Making double or triple their normal pay wasn’t enough for some greedy scabbies, who used the final day of the strike as an opportunity to rip off desperate New Yorkers and unsuspecting tourists.
Marketing executive Barbara Young said she was charged $20 for a trip from Lexington Avenue and 34th Street to Penn Station, double the $10 fare she should have paid under the emergency flat rates imposed by Mayor Bloomberg for the duration of the two-day hackout.
“I took the cab anyway because I had a lot to carry,” she said.
One cabby charged a tourist $100 for a ride from Kennedy Airport to Midtown, more than three times the $30 he should have charged, according to a doorman at the Hotel Pennsylvania.
Marco Segall said that despite hailing several cabs, he could not find one willing to charge him the $15 fare he should have paid under the temporary zoning plan.
One driver even asked him how much he wanted to pay.
“How much am I supposed to pay?” he said. “They’re racking it up, and they know it.”
Several thousand drivers went off duty for the 48-hour strike, which ends at 5 a.m. today, but by yesterday many had already realized that the mayor had paved the streets with gold and they were sitting on the sidelines.
Taj Dass, an 18-year veteran cabby, said he struck the first day, but could not afford to miss a second.
“I only feel bad for making more money. It’s not fair to the drivers who are taking a stand,” he said.
Bloomberg conceded that the emergency flat rates were partly an enticement to keep drivers from striking, but downplayed reports of overcharging.
A total of 122 fare-related phone calls were placed to the city’s 311 hot line Wednesday, with an additional 24 pickup-refusal calls and 16 “rude cabby” calls.
“We want to make sure that as many drivers are out there so that the public can get to work, get to school, get to their dialysis or whatever they have to do,” Bloomberg said.
Drivers are forbidden to overcharge and face fines of between $200 and $350 for violations, officials said.
“We are just now starting to receive a relatively small number of complaints and questions, and we will look into each and every one,” Taxi and Limousine Commission Chairman Matthew Daus said.
City streets were more yellow yesterday than on the first day of the strike, the mayor said.
Roughly 83 percent of medallion taxis were taking fares yesterday, compared to 75 percent the first day of the strike, Bloomberg said.
Despite this, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which called the strike in protest of the new global-positioning satellite and credit-card technology being installed in all 13,000 cabs, insisted it was a “resounding success.”
Alliance leader Bhairavi Desai said that by taking a stand, she will gain new members and more clout against the city.
Bus drivers, UPS deliverymen, cyclists and pedestrians all said the streets were so much easier to navigate with fewer taxis on the road that they wished the strike would continue.
Some transportation experts said the strike provided New Yorkers a taste of what traffic might be like under congestion pricing.
“When you consider the vehicles traveled by taxis, it may be very similar,” said Paul Steely White, who runs Transportation Alternatives. “Buses and bicyclists have something in common: competing with cabs for curb space.”
UPS driver Will Vega, who makes deliveries between 25th and 33rd streets, said the protest made for smoother sailing.
“Yesterday getting around was pretty easy,” he said. “I didn’t have any problems making any of my deliveries. I wish they were on strike all the time.”
Additional reporting by David Seifman