic value because yellow cabs are still a part of how people get around in a growing city,” he said. “I think it is too early to say where this is going in the long haul.

“The more the yellow-cab industry is competitive and updates itself, the better off it will be, and what we are seeing is, even now with so much availability of the other types of services, there is still a major market for yellow cabs.

“We will certainly be looking at the kind of adjustments we have to make, but I think you can see a different reality in the future where the yellow cab industry is strengthened over time.”

Bloomberg News reported this week that numerous yellow-cab medallion owners in the Big Apple are in financial distress.

The news service said that BankUnited told investors in November that 59 percent of its loans secured by taxi medallions were under water — and that 95 percent of those were in New York City.