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Exactly. Plugging in an EV at home takes seconds, and then it's charging cheaply overnight, so no waiting at all. It's nice not to have to waste time driving to the gas station, filling, etc. - driving past gas stations now feels a bit like when you walk past a record store after MP3/iTunes came out.

EV's are much cheaper to maintain and "fuel". For some real world data from a substantial fleet, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dc... . What they're seeing is that maintenance costs for BEV's are much lower than hybrids, and those are much lower than gas cars. For example, the Ford Focus BEV cost about 1/5th as much per year for maintenance as the Ford Focus ICE. Having hundreds of parts instead of thousands makes everything easier and cheaper.

A tenant can sublet their apartment, with the landlord's permission, and for a 10% fee. The tenant can not establish primary residence elsewhere - if they do, and the landlord can prove it, the lease can be broken.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/rent...

Tenants of rent stabilized apartments are allowed to sublet their apartment, but this incurs a 10% surchage, so there's an incentive to sublet without notification.

New York City just recently downgraded their city-wide speed limit from 30 MPH to 25 MPH to decrease pedestrian fatalities and accidents. This is enforced on various major roads where drivers could easily go faster than 25 MPH by newly installed speed cameras.

Fake news. The origin seems to be this leaflet that happens to have a list of 31 ways a person might describe themselves. However, this is not an official list, it's not law. The law only covers discrimination based on gender, including being transgender.

For forms you only need to put male, female and other or better still just have a write-in box or don't ask at all.

New York City's DOT records of pedestrian fatalities disagree with you on this point.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestrian-fatalities-by-bike-motor-vehicle.pdf

We *have* road neutrality.

No, we do not. There are entire roads off-limits to business-owned vehicles. There are parking spots for commercial cars only. On many highways trucks and buses aren't allowed in the left-most lanes.

You were saying?..

The RSA is a landlords' lobbying group, not a government entity. In NYC it's the Rent Guidelines Board that determines how much any increase will be. But the landlords can't be thrown in jail for contempt because there is no law requiring them to open their books.

All that can be done is for the RGB to refuse an increase for that year, which they in fact did for the past two years (and RSA unsuccessfully sued them for doing that claiming of course that RGB didn't take into account the increased costs of being a landlord).

This past year though an increase of 1.25% for one year leases and 2% for two year leases was granted, again with no information forthcoming from the landlords about their "increased costs".

http://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/2069/new-york-city-rent-increase

Most individuals and many transgender people use female or male pronouns and titles. Some transgender and gender non-conforming people prefer to use pronouns other than he/him/his or she/her/hers, such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir. 10 Many transgender and gender non-conforming people choose to use a different name than the one they were given at birth.

That as far as i can tell is non normative text. Also, with the arguable exception about ze/hir, it's 100% reasonable.

http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/acs...

Interesting. That's different from the one I found and different from the no longer extant one you were initially referring to. It's also substantially weaker.

Not only that, it's a document specificaly about juveniles and kids in positions where the adults in question have vast amounts of power over the kids. Yes I think it's entirely reasonable that people cannot use the full force of their free speech at a juvenile over which they have full power, and should err very much on the side of caution here.

Nonetheless what you have provided is links to the guidance, not the law. Here is the text of the actual local law:

http://legistar.council.nyc.go...|Text|&

http://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/...

Most individuals and many transgender people use female or male pronouns and titles. Some transgender and gender non-conforming people prefer to use pronouns other than he/him/his or she/her/hers, such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir. 10 Many transgender and gender non-conforming people choose to use a different name than the one they were given at birth.

http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/acs...

New York City Human Rights Law

The following are excerpts from the New York City
Commission on Human Rights Legal Enforcement
Guidance on Discrimination on the Basis of Gender
Identity or Expression: Local Law No. 3 (2002); NYC
Admin. Code Section 8-102(23):

* The NYCHRL requires employers and covered
entities to use an individual's preferred name,
pronoun, and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs./Mr./Mx.)
regardless of the individual's sex assigned at birth,
anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or
the sex indicated on the individual's identification.

