Ground Passenger Transportation

Uber App Gets Thumbs Up to Hail Yellow Cabs

On Friday, New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission approved the savvy, San Francisco-based Uber as the first app New Yorkers can use to hail yellow medallion taxi cabs. After nearly a year of delays, the announcement marks the start of a year-long pilot program, during which the TLC will be ab ... More >>

City Can (But Won't) Play Its Part in Bus Strike

We're damn-near a month into the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181's bus-driver and matron strike, and the city is still pretending like it doesn't have everything to do with why this mess continues to drag-on. The union, politicians and parents are begging the city to at least come to the table ... More >>

NLRB Rules School Bus Strike Legal

The National Labor Relations Board announced earlier this morning that the Amalgamated Transit Union's school bus strike is indeed lawful. A group of 20 bus companies filed a charge with the NLRB arguing that the ATU Local Union 1181 violated NLRB regulations when its bus drivers and matrons went o ... More >>

Union Insists Mayor Holds Ultimate Power to End School Bus Strike

Leaders of the Amalgamated Transit Union hosted a town hall teleconference last night to clarify facts surrounding the school bus strike--facts that they argue have been distorted by the Bloomberg administration and the media. Last night's telephone town hall was held for the constituents of City ... More >>

Students and Families Suffer Most In Bus Strike and City Has Itself to Blame

As more than 8,000 school bus drivers and matrons formed picket lines around the city this morning, some 152,000 students and their families were forced to find alternative means of transportation in the pouring rain. Jackie Ceonzo, mother of a 17-year-old autistic son, had to find a way to get her ... More >>

Parents of Special Needs Children Fed Up With DOE's Flawed School Bus Service

By the time parents got their turn to testify at yesterday's City Council hearing on the city's problematic school bus service, lead officials from the Department of Education, such as Deputy Chancellor of Operations Kathleen Grimm, were long gone. "I'm just so disappointed that the [DOE] and the ... More >>

Carmel vs. Dial 7: A Limo Service Jingle Showdown For the Ages!

For most people, the number 666 has ominous associations. It's the mark of the beast, the sign of The Antichrist, or part of the absurd name of what looks to be one of the worst new television shows of the season. But when you sing the words 666 to anyone who watches local TV around here, you'll ge ... More >>

Judge Pauses Bloomberg's "Livery Cab" Plan, Outer Boroughs Must Suffer

Contrary to popular belief, there are people that live outside of Manhattan. The hustle and bustle of New York City is not limited to one island; actually, almost 80 percent of New Yorkers live in the outer boroughs (probably because they cannot afford its real estate horrors). And, if tax ... More >>

New York City's New Boro Taxis Are Green -- Apple Green, That Is

It's not lime green, not key lime pie green, not sea-foam green, nor is it chartreuse. Nope. The city's new taxi for upper Manhattan and the outer boroughs, unveiled this morning, is apple green. The mayor's office emphasized this specific shade of green at a press conference at City Hall this morn ... More >>

Car Service Horror Story

When going out of town, I usually book a car service to the airport just to make sure I get there, since a cab isn't always a possibility. But even with the definite car booking, you'd have more luck hailing a yak these days.

Transport Workers Union Denied Injunction Against City's Use of Bus Drivers to Transport Arrested Protesters; Suit Not Dismissed

Today the Transport Workers Union, which last week voted unanimously in support of Occupy Wall Street, went to court to fight against the city's use of city bus drivers to transport arrested protesters. Following the Brooklyn Bridge arrests on Saturday, the Union said the NYPD had commandeered numer ... More >>

Astorians Mourn Departed Bus and Subway Lines, Want to Bring Back the QM22

​Politicians, civic groups, and commuters gathered yesterday by the Astoria-Ditmars subway stop to mark the death-iversary of their dearly departeds: the W train and the QM22 bus line. One year ago, the MTA eliminated the W and V trains and dozens of bus lines, and reduced services throughout ... More >>

Drivers and Politicians Lobby Senate to Pass Livery Cab Bill

Esther Zuckerman​A collation that included City Council members, yellow cab taxi drivers and the president of Livery Base Owners gathered on the steps of City Hall this afternoon to ask the State Senate to pass a bill that allows livery cab drivers to make pick-ups in the outer boroughs and th ... More >>

Livery Cabs Should Be Able to Pick Up Passengers Already

​Livery cabs are often the great savior of the drunken Brooklynite struggling to trek their way home. Like Jay-Z said, New York has its "yellow cab, gypsy cab, dollar cab" (holler back), and there should be no reason not to try them all, right? The thing is, they're not legal to take. New York ... More >>

Uber, A More Expensive Car Service For iPhone, Headed to NYC

​Uber, the San Francisco-based car service start-up, is expanding from California to New York City beginning "in a few short weeks," TechCrunch reports today. Do we need more cars? Do we need to pay more money for more cars? Maybe in the outer boroughs! But what if it will run you as much as t ... More >>

