US News

HACKS WANT A LIFT

Big Apple cabbies, notorious for their bulging bellies and clogged arteries, are hoping to get off their beaded chairs and do a bench press between fares at JFK Airport.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a cabby advocacy group, is pushing to build a $3.6 million fitness and health center on a holding lot where drivers can wait up to three hours to be dispatched to a terminal.

As many as 6,500 drivers a day are corralled into the holding pen, and they routinely walk or jog around the perimeter to get their blood pumping.

“We’re all just walking around, jogging, doing exercises,” said driver Mamamnunul Haq, 43, who figures he visits JFK four times a week. “Some drivers do push-ups.”

Drivers there yesterday described the tedium at the lot, where nothing more than a bathroom and small concession stand offer respite from an often excruciatingly boring wait.

“I do anything to pass the time; play soccer, read the papers,” said Malkiat Singh, who has been driving a cab for 15 years. “All we do is sit and drive, sit and drive.”

The proposed center is a 7,000-square-foot building designed by Hunter College students whose creation won the $25,000 first prize in a JPMorgan Chase urban-planning contest this month.

Pasquale DiFulco, spokesman for the Port Authority, said officials plan to meet with the alliance to discuss the proposal but that there are no current plans to move ahead on the project.

The project would have to be financed by the alliance, which is planning to mount a fund-raising effort for the money.

Bhairavi Desai, the group’s executive director, is hopeful the Port Authority will accept the idea of the center, which would house exam rooms and doctors’ offices as well as a gym and physical-therapy space.

“There are a lot of physical problems that come with sitting in a car seat 12 hours a day,” said Desai. “So many drivers die so young because of all the stress on the job.”

A 2002 study by the group found that 80 percent of taxi drivers did not have health insurance and a quarter of the drivers had never visited a doctor for a check-up.

But the sedentary existence was not enough to convince every cabby that a gym would be the best use of $3.6 million.

“Instead of a gym, they should spend the money putting a rest stop [with bathrooms] in the city,” said cabby Atif Ahmed. “There’s a lot of people peeing in bottles.”

david.andreatta@nypost.com