Results tagged “tlccommissionermatthewdaus”

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 and fled."

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.

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.

Some the taxi fare increase may be afoot, as the Taxi and Limousine Commission is discussing a possible fare increase. The last increase was in 2004 - you can see the changes in this post - and TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus says that the agency wants to institute "moderate increases" every few years. The biggest change would be to increase the fare for when a taxi idles in traffic; right now, drivers charge 20 cents per minute, but it could be doubled to 40 cents per waiting minute. The Daily News says that a 2.8 mile ride with five minutes of waiting time would "translate into a fare increase of about $1," with the total being $9.65. The hourly waiting time works out to $12/hour currently, which really isn't that much when you think about the gas and upkeep costs drivers have to deal with.

- While injury rates are lower for taxi passengers than for occupants of other vehicles, the severity of injury is greater for those passengers who are injured in a taxicab. Low rates of seat belt use and the presence of the safety partition account for this disparity.Definitely buckle up when you're a cab - we know someone sitting in the back of a cab when it was rear ended and her face was seriously bruised and needed plastic surgery. The city's Taxi and Limousine Commission did not ask for the study, but the NY Times reports they were "happy to receive it," with TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus saying, "This is one of the most important studies we've seen."

Members of one of the city's largest taxi driver's union are saying they'll strike if the Taxi and Limousine Commission doesn't raise fares and if the TLC installs GPS into the cabs. The union says the fare hike is necessary because of rising gas prices (they'd like a surcharge if gas prices are above $2). Newsday notes that neither Mayor Bloomberg or Fernando Ferrer have weighed in on the matter, and perhaps that's because TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus hasn't yet decided whether or not to "support or reject" the surcharge. Daus did say the TLC would "move forward" with installing GPS into cabs, which some union members feel will violate their civil liberties; the TLC wants to use GPS to direct cab drivers to areas where there are lots of customers waiting for cabs (Gothamist thought that's what the CB radios were for!). When Gothamist ask a cab driver if the last round of surcharges were helpful, he was dismissive. He did, however, warn us that we should never cross the street immediately when the light turns red for traffic, because many cabs have terrible brakes and we might get hit.

The Design Trust for Public Space is working with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to see new designs for taxi cabs, to celebrate 100 years of taxi cabs in 2007. Designers can be submitted from both design firms and regular New Yorkers. One of Gothamist's favorite design firms, antenna design (they designed some of the new train cars, as well as the Metrocard vending machine interfaces), is proposing some ideas: The Daily News printed antenna's design for a clearer way of seeing that a cab is vacant. Which is a great idea, though Gothamist admits we think it's funny when out-of-towners try to hail off-duty cabs. TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus told the DN, "It's refreshing to get these viewpoints...The craziest idea I've heard so far was changing the color of the cab from yellow to something else. I'm happy with yellow."