Something big happened yesterday. Did you notice it? It was subtle, at first, but we'll all start to feel it's effects soon. It's one of those little things that, over time, will have a noticeable impact.
Taxi fares went up. But, also, Michelle Obama's nail polish color at the DNC. It was blue, it was grey, it was everything.
The old fare of 40 cents for every one-fifth of a mile or sixty seconds stuck in traffic has now been bumped up to 50 cents. It's only a 10 cent increase, but it's just enough to make what used to be a sensible $8-$9 ride to work a $10-$11 ride. Spending $8 or $9 on a ride to work every now and then was like spending some spare change. $10 or $11-- that's a Chipotle burrito.
The last fare increase for NYC taxi's was in 2004, and it's been 6 years since cabbies have received any sort of raise, so it's far from fairly due. The average driver took home only $130 for a 12-hour shift under the old fares. With the new price increase, this should help boost their take-home pay to about $152. Those numbers make a 10 cent increase hardly seem like close to enough.
Yes, the extra 2 or 3 bucks that my ride to and from work is now going to cost me is enough to make me stop and strongly consider how badly I need the ride. But, considering I'm comfortable enough to admit to my own general desperation, I doubt it will deter my riding too much. And, as I discovered yesterday after work, it won't deter too many other riders, either.
Perhaps it was my own naïvety regarding how many other people in this city rely on cabs the way I do, but I thought I had found the biggest silver lining in this whole fare hike business yesterday. Based on my calculations, this ten cent increase would be just enough to discourage the average New Yorker from hopping in a cab. Rain, snow, late night, hot days, broken legs--- ten cents more? They'd rather just walk it, and save the extra money for a bagel or a NYMag subscription or something equally New Yorker-y.
Right?
Wrong.
Assured that I was dead on right, I left work yesterday in the pouring rain, refusing an umbrella and plastic bags for my shoes from my boss, because I knew I would be the only person willing to spend the extra money to grab a cab home. I strode past the doorman and out on to the street, and just as I was about to reach my arm in to the air, the one taxi cab I would see that evening with it's lights on-- off duty, mind you-- sped past me, splashing me Carrie Bradshaw Sex and the City style, though far worse dressed. It was as if the Taxi and Limousine Commission gods were looking down and laughing at my foolishness.
New York is a city full of taxi addicts, just like me. If they raised the price of any of my varied addictions by 10 cents-- 7-11 iced coffee, HBO, strippers-- I'd still shell out the money for them. That's what make them addictions, and not casual hobbies. And, at the end of the day, no one really likes the feeling of being soaking wet on a freezing subway car. At least, that's what I took away from everyone's sympathetic stares on the 6 train yesterday.
