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> The experience of other cities over many years has shown that open-entry "deregulation" of taxis is poor public policy. . . . In a nutshell, the problem is th

by dpatru 16y ago

> The experience of other cities over many years has shown that open-entry "deregulation" of taxis is poor public policy. . . . In a nutshell, the problem is that the capital costs of entering the taxi business are low. In an unregulated market, anyone with the price of a used car can enter the business. While this may sound good to free-market fans, experience with taxis has shown that quality goes down, prices go up, and public safety is compromised. So there you have it: the taxi cartels want regulation to keep prices low.

xsmasher 16y ago
>quality goes down, prices go up, and public safety is compromised That jumped out at me too; I can't imagine how deregulation would raise prices for consumers. I'd love to see a cite for that. I would have believed "too many taxis == too much traffic," AKA tragedy of the commons, but not this.
- sprout 16y ago
  > the capital costs of entering the taxi business are low. Is what I suspect is the key point. Because capital costs are so low, it's easy for anyone to get into the business. Because it's easy to get into the business, you end up with lots of turnover as people come in looking to charge high rates, get tired of it, and move on to some other job. Medallions artificially raise the capital costs involved in becoming a Taxi driver, and therefore make people more likely to continue as drivers, since they want to recoup their initial investment, and it's not trivial to do so.
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    > Because it's easy to get into the business,...charge high rates, get tired of it, and move on to some other job. This doesn't follow at all. All other things being equal, barriers to entry drive prices up, not down. If you want to argue that taxis are different than most other businesses in this respect, you're going to have to explain why.
    - sprout 16y ago
      I'm providing a hypothesis to support the data they claim exist (and I'm inclined to trust that it exists.) Unless you can provide information on case studies where deregulation has provided benefits, I'm going to trust the OP. Data > intuition. Also, alternate hypothesis: cabs are less likely to use meters when things are deregulated, so most people don't know what they're paying for, and overpay.
- lolname 16y ago
  Check the prices on ubercab versus regulated taxis. 2 mile: $7.15 v $17.80 5 mile: $13.90 v $32.50 10 mile: $25.15 v $57.00 idling: $0.45 v $1.25 The expensive ones are the less regulated cars of ubercab. And for what it's worth, in New York, the only time I've had bad experiences with Taxis were times I waved down a livery, or got another unlicensed taxi.

by dpatru 16y ago

xsmasher 16y ago

>quality goes down, prices go up, and public safety is compromised That jumped out at me too; I can't imagine how deregulation would raise prices for consumers. I'd love to see a cite for that. I would have believed "too many taxis == too much traffic," AKA tragedy of the commons, but not this.

sprout 16y ago
> the capital costs of entering the taxi business are low. Is what I suspect is the key point. Because capital costs are so low, it's easy for anyone to get into the business. Because it's easy to get into the business, you end up with lots of turnover as people come in looking to charge high rates, get tired of it, and move on to some other job. Medallions artificially raise the capital costs involved in becoming a Taxi driver, and therefore make people more likely to continue as drivers, since they want to recoup their initial investment, and it's not trivial to do so.
- jessriedel 16y ago
  > Because it's easy to get into the business,...charge high rates, get tired of it, and move on to some other job. This doesn't follow at all. All other things being equal, barriers to entry drive prices up, not down. If you want to argue that taxis are different than most other businesses in this respect, you're going to have to explain why.
  - sprout 16y ago
    I'm providing a hypothesis to support the data they claim exist (and I'm inclined to trust that it exists.) Unless you can provide information on case studies where deregulation has provided benefits, I'm going to trust the OP. Data > intuition. Also, alternate hypothesis: cabs are less likely to use meters when things are deregulated, so most people don't know what they're paying for, and overpay.
lolname 16y ago
Check the prices on ubercab versus regulated taxis. 2 mile: $7.15 v $17.80 5 mile: $13.90 v $32.50 10 mile: $25.15 v $57.00 idling: $0.45 v $1.25 The expensive ones are the less regulated cars of ubercab. And for what it's worth, in New York, the only time I've had bad experiences with Taxis were times I waved down a livery, or got another unlicensed taxi.