MTA eyes bus route for $queezed hacks
Taxi and for-hire vehicle drivers put out of work by Manhattan congestion pricing could be given special preference for jobs as MTA bus drivers, transit officials said.
Several pricing schemes under consideration for the congestion tolls would dent revenues in the immigrant-dominated for-hire industry, according to the MTA’s preliminary environmental review released this month.
The scenarios range from exempting for-hire cars completely to charging them $9 to $23 for every trip inside the Central Business District, which would cover 60th Street and all the roadways south of it.
Closing the gap
To plug the hole that might affect driver wages, transit officials promised to “connect drivers experiencing job insecurity with a direct pathway to licensing, training and job placement with MTA or its affiliated vendors at no cost to the drivers.”
But industry hacks have already paid a $2.75-per-ride congestion charge since 2019 — and want to be exempted from the new fees entirely.
“Who is going to take a ride for hire with an extra $9 to $23 on the fare?” New York Taxi Workers Alliance Executive Director Bhairavi Desai told The Post. “They don’t give a damn about the human cost on a bunch of immigrants is what it comes down to.”
The MTA’s review studied six toll scenarios with different pricing schemes. Each scenario charges regular drivers just once per day, while taxis and for-hire vehicles are variously charged one to three times per day or not at all.
Officials believe cabbies would be put out of work under scenarios in which they are charged more than once per day. For the environmental review, the MTA studied exempting taxi cabs from the toll entirely, but did not study scenarios in which app-based forhire vehicles or black-car liveries would be exempted.
Taxi analyst Bruce Schaller, who helped craft then-Mayor Michael Bloom berg’ s failed congestion pricing proposal in 2007 and 2008, warned that charging different amounts for different types of forhire cars could create unfair advantages — and push private-car drivers into cabs, erasing the toll’s impact on traffic.
“You don’t want to slam passengers in one industry segment and let someone else go off without paying anything,” Schaller said.
“You don’t want people to be paying $20 if they drive their own car and nothing if they use a cab. I think there should be some additional charge that is commensurate with what the private driver is going to end up paying.”
Former Taxi and Limousine Commission Chair Matt Daus said cabs are in a league of their own from other vehicles — and should be treated as such. Daus suggested the MTA exempt “shared rides” and invest money into providing for-hire vehicles for “last mile” trips in so-called transit deserts.
“They are more efficient than a car,” Daus said of for-hire vehicles. “A car comes into the city, they go into a garage or they circle around looking for parking.”
“Jobs will be lost, passengers will be lost. You’re missing an opportunity to transport multiple people, as opposed to people taking their cars in.”