New York Post: 139 taxi medallions will be offered at bankruptcy auction

By John Aidan Byrne

New York City’s struggling yellow cabbies are facing the auction block.

A record 139 taxi medallions will be offered for sale in bankruptcy auction this month — the latest sign that a deluge of ride-sharing apps like Uber are squeezing cabbies out of business and deeper into debt, as well as pinching the incomes of for-hire drivers, according to analysts.

The medallions will be auctioned for a fraction of their original value — some likely having cost their owners as much as $1 million or more apiece.

A minimum of 20 will be sold, the auctioneers say. The collection is part of the 13,587 licensed medallions required to operate New York City’s fleet of iconic yellow cabs. Back in 2013, a medallion fetched a whopping $1.3 million.

Today, prices have plunged to between $160,000 to $250,000 each, as a wave of ride-sharing vehicles floods the market.

Last year, 46 medallions were reportedly sold at an auction in Queens for an average price of $186,000, snatched up by Connecticut-based MGPE, a hedge fund presumably seeking yield on a distressed asset.

For-hire vehicles on New York’s congested streets have surged from 50,000 in 2011, when Uber entered the New York market, to about 130,000 today.

Not surprisingly, earnings for yellow cabbies have fallen off the cliff — full-time average annual earnings, before taxes, are down from $45,000 as recently as 2013, to as low as $29,000 today, according to some estimates.

Uber drivers, who number about 60,000 on New York’s streets at any given time, are also taking a hit from increasing competition.

Their estimated average annual earnings, pre-tax, today hover between $30,000 and $34,000. Many individual for-hire drivers earn less than an hourly worker at McDonald’s.

“Uber has worked hard to grow the transportation pie, ensuring that all New Yorkers can get a ride in minutes, particularly in neighborhoods outside of Manhattan that have been long ignored by yellow taxis and underserved by public transit,” said Uber in a statement. “The majority of our trips are happening in the Bronx, Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn.”

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