Revel announced this week that the Taxi and Limousine Commission has approved its motion to place 50 electric vehicles on streets south of Midtown. The addition of a new rental car service comes as the yellow taxi medallion has yet to regain its value after nearly a decade of unbridled growth from Uber and Lyft.
The million dollar peak in 2014 came before car rental companies like Uber and Lyft flooded the streets with 120,000 cars.
Medallions sold for an average of $ 107,378 in June, with the lowest retail price dropping at $ 60,000 in May, according to data from the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
Most of the 103 lockets sold last month ranged from $ 100,000 to $ 140,000, the majority of which were foreclosures.
The price set by the market today is very different from what economists touted during a March hearing with Senator Jessica Ramos, Chair of the Transportation Committee, who estimated the medallion to be worth $ 400,000.
“In my opinion, the taxi medallion market is extremely undervalued,” said Dean Barr, data analyst at Eagle Alpha, during the hearing. “Medallions are worth more than some people expect.”
The lowest medallion retail sales that year was $ 45,000 in March.
With values falling and fewer taxis on the streets, both lenders and the city are taking various steps to reclaim the remains of a once lucrative asset.
Earlier this year the TLC and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan This would allow medallion owners to restructure their debts through a $ 20,000 loan and up to $ 9,000 in debt settlement assistance from a federal government-provided fund of $ 65 million.
But four months after the announcement, the details are still being managed. The city recently selected Pursuit Lending, formerly known as New York Business Development Corp., to manage the fund.
Pursuit Lending declined a request to comment on the appointment.
“The city and TLC continue to take all necessary steps to deliver a successful program,” said spokesman Allan Fromberg. He declined to discuss the new role of Pursuit Lending.
But as the market declines and most medallion owners hold hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans, individual lenders are moving to renegotiate loans with drivers, said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance, a group of more than 25,000 drivers.
“We have more lenders offering cash settlement,” Desai said.
Desai is seeking state legislation that will cap individual medallion loans to $ 125,000 to be repaid at 4% over 20 years.
The TLC has done little to help locket owners use the commission’s $ 65 million fund, she said.
“We tell our drivers: fight for yourself,” said Desai.
Augie Tang, a taxi driver who owes $ 490,000 on the medallion he inherited from his father, said he was offered a deal by his lender Field Point Servicing to bring his loan amount with the city’s relief fund to $ 275,000 – Reduce this sum to drop that amount into a cash settlement of $ 230,000.
“The $ 65 million bailout is not a bailout. It’s a reduction on a loan that we still can’t repay, ”he said. “We don’t make enough no matter what we do.”
Tang said he had to be at least $ 400 gross a day and work ten hours a day, six days a week to meet the minimum wage – and the minimum wage won’t pay off his loan while he still covers the cost of living.
“That’s the real problem right now,” he added.
Add to the frustration of the drivers that more and more customers are welcoming yellow taxis as the prices of the city’s fleet of ridesharing are soaring. The TLC recently approved Revel’s licensing.
“People keep calling us because Uber and Lyft are driving prices up so much,” Tang said. “And now comes Revel, and who says there won’t be another company ready to go into the market yet to satiate more? “
Other drivers are stunned that the city would allow more competition if they could barely hold out in a depressed market.
“Things are bad enough and now another company is coming out,” said Cabrera. “It is incomprehensible what is happening in the city.”