A violist with the NJ Symphony Orchestra was very lucky when the Taxi and Limousine Commission was able to find the $40,000 viola she left in a cab. Ann Roggen didn't take a receipt, but the TLC used GPS to figure out which cab had driven her from Fairway back to her Upper West Side apartment on Thursday. The TLC contacted driver Deniz Getting, but the night-shift driver was sleeping when the TLC sent messages......

Cursing on the job is a hazard for not just TV newscasters. One cabbie was fined for his swears at another cabbie! The Post reports that Zbigniew Sobczak got hit with a $1,000 fine after his run-in with fellow hack Malik Rizwan. Sobczak allegedly cut off Rizwan, who honked for 10 seconds, and then got out of his cab, yelling, "What the f---? You have problem? Why you beeping?" Rizwan responded with "You f---! You......

Photograph of a Ford Escape taxi by S.D. on Flickr With the city's initiative to help green the taxi fleet six months old, the NY Times spoke to the drivers of hybrid cabs to the get the skinny on how well it's been working out. Currently, only 7.8% of the 13,000 city taxis are hybrids. Most are Ford Escapes, and one owner of his Escape cab, Gerard Cherizol, said he pays only $20/day on......

Downtown Manhattan residents have heard enough from honking cabs, and one Community Board is asking the Taxi & Limousine Commission to do something about the racket. Community Board 3, which represents the area of Manhattan containing the East Village, Lower East Side, and Chinatown, voted this week to formally request that the T&LC require devices to be installed in cabs that will visually identify them as horn abusers. Currently, police have to audibly witness a......

The father who wanted to give up his 6-month-old baby out of desperation has told the police he wants to surrender. Carlos Rodas, 27, was overwhelmed when his 14-year-old girlfriend and the mother of the baby left him to care for their daughter, so he, his sister, and her boyfriend, a livery cab driver, worked out a plan for the driver to leave the baby at a Queens fire house. The story of the......

A 6-7 month old baby girl, strapped in a car seat, was left in the backseat of a livery cab this morning. Tel-A-Car driver Klever Sailema picked up a man and the baby around 9:45AM this morning at 106th Street and Northern Boulevard in Queens. When the cab got to 83rd and Northern, the man said he needed to make a call and left the car. Only he crossed "the street to a pay phone......

Mayor Bloomberg has announced a plan that will require better fuel efficiency for city's TLC-run black cars; the change is part of the broader PlaNYC initiative and follows in the tread marks of the new hybrid yellow cabs. Emissions will be halved for the fleet of 10,000 black cars, which currently release 272,000 tons of CO2 equivalents annually, making up 2% of the City's transportation related emissions. The fleet is a part of the Taxi......

After announcing an undercover program to crackdown on bad cabbie behavior a few weeks ago, the Taxi and Limousine Commission says it already sees improvement. One of the biggest complains had been taxi drivers refusing to accept credit cards from driver. Even though driers with credit card payment systems are required to accept credit card payment, many are unhappy they have to pay a 5% handling fee per credit card transaction (that cost is not......

Photo by kerfuffle & zeitgeist. An East Village woman says she was punched in the face by an unhinged cabbie when she insisted on using the taxi’s credit card machine to pay her fare. Tamara Perez had arrived outside her apartment when she realized she was out of cash, so she told the driver she’d be paying with plastic using the self-automated card reader installed in the back. Apparently, the hack couldn’t hack it,......

Photograph of cab driver in Times Square by nschaden on Flickr The Taxi and Limousine Commission has announced that it and the NYPD will be embarking on an undercover program to crackdown on bad cabbie behavior. Cabbies are supposed to let passengers pay with credit cards, not to mention not be rude and chatting on a cell phone during the ride, but the TLC says they hear otherwise. The program is named "Operation Secret......

Last week we learned that all New York taxis will soon be held to higher fuel efficiency standards; starting next October new cabs must get at least 25 miles per gallon. But the cab changes don’t stop there – in addition to upcoming GPS and touch-screen video technology, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is considering selling an unlimited card for cab riders, which may feature “fare integration” with buses and subways. Over half the city’s......

The New York Times recently dispatched no fewer than five reporters to the streets of the city in order to uncover the latest piece of breaking news: cab drivers can be rude and will attempt to take financial advantage of you if given the opportunity. The investigation uncovered a citywide fleet of yellow taxis in which just over half are compliant in installing credit card readers, and many that did have them falsely told passengers......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission has made it official: Cabs purchased after October 1, 2008 must get at least 25 miles per gallon. Then, after fall of 2009, newly purchased cabs must get at least 30 miles per gallon. As the AP puts it, this means "taxi fleet owners, who must replace their cabs every three to five years, will probably be forced to buy fuel-efficient hybrids, which run partly on electricity." The Taxicab Board......

We explained that many NYC taxi cabs are covered with flowery decals as part of Garden in Transit, a mobile public art project to celebrate the taxicab's 100th anniversary. The program is voluntary amongst taxi cab drivers, which is why not all cabs are decorated. Now it turns out that some of reluctance to go floral is because cab drivers think the designs are affiliated with the Taxi and Limousine Commission. The Post reports......

The Taxi Workers Alliance announced plans for a second taxi strike on October 22. Last month, members of the TWA taxi union participated in a two-day strike to protest new technology, including GPS and credit card payment systems, in cabs. Many drivers feel the technology is unproven and useless (for one, if it breaks down, then the entire meter breaks down), while the Taxi and Limousine Commission says that the new technology benefits everyone......

