New York Times: ‘Suicide Surcharge’ or Crucial Fee to Fix the Subway? Taxi Drivers Brace for Battle Over $2.50 Charge

By Winnie Hu

The new fees were supposed to help fix New York City’s ailing subway by raising more than $1 million a day from those who could afford to take taxis and Ubers in Manhattan.

But before the $2.50 fees on rides could even go into effect as planned on Jan. 1, they were sidelined by a lawsuit brought by a coalition of taxi owners and drivers.

The opponents warn that the fee will add up for passengers, and will also deal a final blow to a taxi industry teetering on the brink. They say the surcharge will drive away customers when they are already losing business to Uber and other app-based services and struggling with enormous debt and bleak prospects.

Three taxi owners and five other professional drivers have committed suicide over the last year.

“If they put the surcharge on, that’s it, we’ve lost our whole life investment,” said Gloria Guerra, 62, who with her husband, William, owns a taxi medallion, the aluminum plate required to drive a yellow taxi in New York that once sold for more than $1 million. “The business will be bankrupt. All the medallions will be bankrupt.”

On Thursday, the Guerras and other taxi owners and drivers took their fight against what they call a “suicide surcharge” to a state court hearing in Lower Manhattan, capping off months of protests. Their lawsuit contends that by imposing the new taxi fee, state and city officials “seek to drive the final nail in the proverbial coffin by making medallion taxicab rides so financially unattractive to consumers that the industry is sure to collapse in its entirety.”

Last month, a state court judge temporarily blocked the fee until both sides could present arguments. At Thursday’s hearing, a judge continued the suspension of the fee until the next hearing, scheduled for Jan. 31.

The $2.50 taxi fee was passed by state lawmakers last year along with a $2.75 fee on other for-hire vehicles, including Ubers and Lyfts, and a 75-cent fee on shared pool rides. The fees are expected to raise more than $400 million annually, according to budget projections.

Every day those fees go uncollected means lost revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subways and buses. As a result, taxi drivers and owners have found themselves pitted against state officials, business leaders and transit advocates who see the new fees as crucial to the city’s transit system.

“Transit riders, individual taxpayers and business are all contributing toward the cost of modernizing our transit system and it is only fair that the taxi industry and their customers do the same,” said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a group of influential business leaders that supports the fee.

The $2.50 taxi fee has also divided city officials and transportation advocates and complicated a renewed effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and transit advocates to push for a comprehensive congestion pricing plan for Manhattan that would charge all drivers a fee for entering the busiest neighborhoods at peak times. Mr. Cuomo and others have called the fees on taxis and for-hire vehicles the first phase of congestion pricing.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has also backed the new fees on for-hire vehicles.

But Meera Joshi, the commissioner of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, has criticized the fee, saying that it would be “potentially devastating” for the taxi industry. Ms. Joshi, who is stepping down in March, is named in the taxi lawsuit and declined last week to comment on the case.

The $2.50 fee will raise the minimum taxi fare to $5.80 — which is still lower than an Uber ride. The cost for Uber, which has an $8 base fare in Manhattan, will rise to a minimum of $10.75, including the new $2.75 fee.

Unlike the taxi industry, Uber and two other ride-app services, Lyft and Via, have supported the fees as a step toward addressing congestion and transit challenges in the city.

“In order to truly address these issues, it’s imperative that all vehicles, including personal and commercial, are included in this effort,” said Campbell Matthews, a spokeswoman for Lyft.

Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the Riders Alliance, a grass-roots group of transit riders, said most taxi riders in Manhattan can afford to pay the fees. They have access to more public transit options than in the other boroughs, he said, and should pay more if they choose to use a taxi or car service.

“There are a privileged number of people who take taxis and Ubers to get around the core of the city,” he said. “They can afford to support the transit system that makes New York what it is.”

But others said the new fees unfairly single out taxis and for-hire vehicles without a larger plan in place to charge all cars on congested streets — and by itself, will have little, if any, impact on reducing gridlock.

Marco Conner, a deputy director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group, said the taxi lawsuit — and the resulting court-ordered delay in fees — “shows the fallacy of taking baby steps to address a problem as tremendous as congestion and the M.T.A. crisis.”

In the lawsuit, taxi owners and drivers also claim that they should not be charged a so-called “congestion tax” because their numbers have been capped by city law at 13,587 “to prevent an overabundance of cars and congestion,” even as Uber and other ride-app services had been allowed until recently to expand exponentially. In August, the city declared a one-year moratorium on new vehicle licenses for Uber, Lyft and other ride-app services.

Bruce Schaller, a former city transportation official, said taxis and ride-app cars have contributed to Manhattan gridlock. In a study last year, he found equal numbers of taxis and black cars in the central business district during the weekday — together accounting for two-thirds of all the vehicles there. Making matters worse, the for-hire vehicles often drove around with empty back seats.

“You don’t just tax the last person in,” Mr. Schaller said. “You tax everyone causing the problem. It’s not like moving around Manhattan was la-dee-da before Uber.”

While Mr. Schaller agreed that the taxi fee would do little to reduce congestion, he said that it would raise badly needed money for the transit system. Chicago, Seattle and other cities and states have adopted similar per-ride fees to pay for public transportation and other services. “It’s a misnomer to call this a congestion fee,” he said. “It’s all about raising revenue.”

Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said the new for-hire fee would force more taxi owners into bankruptcy, while taxi drivers would earn less and could have to cut back on food, medical care and other necessities.

“I don’t know anybody who has savings left,” she said. “They will face foreclosures because payments simply won’t get made. I believe it will be this dire.”

Augustine Tang, 34, a yellow taxi driver who planned to attend Thursday’s hearing, said he makes about $240 after 10 hours of driving. That is about $100 less than he earned four years ago when he said he inherited a taxi medallion — and the remaining $500,000 loan on it — when his father died.

“It’s a little annoying that people are saying the lawsuit is costing public transportation,” he said. “We’re trying to save our lives.”

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