Jackson Heights Life

Interesting that they are not allowed to pick people up in the street because at least half of the vehicles cruising around our neighborhood are car-service cars.  They routinely pick up people that hail them from the street and there appears to be no enforcement whatsoever of rules prohibiting this.

I always thought that if we had dedicated cab stands for them and truly prohibited them from cruising for fares, traffic would be reduced consderably around here.

How about deep-water oil drillers, coal miners, whale-killers..........

Interesting that they are not allowed to pick people up in the street because at least half of the vehicles cruising around our neighborhood are car-service cars.  They routinely pick up people that hail them from the street and there appears to be no enforcement whatsoever of rules prohibiting this.

I always thought that if we had dedicated cab stands for them and truly prohibited them from cruising for fares, traffic would be reduced consderably around here.

I've heard many neighbors make this same suggestion in the past.  Where might we be able to place these stands?  I think we'd have to be very careful as to not sacrifice parking spots for JH residents.

I'm with you on the ice cream trucks. They park outside my window for hours on end, which means I have to listen to the music for hours on end.

One of them plays "Rudolph, The Red-Nose Reindeer," for some inexplicable reason.

I've heard many neighbors make this same suggestion in the past.  Where might we be able to place these stands?  I think we'd have to be very careful as to not sacrifice parking spots for JH residents.

The stands would be on designated and marked corners on the avenues.  Most people say they want cleaner air, less traffic, less planet-warming fossil fuel burning, but when it comes to personally doing something like driving less, walking more, using public transit, interest soon wanes. 

Purely from my own experience, in ten plus years in Jackson Heights I can say that I’ve taken livery cabs on many occasions and have never had a memorably bad experience.  Some drivers are better than others, some more courteous than others but everyone is basically OK (I don’t think it’s fair to call them “shady”)

It seems pretty clear to me that, whatever the objections to livery cabs, there is a meaningful need for cab service in Jackson Heights – otherwise the livery cab drivers would not be here in the numbers they are.  In particular, people who cannot afford cars or who choose not to drive appreciate having this service available for occcasions when walking or public transport is not feasible --

Actually, although I might be biased as a non-driver myself, I think that one of the main reasons our streets are so congested is not livery cab drivers, but the fact that far too many people use private cars.  Cabs would also seem to be more environmentally friendly than cars given that most of us use cabs selectively whereas people who own cars tend to use them routinely...   

I would love to see some kind of dispatch service near the Roosevelt hub.

Bus transit and walking aren't always the necessary solution for many - and the people who need a cab after getting off the subway likely don't have a car parked nearby (or they wouldn't be looking for a cab).  If licensed taxis aren't willing to drive around here looking for fares (there are plenty of taxis that visit off-duty for groceries, restaurants, etc., but obviously they can't make enough money to pay for their shifts here) the livery cabs should be able to serve the taxi-transit needs of this area.

They already are doing so, but because there's no livery-taxi-stand(s) for them to do business legally, they just drive around and around, looking for fares that way. The TLC turns a blind eye on this practice, but doesn't allow for livery stands....so all of us just get additional traffic congestion around an already traffic-choked intersection.