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NYC Taxis Get in on Ridesharing
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This seems like such a simple solution, I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before: earlier this month, the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission launched a program to organize cab-shares in the city. Called the Group Rides program, it’s being run as a pilot project for the first year. If the idea takes off, which everyone hopes it will, the program will be expanded throughout the city.
It works like this: First, the Taxi & Limousine Commission will installed a small network of official Group Rides stands in Manhattan (three in Manhattan proper and three at La Guardia). Passengers can share rides in groups of two to four passengers for a low flat rate of $3 to $4 per person. The cabs will operate along specified routes and passengers can get out anywhere along the way.
For the pilot phase, the stands will be in operation during morning rush hour (6am to 10am) on weekdays. Routes from the three Manhattan-based Group Rides taxi stands will run from W 57th St at 8th Avenue to 57that Park Ave, E 72nd St at 3rd Avenue to Park Ave at 42nd St, and West 72ndat Columbus Ave. to Park Ave. at 42nd St. The stands will be in operation on weekdays during morning rush hours between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.
The first phase of the program seems more focused on the environmental benefits of ride-sharing than the economic benefits, per se: The initial routes serve some of the city’s tonier neighborhoods. But before anyone could complain too much about access to the program, the TLC announced that the locations were chosen following “a careful review of GPS electronic trip sheet data, which were combed for locations with high volumes of pickups, and the location of corresponding drop-offs.”
Future stand locations and routes are planned for Grand Central Terminal to 59th Street/6th Avenue ($3.00 fare); Penn Station to 59th Street/6th Avenue ($4.00 fare); and the Port Authority Bus Terminal to 59th Street/6th Avenue ($3.00 fare).
The program grew out of Mayor Bloomberg’s 2009 State of the City address in which he encouraged the TLC to experiment with this and other facilitated ride-sharing programs. Listen up and take notes, LA and San Francisco.
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