IT'S ABOUT TO GET EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE TO GET AROUND NYC.

AuthorBritschgi, Christian
PositionREGULATION - Wage hike for ride sharing services drivers in New York, New York

IN DECEMBER 2018, New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) imposed a minimum wage on drivers working with services like Lyft and Uber. The new rules set a formula for driver compensation that raises the typical gross wage to $27.86 per hour, which the commission says works out to $17 per hour of take-home pay after expenses.

The wage hike comes just a few short months after the New York City Council passed a law freezing the number of ride-share drivers allowed on city streets. The same law gives the TLC power to impose an even lower cap in the years to come.

Proponents of the new regulations say they are needed to counter declining pay for the city's traditional taxicab drivers and to address traffic congestion. Higher costs will help drivers, they explain, and push more people back onto public transit, where they belong.

These critics have a point. The popularity and affordability of Uber and Lyft have reduced demand for taxis, along with taxi drivers' income. And although the impact on traffic is less clear, the addition of roughly 100,000 ride-share vehicles on New York City streets has coincided with falling transit ridership and rising congestion.

But what critics of ride-sharing don't understand is that these services have been disruptive precisely because they are meeting a need that New York City's incumbent transit options can't or won't.

The city's cartelized taxi...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT