Is your wallet beginning to bleed?

Surprised no one has commented on this yet: (from Newsday)

Taxi passengers starting in May will pay an extra $1 during the evening rush — hiking the average fare then by almost 40 percent — as part of a comprehensive rate increase package approved Tuesday.

The new rates bump the initial cost of a ride from $2 to $2.50 and increase a trip from Kennedy Airport to Manhattan from $35 to $45.

An average day time trip — defined as 2.64 miles, including five minutes of waiting time — would increase from $6.85 to $8.50, or about 25 percent.

The TLC expects the rate hike will increase drivers' after-expenses salaries to at least $13 to $20 per hour, from between $9 and $17.




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A little off the topic of this thread but...Do the nYC cabs still have those weird, celebrity recorded seat belt messages? I haven't been in a NYC cab in a while. When they first started doing them I jumped into cab one night and jumped out my skin when I heard Eartha Kitt purring from the speaker behind me and saying "Put on your seat belt, you dirty little boy" or something to that effect.

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Maybe they stopped doing them. They probably scared people. it's a bit unnerving to get into a cab and suddenly hear Eartha, James Earl Jones or Chita telling you to buckle up

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Speaking of Eartha and Baranski on another thread, it reminds me of one of the funniest lines I have ever haerd Eartha utter. It was in that short lived Kristine Barbnski TV show a few yeras ago where Eartha ocassionally played the weird neighbor. She is shopping in a supermarket with the other characters, one of whom picks up a frozen hors d ourves package. eartha looks at them and says "AHHH, pigs in a blanket. Those are Lauren Bacall's favorite."

Ok, sorry, my brain is free flowing this evening. I have a full dress reherasal in an hour and it's the last one before I perform in front of an audience.....I get a little strange with nerves around this time of a production.

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Updated On: 3/31/04 at 06:01 PM

Between this, subway fares going up almost yearly & taxes about to go through the ceiling due to court ordered spending increases on education ( NY already spends more per capita than anywhere else in the country with abysmal results) people & businesses will be leaving . If I was 30 years younger, I'd leave in a minute

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I can understand that these fares have to go up every so often, but 26 per cent? That's outrageous. I heard one reporter say that taxi fares in NY are the lowest all over the world.

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D, it seems as if you have taken every NY horror story ever told to heart, don't drink the water, the cabbies will drive you from 43rd to 54th via Queens. Just be decisive, march on into Duane Reade and say "One large Dannon water," or climb in a cab, and state your destination without saying, "I have no idea where I am! These buildings are HUGE!" Just be direct, and you're golden.

Don't walk around with a sandwich on your shoes, tho, because the alligators in the sewers will eat you wedgies. Being from Fla., you know how serious that can be.

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Listen, I roll around in raw meat and walk alone through Central Park after dark a LOT! And I escape every time with nary a scratch.

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Yes, tossing pennies and making wishes. New York City magic, I tell ya.

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I can't for the life of me think why no one would walk with you when your covered with raw meat but what can I say?

D

DofB5, Coincidentally, I also heard on the same news report about the fare hikes, that maps were going to be installed in the cabs so that passengers can instruct the drivers to take the route they prefer. Then the reporter said the drivers didn't like that idea. duh.

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most if not all nyc cabs already have a map on the back of the front seat.
the only time ive ever been 'taken for a ride' in a cab was when i was in Hartford.

Yeah.. but that's canadian

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