Gov. Cuomo announced a deal yesterday to allow livery cabs to pick up customers who hail them in the outer boroughs.
But the details include a much greater emphasis on wheel-chair-accessible taxis — both livery and yellow cabs — than envisioned by Mayor Bloomberg.
Under the plan, the city will sell 2,000 new, wheel-chair-accessible yellow cab medallions to raise $1 billion — money already included in Bloomberg’s budget for the next fiscal year.
In addition, 18,000 livery permits for street hails will be issued — 6,000 a year for three years — and sold for $1,500 each. Of the livery taxis, 3,600 will be wheel-chair-accessible.
Bloomberg had initially wanted 1,500 new medallions for yellow cabs, all non wheel-chair-accessible.
But Cuomo insisted, “I don’t think New Yorkers want a taxi system which is not accessible.”
In the main, the deal gives Bloomberg what he wanted when he proposed allowing liveries to make street hails in the outer boroughs and parts of northern Manhattan. But Cuomo appeared to be taking the issue — and credit —away from him.
The taxi expansion seemed to be a done deal when the bill was approved by the state Legislature. But Cuomo said the bill was done “in some truly peculiar fashion.”
“The bill was passed very quickly at the end of the session. It was really a placeholder bill and then everybody was going to get together and work out the details,” the governor said.
But he said the details were “more complicated than people first thought.”
The changes announced yesterday will be included in an amendment that legislative leaders agreed to approve in Albany.
Cuomo had threatened to veto the bill in the absence of added protections for the disabled, better enforcement mechanisms and other provisions.
Included in the deal are incentives for the livery cabbies to choose wheelchairaccessible permits.
The city agreed to subsidize the liveries to the tune of $15,000 per accessible permit — and that means $54 million is subtracted from the $1 billion in new medallion revenue.
Bloomberg put on a good face at being upstaged by the governor. “I think no one thought we’d ever get this done,” he said. “But I kept saying and the governor kept saying that this is going to happen. We never gave up.”
david.seifman@nypost.com