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In Pictures: Pandemic threatens New York’s iconic yellow taxis

Out of some 13,000 licenses, only about 5,000 taxis are running regularly at the moment, according to the union.

Yellow cab drivers block traffic in a protest demanding debt forgiveness for cabbies hit hard by the pandemic, in New York City. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
Published On 16 Feb 202116 Feb 2021
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They were omnipresent on the streets of New York, day and night, as emblematic of the Big Apple as the Empire State Building or Yankees caps. But the pandemic has made yellow taxis scarce and facing an uncertain future.

On a February morning in a parking lot near La Guardia Airport, a few dozen yellow cabs patiently queue in the freezing cold to catch a fare from one of the terminals.

“This lot used to be full with hundreds of cabs and even a line outside,” says 65-year-old Joey Olivo, recalling the days before coronavirus.

“Now there is only about 50 and you wait two hours, when before you’d wait 20 minutes,” adds Olivo, who has been a taxi driver for three decades.

Widespread working from home, school closures and no tourists means rides have plummeted for Olivo, as they have for all of New York’s cabbies.

“It’s been pretty bad. My earnings dropped 80 percent. I went from making maybe $1,000 a week to making $200 or $300 a week,” he told AFP.

Olivo, who lives in Brooklyn, is trying to put a brave face on his situation, joking that he is lucky his wife “makes good money” as a nurse, otherwise, “I would have had a rope around my neck.”

New York taxi drivers, most of whom are first-generation immigrants, were once able to make $7,000 a month or more if they worked long hours seven days a week.

Competition from Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing firms had already drastically dented their income but with the pandemic, it is in “free fall”, says Richard Chow, a 62-year-old taxi driver originally from Myanmar.

"The pandemic has just been devastating; before the pandemic, ridership had been down by 50 percent. Since the pandemic, it's down closer to 90 percent," said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
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New York City cab drivers held a day of action calling for debt forgiveness for loss of income amid the shortage of work due to the coronavirus pandemic. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
Out of some 13,000 licenses, only about 5,000 taxis are running regularly at the moment, according to the union. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
A yellow cab taxi driver cleans his car as he waits in line at a taxi stand at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
Desai fears yellow cabs "will slowly phase out" if the city government does not erase drivers' debts. "You know you are in NYC when you see that yellow," says Desai, adding that the taxis are famous the world over. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
According to William Pierre, a driver from Haiti, cab-driving is no longer profitable. He continues to drive even though his daily earnings barely exceed $100 to $150, which he shares 50/50 with the company that leases the car to him. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
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Yellow cab drivers pray before joining a rally to demand debt forgiveness for cabbies hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
Yellow cab taxi drivers wait in line at a taxi stand at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. [Angela Weiss/AFP]
New York's Democratic mayor, Bill de Blasio, has promised to help the taxi drivers provided the city, economically ravaged by the pandemic, is bailed out by the federal government. [Angela Weiss/AFP]


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