Cuomo administration approves city sale of taxi medallions
Dana Rubinstein
The de Blasio administration can finally proceed with plans for a taxi medallion sale the mayor has projected will garner the city $1.3 billion over three years, now that the Cuomo administration has approved a related plan to enhance wheelchair accessibility in the taxi fleet.
Last week, state transportation commissioner Joan McDonald told city taxi commissioner Meera Joshi that the city’s plan to make its taxis more accessible to wheelchair users was “compliant” with a 2011 law that created the city’s green borough taxi fleet and allowed the city to sell 2,000 regular yellow taxi medallions, according to a letter provided to Capital.
Taxi medallions can sell for more than $1 million each.
That 2011 law came with a catch, however. If the city wanted to sell more than 400 of those 2,000 medallions, it had to submit for state approval a broad-gauge plan to provide “meaningful” accessibility across the entire taxi fleet.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/08/8551113/cuomo-administration-approves-city-sale-taxi-medallions
