This story originally appeared in the New York Daily News on July 20, 2020 ,
https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-taxi-medallion-report-covid-pandemic-20200729-mpk7gcu5ovd3zhuuhev4cfr6lu-story.html
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Coronavirus has left the city’s yellow taxi business gasping for breath.
Ridership was down 92% in June — and just one in five of the city’s 13,500 yellow cabs even hit the streets, according to data the city Taxi and Limousine Commission released Wednesday after months of delays.
When New York became the epicenter of the outbreak in April, the amount of money yellow cab drivers grossed before expenses was down to $54 per day, a decline of 70% from the $176 per day they grossed in February. Their gross rebounded to $105 per day in June, but was still 47% lower than the $195 cabbies took in daily in June 2019.
Uber, Lyft and other app-based car services also hurt — but their drivers’ losses weren’t as steep.
Nearly 50,000 app-based drivers stopped working between February and June, which helped driver pay remain stable.
TLC data shows app-based drivers who kept working through the pandemic earned just 5% less in June than they did the same month last year. In June they were doing roughly 251,696 rides per day, nearly 14 times the 18,325 rides yellow cabs saw.
App-based drivers are still doing more business than the the 217,000 daily rides yellow cabs recorded in February, before the pandemic.
“It’s quite remarkable how Uber and Lyft have bounced back to a degree, while taxis have much less,” said Bruce Schaller, a transportation consultant. “What you see in the numbers is more of the same of what you saw pre-pandemic, with Uber and Lyft doing much better than the yellow taxis both as an industry and for drivers individually.”
A woman wears a face mask near the Port Authority in Midtown Manhattan in March.
A woman wears a face mask near the Port Authority in Midtown Manhattan in March. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)
Owners of New York City’s taxi medallions — which give drivers the exclusive right to take street hails in the busiest areas of Manhattan — were in trouble before the pandemic hit.
Medallion owners faced an average debt in January of about $700,000 — a figure that began to balloon in 2014 when the app-based companies Uber and Lyft began to siphon rides away from cabs.
Now the outlook for their business is even worse.
“If this isn’t a wake up call for the city and its leaders, then we will know who was responsible for ending this industry and I still wouldn’t say it was COVID,” said Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and a medallion owner.
More people working from home means fewer people commuting by yellow taxis. And with air travel down 85%, fewer people are visiting New York for business or tourism — meaning cabbies can’t count on fares and tips from out-of-towners.
The pandemic has forced nearly 9,000 yellow taxi drivers off the streets since March, giving them little income to pay off their piling bills.
Medallion owners in January called for the city to help find “mission-driven investors” who could help bring down some debt. Now, with the nation facing a severe recession, that option appears to be off the table.
Yellow Taxis are seen parked on 37th Street and 11th Avenue on April 6.
Yellow Taxis are seen parked on 37th Street and 11th Avenue on April 6. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)
App-based drivers who stopped working during the pandemic also face uncertainty.
Varinder Kumar, 47, stopped driving for Lyft in March out of fear for his health.
Kumar said he plans to return to work next month if Congress does not renew the $600 in weekly unemployment benefits he’s received from the federal government since April. The extra money is slated to stop coming on Friday.
Varinder Kumar, a Lyft Driver who left work in March out of fear for his health.
“I was making less with unemployment than I was when I was driving in February,” Kumar said. “But I have a family and I need to keep them safe. I won’t make the same money as I did before the pandemic if I go back to work either.”
“If things don’t work out maybe I’ll move to another state that is not so expensive,” he added.
Schaller expects many more app-based drivers will begin to return to the streets in the coming months, which could lead to a reduction in their average pay.
Unlike yellow cab drivers, if Kumar returns to work he would benefit from the city’s minimum wage and paid sick leave rules. He also won’t face the insurmountable debt that taxi medallion owners are having an even harder time paying off due to dismal ridership.
But Schaller said the crisis could bring an ugly reckoning to the yellow taxi medallion business: It could force many medallion owners who are still hanging on to file for bankruptcy, and effectively reset the entire industry.
“The question is: Does this huge drop end up basically flushing all the bad debt down the toilet?” Schaller said. “The thing about the taxi industry is, it could be healthy if you just started over. Bankruptcy could give you a fresh start.”
“It’s quite remarkable how Uber and Lyft have bounced back to a degree, while taxis have much less,” said Bruce Schaller, a transportation consultant. “What you see in the numbers is more of the same of what you saw pre-pandemic, with Uber and Lyft doing much better than the yellow taxis both as an industry and for drivers individually.”
A woman wears a face mask near the Port Authority in Midtown Manhattan in March.
A woman wears a face mask near the Port Authority in Midtown Manhattan in March. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)
Owners of New York City’s taxi medallions — which give drivers the exclusive right to take street hails in the busiest areas of Manhattan — were in trouble before the pandemic hit.
Medallion owners faced an average debt in January of about $700,000 — a figure that began to balloon in 2014 when the app-based companies Uber and Lyft began to siphon rides away from cabs.
Now the outlook for their business is even worse.
“If this isn’t a wake up call for the city and its leaders, then we will know who was responsible for ending this industry and I still wouldn’t say it was COVID,” said Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and a medallion owner.
More people working from home means fewer people commuting by yellow taxis. And with air travel down 85%, fewer people are visiting New York for business or tourism — meaning cabbies can’t count on fares and tips from out-of-towners.
The pandemic has forced nearly 9,000 yellow taxi drivers off the streets since March, giving them little income to pay off their piling bills.
Medallion owners in January called for the city to help find “mission-driven investors” who could help bring down some debt. Now, with the nation facing a severe recession, that option appears to be off the table.
Yellow Taxis are seen parked on 37th Street and 11th Avenue on April 6.
Yellow Taxis are seen parked on 37th Street and 11th Avenue on April 6. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)
App-based drivers who stopped working during the pandemic also face uncertainty.
Varinder Kumar, 47, stopped driving for Lyft in March out of fear for his health.
Kumar said he plans to return to work next month if Congress does not renew the $600 in weekly unemployment benefits he’s received from the federal government since April. The extra money is slated to stop coming on Friday.
Varinder Kumar, a Lyft Driver who left work in March out of fear for his health.
“I was making less with unemployment than I was when I was driving in February,” Kumar said. “But I have a family and I need to keep them safe. I won’t make the same money as I did before the pandemic if I go back to work either.”
“If things don’t work out maybe I’ll move to another state that is not so expensive,” he added.
Schaller expects many more app-based drivers will begin to return to the streets in the coming months, which could lead to a reduction in their average pay.
Unlike yellow cab drivers, if Kumar returns to work he would benefit from the city’s minimum wage and paid sick leave rules. He also won’t face the insurmountable debt that taxi medallion owners are having an even harder time paying off due to dismal ridership.
But Schaller said the crisis could bring an ugly reckoning to the yellow taxi medallion business: It could force many medallion owners who are still hanging on to file for bankruptcy, and effectively reset the entire industry.
“The question is: Does this huge drop end up basically flushing all the bad debt down the toilet?” Schaller said. “The thing about the taxi industry is, it could be healthy if you just started over. Bankruptcy could give you a fresh start.”
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