Meera Joshi, Chair of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, addresses the 119th CityLaw Breakfast. Image credit: CityLand
On Friday, February 20, 2015, the Center for New York City Law at New York Law School hosted a City Law Breakfast featuring Meera Joshi, Chair of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, as the guest speaker.
Ms. Joshi was welcomed and introduced by Ross Sandler, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for New York City Law. The chairwoman addressed TLC’s role in regulating the taxi and fore-hire vehicle industry and spoke at length about industry changes brought on by private for-hire vehicle companies such as Uber and Lyft. Ms. Joshi described the entry of these companies into the for-hire vehicle industry as a “new method of communication” that called attention to regulatory disparities between TLC’s yellow cab fleet and the city’s black and livery cars. Ms. Joshi welcomed the competition from companies like Uber and Lyft, provided it was fair, as a way of driving innovation in the industry beyond what TLC could accomplish by regulation alone, and took questions from the capacity audience.
Click on the link below for the full video from this CityLaw Breakfast.
VIDEO LINK: Watch the speech here.
VIDEO:
Yellow medallion taxicabs have been paying the City of New York millions of dollars for the right to operate.
Why are Uber vehicles allowed to operate free of any charge ?
Another point, all taxi medallion sales and transfers have been
approved and signed off by TLC itself. In fact, just few short years
ago TLC commissioners were giving interviews explaining why
taxi medallions are a good reliable investment in the City of New York.
Sold medallions benefit the city. Even if it’s only 1.5% of city’s budget.
Uber vehicles don’t generate a penny for the city.
This is a major discrepancy and unfairness that TLC must address.
Hail exclusivity has been the law in New York since 1937, and it remains the law today, as reflected most recently in the HAIL ACT, which provides that: ” [I)t shall remain the exclusive right of existing and future taxicabs licensed by the TLC as a taxicab to pick up passengers via street hail …. No driver of any for-hire vehicle shall accept a passenger within
the city of New York by means other than pre-arrangement .. . . ” Ch. 62, Laws of New York § 11 (2012) (amending Ch. 602, Laws of New York (2011)).
Why the crooked and overzealous politicians misinterpreted the Laws ?