* Most individuals and many transgender people
use female or male pronouns and titles. Some
transgender and gender [expansive] people prefer
to use pronouns other than he/him/his or she/her/
hers, such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir. Many
transgender and gender [expansive] people choose
to use a different name than the one they were
given at birth.

* The Commission can impose civil penalties up to
$125,000 for violations, and up to $250,000 for
violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or
malicious conduct."

http://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/...

Most individuals and many transgender people use female or male pronouns and titles. Some transgender and gender non-conforming people prefer to use pronouns other than he/him/his or she/her/hers, such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir. 10 Many transgender and gender non-conforming people choose to use a different name than the one they were given at birth.

http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/acs...

New York City Human Rights Law

The following are excerpts from the New York City
Commission on Human Rights Legal Enforcement
Guidance on Discrimination on the Basis of Gender
Identity or Expression: Local Law No. 3 (2002); NYC
Admin. Code Section 8-102(23):

* The NYCHRL requires employers and covered
entities to use an individual's preferred name,
pronoun, and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs./Mr./Mx.)
regardless of the individual's sex assigned at birth,
anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or
the sex indicated on the individual's identification.

* Most individuals and many transgender people
use female or male pronouns and titles. Some
transgender and gender [expansive] people prefer
to use pronouns other than he/him/his or she/her/
hers, such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir. Many
transgender and gender [expansive] people choose
to use a different name than the one they were
given at birth.

* The Commission can impose civil penalties up to
$125,000 for violations, and up to $250,000 for
violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or
malicious conduct."

Your page links to this

http://www.nyc.gov/html/cchr/d...

Which is down. But if you go to Wayback you find this

https://web.archive.org/web/20...

Which contains

Most individuals and many transgender people use female or male pronouns and
titles. Some transgender and gender non-conforming people prefer to use pronouns
other than he/him/his or she/her/hers, such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir.10 Many
transgender and gender non-conforming people choose to use a different name than
the one they were given at birth.

A broken link on a web page doesn't mean the guidelines have been retracted. It just means they suck at running a web server.

If they wanted to retract the legal protection for ze/hir/zxhim/zxche, they'd have to say it.

Also if you call a biker a woman and get beaten up the biker is breaking the law

It still demonstrates my point that people all across the political spectrum care a lot about misgendering. In fact... you that supports my point. Some people care os much they're willing to break the law to prevent it from happening.

New York City issued guidelines in December 2015 for employers and landlords

Employers and landlords have a lot of power over people. There are huge numbers of things they are flat-out not allowed to do under those auspices that people in general are allowed to do.

The guidelines require anyone who provides jobs or housing to use the transgender person's preferred pronoun, such as "ze," "hir," "they," them," "he," "she," "him," or "her." "Ze" is the third person singular, used in place of either "he" or "she," while "hir" is third person possessive, used to replace "his" or "her." Pronouns like "ze" or "hir" represent a break from traditional male- or female-only roles.

Lolnope!

Here's the quote from the actual guidelines http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-...

Intentionally failing to use an individual's preferred name, pronoun or title. For example, repeatedly calling a transgender woman him or Mr. when she has made it clear that she prefers female pronouns and a female title.

There's no mention of those weird pronouns anywhere on the actual page. As far as I can tell that source you linked to simply made it up and you gredily guzzled it down because it's what you wanted to hear.

"So people can basically force us - on pain of massive legal liability - to say what they want us to say, whether or not we want to endorse the political message associated with that term, and whether or not we think it's a lie," writes Eugene Volokh, law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

It's well established already that if you're an employer or landlord there are many things you cannot do that provate citizens can.

If you want to use your free speech, don't be a fucking coward and only use it when you have power over people. Grow a spine and do it as a private citizen where anyone is utterly free to tell you you're full of shit.

It's also pretty obvious that laws like this violate the First Amendment as Volokh points out. Be able to threaten people with $250,000 fines unless they call you "ze" is fucking mental.

God job that's not the case then.

1.2) A person who seeks to impose their views on others in a very autocratic or inflexible way.

You mean like laws forcing the use of gender pronouns (or made up words) that do not match visual cues? https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr...

