page_title: Taxicabs of New York City
section_title: 1990s
hierarchical_section_title: Taxicabs of New York City / History / Medallion taxis / 1990s
caption_attribution_description: 5th Avenue, Empire State Building block.
context_page_description: In New York City, taxicabs come in two varieties: yellow and green; they are widely recognizable symbols of the city. Taxis painted yellow are able to pick up passengers anywhere in the five boroughs. Those painted apple green, which began to appear in August 2013, are allowed to pick up passengers in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Both types have the same fare structure. Taxicabs are operated by private companies and licensed by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission. It also oversees over 40,000 other for-hire vehicles, including "black cars", commuter vans, and ambulettes.
  Taxicab vehicles, each of which must have a medallion to operate, are driven an average of 180 miles per shift. As of March 14, 2014, there were 51,398 individuals licensed to drive medallion taxicabs. There were 13,605 taxicab medallion licenses in existence. By July 2016, that number had dropped slightly to 13,587 medallions, or 18 lower than the 2014 total. Taxi patronage has declined since 2011 due to competition from ridesharing companies.
context_section_description: On October 26, 1993, thousands of taxi drivers used their taxis to block traffic in protest at the number of taxi drivers who had been murdered: 35 taxi drivers had been murdered so far that year, and 45 had been killed the previous year.
  In 1996, Chevrolet ceased making the Caprice. The Ford Crown Victoria became the most widely used sedan for yellow cabs in New York. In addition, yellow cab operators also used the Honda Odyssey, Isuzu Oasis, Chevrolet Venture, Ford Freestar, and Toyota Sienna minivans, which offer increased passenger room. The distinctive Checker Taxi cabs were, due to their durable construction, phased out slowly. The last one was retired in July 1999, after more than 20 years in service and with nearly one million miles on its odometer. Laws since 1996 require that taxis be replaced every six years regardless of condition; this was increased to seven years in 2015.
  The same year, the TLC began Operation Refusal, an undercover sting operation created to address the alleged phenomenon of service refusal. In 1998, the TLC enacted a package of regulatory reforms, inspired by Mayor Rudy Giuliani, that included a structured framework of enhanced driver standards. In 1999, actor Danny Glover filed a complaint with the TLC, after he was allegedly refused service by New York cab drivers. This resulted in a highly publicized Operation Refusal crackdown on drivers who were allegedly discriminating against certain passengers, sometimes for race, but far more often because of the passenger's destination.
  Many cabdrivers protested the new regulations sought by the Giuliani administration. In 1998, their activity formed the basis of a new taxidrivers' trade union, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Under the leadership of Bhairavi Desai, the union grew to fifteen thousand members (2011 estimate), representing almost one-third of all licensed cabdrivers in the city. Giuliani's crackdowns also led to a series of successful lawsuits against the city and the TLC. In 2000, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD had violated taxi drivers' First Amendment rights by refusing to let the drivers engage in a peaceful protest of new rules. The TLC also lost a series of cases in state courts, for implementing rules without allowing for notice and comment. In 2000, another federal judge ruled that the Operation Refusal sting violated cabbies' due process rights. In 2004, TLC inspectors were embarrassed when they handcuffed and arrested 60 Minutes reporter Mike Wallace, charging him with disorderly conduct for allegedly having acted aggressively toward a TLC Inspector in defense of his driver. In 2006, the city was forced to settle the remaining aspects of the Operation Refusal case. Under the settlement, the TLC agreed to pay a group of 500 taxi drivers $7 million.
  In order to encourage greater use of passenger seat belts to prevent partition-related injuries, the TLC instituted the "Celebrity Talking Taxi" program in 1997, using celebrity audio messages to urge passengers to buckle up and take a receipt at the ride's conclusion. The messages proved largely unpopular with both drivers and riders, as the TLC learned after conducting an online survey about the program in the fall of 2002. On the strength of those results, the Commission officially terminated the program in February 2003.
  In 1996, the number of medallions changed for the first time in 60 years. The TLC added 133 new licenses, bringing the total to 11,920. Since 1996, more medallions have been added to the fleet bringing the total number of cab licenses to 13,237 as of 2009.
caption: The Ford Crown Victoria became the most used yellow cab in New York City in the 1990s
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