A Manhattan appeals court on Tuesday greenlighted former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “Taxi of Tomorrow” plan, reversing a lower court decision that killed the scheme.
The split ruling, with one of four judges dissenting, states that the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s decision to anoint the Nissan NV200 as the yellow fleet’s official vehicle “is a legally appropriate response to the agency’s statutory obligation to produce a 21st century taxicab consistent with the broad interests and perspectives that the agency is charged with protecting.”
The plan was a hallmark of Bloomberg’s tenure.
But taxi fleet owners sued in 2013, claiming that the mayor overstepped his authority by implementing the plan without approval from the City Council.
They also argued that the selection was not a hybrid nor handicap-accessible.
The split decision means the fleet owners will be able to ask the state’s highest court to reconsider the case.
The 24-page ruling in support of the plan says that the city charter grants the TLC “an expansive mandate to develop and improve taxi and limousine service, expressly including a direction to ‘adopt and establish an overall public transportation policy governing taxi service.’”
The Appellate Division judges also found that the TLC did its homework in choosing the Nissan NV200.
The agency “carried out its assigned mission with an exacting process lasting from 2007 to 2011, obtaining input from all conceivable interest and concerns, to ensure a final decision that would best satisfy taxi passengers, owners and drivers, as well as the general public.”
Striking an exclusive agreement with Nissan to manufacture the cab granted the city “negotiating power unavailable to individual medallion owners…along with price caps and other protections.”
The dissenting Judge, Rolando Acosta, wrote, “TLC exceeded its statutory authority in a manner that infringed on the City Council’s legislative domain.”
He notes that the city charter specifically says the TLC can set rates, standards of service, insurance coverage, pollution control and licensing of drivers, but says nothing about selecting specific cars.
“TLC’s authority under the charter to make rules with respect to vehicle design is limited to rules regulating ‘standards’ of design, and this does not include the power to issue rules mandating the exclusive use of the one purpose-built vehicle manufactured by a single company,” Acosta says in his 12-page dissent.
He adds that the City Council passed a measure requiring the TLC to approve hybrid options.