Here we are - day two of the taxi strike by a group of taxi drivers upset with the changes that the Taxi and Limousine Commission has enacted. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which organized the strike, claimed that 90% of all drivers were on strike yesterday, but Mayor Bloomberg contradicted that claim, saying the strike had a "limited impact, if at all." To combat the strike, the city has added buses and......

Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city was prepared for the possible two-day taxi strike that some taxi driver groups have threatened for tomorrow morning, starting at 5AM. About 7,000 of the city's 44,000 taxi drivers (there are about 13,000 cabs in total) have reportedly promised to strike over new technology that the Taxi and Limousine Commission wants to install in all cabs. Some drivers' issues with the technology, which includes GPS tracking systems and......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: America at a Crossroads: Anti-Americans (A Hate/Love Relationship) (Monday, 10:00 P.M., WNET 13) A look at the Europeans love/hate relationship with the United States. Live From New York: The First 5 Years of Saturday Night Live (Tuesday, 8:00 P.M., WNBC 4) Two hours of classic SNL sketches and interviews with the performers who created them in this rebroadcast of this retrospective. Wide Angle: The Dying Fields (Tuesday,......

If you rely on taxis, you may want to adjust your transportation plans: The Taxi Workers Alliance says that drivers it represents will strike on September 5 and 6 to protest the Taxi and Limousine Commission's decision to add GPS systems to all yellow cabs. But then the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, another advocacy group, said that there would be no strike (with spokesman Fernando Mateo saying, "Read my lips: There......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: The Star Jones Show (Monday, 3:00 p.m., CourTV) Star Jones returns to the talk show racket with her own talk show focusing on pop culture, crime and law. Secrets of New York - New York Connections: The Bridges of New York (Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., WNYE 25) In light of recent events, this look at the secrets of the city's bridges should be a must watch. God's Warriors......

City Council member Gale Brewer criticized the Taxi and Limousine Commission's disorganized lost and found process and urged the TLC to make some changes. Brewer said, "A New Yorker misfortunate enough to lose her property in a taxi is more likely to find overwhelmed hotlines and contradictory instructions than she is to recover her missing possession. The TLC procedure is rarely followed and is hopeless without a receipt. The TLC’s system does not work, if......

The New York Post has a story today on the seizure of an old checkered cab from its owner, who uses it to give free rides to people around the city. 80-year-old Ray Kottner had his hack seized when Taxi and Limousine Commission investigators spotted him accepting a $10 gratuity from a grateful rider. Kottner's been driving a cab for 64 years but decided to quit "working for the man" a few years ago. A......

Yesterday in Bed-Stuy, the NYPD arrested a man accused of robbing eight cabbies in a two week period. Earl Evans, whose driver's license said he was from Nashville, is described as a "hulking country bumpkin" by the Daily News. For good reason too - his license said he's 6-foot-3 and 320 pounds. As if his size wasn't intimidating for the cab drivers he robbed, he also had a very realistic looking 9mm Glock. Evans would......

Come October, your experience in the backseat of a taxi could be a little more high-tech. The Taxi & Limousine Commission unanimously approved touch-screen "passenger information monitors" for all 13,000 yellow cabs on the streets. In addition to showing information, entertainment, and advertising, these monitors will show a map of the taxi's current location using GPS. The new systems would also accept credit card payments. Some cab drivers expressed their opposition to the systems,......

As the City Council debated a bill that would open 10 taxi stands in the outer boroughs, the Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Matthew Daus said cabbies wouldn't be interested. Daus says that only 8% of cab rides outside of Manhattan are for non-airport destinations. In fact, his words were actually: "When there's an ocean of water to drink in Manhattan, why would they go for a puddle in the outer reaches of the city?"......

We knew it! The NY Sun reports that many cab drivers chat on party lines with other taxi drivers during the shifts. What do hacks discuss on party lines? Traffic, have group prayers, try to help out other drivers who may need help. Party lines are also most popular with South Asians and Russians, in their native languages. And while the TLC bans any cellphone usage (even hands-free) by cabbies, transportation consultant Bruce Schaller......

The days of the checkered cab are long gone. Last month, the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) announced its vision of the future: a high-tech fleet of taxis that will include touch-screen monitors, text-messaging capability, and a global positioning system. On Thursday, the City Council discussed the details of a plan that would make this vision a reality for the city’s 13,000 taxis, inciting protest from taxi drivers who claim these e-amenities would decrease profits......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission revealed new features for taxis of tomorrow, and Gothamist is in love with many of them. For starters, since the taxis will have GPS tracking, when if you lose something in a cab and don't have a medallion number, if you call the helpline, the TLC will try to track the cab, based on where you were dropped off. Brilliant! (But you should still collect a receipt, because that has......

Self-styled "Playboy Centerfold & Celebrity Author" Stephanie Adams (left) and her lawyer Sanford Rubenstein held a press conference yesterday announcing her lawsuit against a taxi driver, the NYPD and the City of New York. Adams claims "that officers roughed her up based on the cabbie's false accusation that she was armed and dangerous." Maybe you remember? The city "had no immediate response" to the allegations. Cabby Eric Darko, who had his license suspended after......

The police are looking for a man in his 20 suspected of a series of livery cab holdups. Since August 5, the suspect is believed to have robbed at least six cabs by threatening cabbies with a knife and demanding their money. All of the incidents have taken place in the Bronx up through last Thursday. No major injuries have occured during the robberies, though amNew York reports that the last cabby did "scuffle" with......