Squeaky Clean and Suave Cab Drivers Coming to New York

Acceptable outfit?​Yesterday the Taxi and Limousine Commission changed some of its policies for taxi drivers to make your ride a little more sexy. Taxi Drivers must now comply with a dress code that says they must wear clothes with a "professional appearance." According to the New York Times, ... More >>

Ahmed Sharif, Wounded Muslim Cab Driver, Receives $30,000 in Support

​Ahmed Sharif, the Muslim taxi driver stabbed last week by a drunken passenger, will likely be unable to work for at least four months. "He can't even pick up his baby because of the wounds to his arms. He can't turn his neck," said Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

Con-Artist Cabbies Convicted in Troubling Taxi Fare Fraud

Via Junkables.​Remember the Great Taxi Scam of 2010? A few cabbies, it turned out, were charging passengers the (double) suburban rate It brought out sympathy from people who felt bad for cabbies, exaggerations from the Taxi and Limousine Commissioner, and media outlets looking ridiculous dro ... More >>

Update: City Serves Temporary Restraining Order to Bus Man Running Charters along MTA-Cut Lines

​A week and a half ago, we spoke to Joel Azumah, the 27-year-old who began running charter buses along the X25, X29, X90, QM22 lines recently cut by the MTA. The city Department of Transportation sent him a cease and desist letter at the end of June, when he started his service, but he kept hi ... More >>

Brooklyn Man Picks Up MTA-Cut Bus Routes, but Business is a Bust

​Joel Azumah, 27, who runs a small charter bus company, TransportAzumah, replaced recently cut public bus routes (X25, X29, X90, QM22) with his own private routes today in an attempt to turn a profit while helping people get to work. "Some of these routes are in very good locations with very l ... More >>

Taxi Scam,Take Two: The Times Sniffs the Air

The Great Taxi Meter Conspiracy That Wasn't sheds light not only on the presence of true political hacks at large in the administration of Michael Bloomberg (imagine that!), but also opens one of those rare windows into how those who run our Paper of Record see the world they're forced to share with ... More >>

Robbers of 9 Livery Cabs in Brooklyn Sought

​Some people treat livery cabs like prey. The NYPD says these two guys have been hailing liveries, ordering them to locations near Brooklyn College like Clarendon Road and East 37th Street, and upon arrival robbing the drivers with a gun. They've hit at least nine livery drivers this way. If ... More >>

'Brooklyn Psych Fest'

Report: Cabbies Get Bigger Tips on Credit Card Fares

In 2007, when they started installing credit-card readers in cabs, YellowCabNYC found some drivers resistant to the change. A commenter said, "I get yelled at 3 out of the 4 times for using credit card" even when notifying the driver in advance. The hacks may have been conflating the readers with ... More >>

City's Plan to Push Cabs into the "Green" Shot Down By Judge, Again

The city keeps trying to get cabs to go hybrid, and the taxi owners keep pushing back. The Taxi and Limousine Commission's most recent plan included incentives to please the owners -- for instance, they would be authorized to charge drivers more for use of the hybrids -- and the drivers were told th ... More >>

LADY OF THE CANYON

John Kelly digs out his Joni Mitchell costume

'Panache Showcase with Golden Triangle'

Showdown for the BusFellas' Union

A mobster's old cronies vie to keep control

City Cabs May Get Spy Cameras

EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Transportation claims the surveillance cameras it has affixed to the outside of its vehicles have saved the company half a million dollars by showing its drivers' lack of culpability in accidents. Cabs companies around the world either installing cameras or asking for ... More >>

Diddy Pays for Your New Year's Cab Ride to the Next Bar

The city didn't go for Sean Combs' offer to donate $1 to local charities if they refashioned the New Year's Eve ball to resemble "the blue stone of Ciroc," a vodka he promotes. So now he's offering free cab rides to New Year's Eve drunks. He will work with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to have t ... More >>

Hybrids Coming, Says TLC; TS, Say Cab Owners

Lesbian Settles Discrimination Lawsuit Against Caliente Cab Co.

Rudy's Bus Pal Admits Paying Mob

As mob-fighting mayor, Giuliani did nothing but help the guy—and get helped in return

National Mobilization Against the War

City Prepares for Taxi Strike

Hail No!

Cabbies get taken for a ride by the taxi commission, so you don't.

Pedicab Smackdown: City Council Defies Bloomberg, Reins in 'Green Transport'

School Bus Union Big is Busted Again

Taxicab Concessions

High-tech, high-level wheeling and dealing makes all of us fare game

Cyclist Hurt? Blame the Transit Strike

Vapor Travails

Total cabbie awareness: Eloquence and error in tracking San Fran taxis

Malice's Restaurant

What Rao's and a gangster-run school bus drivers' union have in common

It's Off to Work They Go

A Strike -- Partially

On the Waterfront

Cruising over to work was never so easy

'Transporter 2'

Outer-Borough Battler

A Labor Leader Challenges His Own

Taxi Widows

Compensating the Families of Slain Minority Cabbies Is a Bureaucratic Nightmare

Africans Are Dying, Too

The Forgotten Victims of the Livery Cabbie Murders

God is Antonio Duarte's Copilot