New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission will lift its cap on new licenses for for-hire vehicles starting Thursday, so long as they’re issued to fully electric cars.
Schwartz noted his analysis found people who drive personal cars into Manhattan’s central business district travel just one or two miles, while for-hire vehicles drive 20 to 40 miles every time they enter the MTA’s planned congestion zone.to convert all taxis and for-hire vehicles in the city to electric or wheelchair-accessible vehicles by 2030. He’s hoping that by the end of 2024, 5% of the city’s for-hire vehicle trips will be in an electric or wheelchair-accessible vehicle.
De Blasio imposed a cap on new for-hire vehicle licenses in 2018 but allowed new ones to be issued to wheelchair-accessible and electric vehicles. The TLC revoked the electric vehicle exemption in 2021, after “The city's about to flood the streets with cars while the state is looking to rein in the number of cars on the streets,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents yellow-taxi medallion owners and drivers. “And both are being done at the expense of the drivers.”