update on Car Services and Cabs(taxi) in NYC

[smeyer418]

There have been some recent developments that might be of interest/

 

Car services and TaxiCABS IN NY City.

 

New York City yellow colored cab taxi's are all metered. They are the only ones allowed to pick up street hails(or from taxi lines) in the cental business district area of Manhattan. There are lime colored(apple green) cab taxi's(boro taxis) that can pick up street hails out side of the Manhattan central business district(generally below 96th street) and all the outer boros-although they can also be sent by a dispatcher to other areas for a fixed fee.

The five boros are Manhattan(New York County), Brooklyn(Kings County), Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island(Richmond County)

The “black car” for hire cars- limos-livery-car services( I call these car services for simplicity) etc- are only supposed to pick up people by pre arrangement for a fixed fee. They can do this by telephone or thru applications on your smart phone(I will discuss this more later). These sometimes try hustling people for fare- normally much higher than a yellow cab. Limos-livery-private car services etc unmetered cars are mostly black but can be any color except yellow or lime green.

 

 

The Yellow cabs and lime green taxis you get from a street hail charge the exact same fare.

Standard City Rate (Rate Code 1)

$2.50 upon entry

$0.50 for each additional unit

The unit fare is:

 

• One-fifth of a mile, when the Taxicab is traveling at 12 miles an hour or more; or
  
• 60 seconds (at a rate of $.50 per minute), when the Taxicab is traveling at less than 12 miles an hour.
  
• The taximeter shall combine fractional measures of distance and time in accruing a unit of fare. Any combination of distance or time shall be computed by the taximeter in accordance with the National Institute of Standards and Technology Handbook 44.
  
• The fare shall include pre-assessment of the unit currently being accrued; the amount due may therefore include a full unit charge for a final, fractional unit.
  
• Night surcharge of $.50 after 8:00 PM & before 6:00 AM
  
• Peak hour Weekday Surcharge of $1.00 Monday - Friday after 4:00 PM & before 8:00 PM
  
• New York State Tax Surcharge of $.50 per ride.
  

There is also a fixed rate to and from JFK and Manhattan. The lime green cabs are not allowed to pick up hails at the airports. The airports taxi dispatchers give out rate sheets but except to/and from Manhattan these are only approximate, the meter may vary.

Car Services as stated above these are cars you arrange to pick you up.

Apps. A number of car services have apps that can be used to summon a car and tell you how much that will cost. Carmellimo has such a service as does “Uber”. Uber is the latest version of this and tends to be the “new” in thing. Uber has more than one alternative Uber X and Uber T. The T one calls for the lime green ones and the X sends you are car service. The X should tell you how much it will be and the T is metered. I am sure there are others. There is some controversy about Uber in the they have surge billing which can be some multiple of what the normal charge is. I saw one complaint for over 5 times the normal charge. Totally new to this in NY is Lyft. Lyft in New York will be different from other places. In other places this is a ride sharing service something like Airbnb is for hotel rentals. Its clearly illegal in NYC as a ride sharing program.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/lyft-launch-friday-night-article-1.1880066

 

 

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/pas...assenger.shtml

 

There are also van services –which also have to be licensed as well.

 

 

Let me know if you have corrections/modification/additions of the above and I will keep track of them.

Thanks!

[Happy2cruise]

Thanks for posting......very helpful and interesting!