The fight over whether to allow livery cabs to make pick-ups in the outer boroughs is quickly descending into a war of words.
Yesterday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo that he expected to veto the measure and added “I don’t believe there was ever agreement on the taxi bill.”
But Mayor Mike Bloomberg and members of his administration say there was an agreement. This morning the mayor visited the news WCBS studios and said that the governor assured him that the bill would pass.
“This is a bill that should be passed and the governor has assured me a number of times that is going to get passed,” Mr. Bloomberg said, adding that Mr. Cuomo told him that “there were some minor changes he wanted to make.”
Mayor Bloomberg said that the deal was important because it would generate $1 billion in revenue through more taxi medallion sales. He also said, “Four and a half boroughs in this city basically don’t have taxi service. You can’t hail a cab in Staten Island, in Brooklyn, in Queens, in the Bronx, and in Manhattan north of 96th Street. When you get into a cab south of 96th Street in Manhattan and you say I want to go to any of those other places, something like a quarter or a third of the drivers say ‘I’m not going.’”
The mayor sounded as if the administration had been over backwards to meet Albany’s demands, particularly that the news caps were handicap-accessible.
“We’ve worked very hard with the legislature and the governor. I think every issue has been addressed. All of the new medallion cabs would be handicap-accessible.”