Seems like we have "Nazis" on both sides of the fence...

The more I talk to you the more I feel like I'm talking to a child. Lots of name calling and no substance.

I'll break it down for you as simply as I can. If city housing planning doesnt allow for housing growth to meet demand, as it does not in silicon valley, then it is hindering supply in the face of demand (in this case, overwhelming demand). I've never said other factors don't come into play with growth (you're just making things up there) but there is a very obvious road block to housing growth in silicon valley and that is its various local government's irresponsible policies on growth. To put it at its simplest, if government wont let supply growth happen at anywhere close to demand then all other factors don't really matter. Supply will never meet demand because the government literally has polices in place that won't let it.

"I'm from a farming family from the Midwest. I moved out at 18. If you're talking manual labor son I've done and seen more than my fair share. "

You didn't understand what I was getting at here at all. Working the family farm as a child has nothing to do with this. You never had to pay the bills, put food on the table, or any of the other things adults worry over. My point was not about hard manual labor, I was talking about grown adults who bust their asses every day for very little money. Now imagine not being able to find decent place to live, not because you arent willing to work, but because you happen to be in the bottom half of income earners in your area. So you share a room with another person in a house with 2 other families in it and still pay half your income on rent.

"Chief, those valley residents feel the housing pinch as much as anyone. Secondly I was arguing that your proposed solution of building nothing but 20 story tall skyscrapers goes against what ANY Valley resident wants. Why? The view, the atmosphere, the fact that the city isn't choking like Manhattan is? You've yet to propose anything other than your 20 story skyscraper metropolis. My concept would actually result in more land being develop-able into apartment complexes that don't need to span 20 stories tall."

Please, tell me friend, if allowing cities to grow upwards isn't the solution to the problems that are impoverishing the people of the valley and is such a truly awful idea then what might a better one be? A quarter of the population is food insecure? That's not America, that's boarding on the third world. Over regulation by government is choking these people. If the region had been allowed to grow like our current major cities life would be far better for the bottom half of that region.

http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/foo...

"Based on our research, one of the reasons girls and underrepresented minorities are not pursuing computer science is because of the negative perception of computer scientists and the relevance of the field beyond coding."

This line seems to be taken from a document about the movie Hidden Figures.

That "Made with Code" project seems particularly absurd. They're trying to trick girls into learning how to program by making it about clothes and fashion. Feminism seems more intent on reinforcing stereotypes than those they accuse of misogyny.

You mean the thing that is actually a discriminatory burden?

These court cases are crap and I'm sick of this argument that people are just incapable of getting an ID somehow. Everyone should have an ID. Here's a list of reasons why, provided by the NYC government:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/id/htm...

People object no matter how easy the local government makes it. People objected even when they were sending mobile voter ID vans into neighborhoods to make it easy. If those vans were giving out free phones people would have waited on lines for hours.

Voters are supposed to be adults. Treat them accordingly.

NYC absolutely has an income tax. To partially avoid the whole "people will leave the city!" adjacent Yonkers also has a city income tax.

That said, Nassau and the non-Yonkers parts of Westchester county are great for commuters. In addition to avoiding the city tax, the same unlimited Metrocard that works for the subways also works out there, so bus-commuter rail-subway trips are significantly cheaper than they would be anywhere else outside the city.

>more than a quarter of households are still using dial-up.

I assume when Crawford wrote that statement she had referred to a 2014 NYC comptroller report about "Internet Inequality" that says, "27 percent (730,000) of NYC households lack broadband Internet at home.." in a bullet list summary of the report. However, the tables in the appendix of report read differently. Unless I'm just reading the report wrong (which is probable), in the table titled, "City Totals (Households)", only 17,635 out of 2,551,959 NYC households who own a computer have dial-up only internet access. This is not anywhere near the 25%+ claim by Crawford.

Every so often somebody on Slashdot says that. But somebody lied. You can read the rule for yourself if you want to know the nitty-gritty details,

Yes, you can. Here it is. Very first paragraph:

47USC541(a)(1): A franchising authority may award, in accordance with the provisions of this subchapter, 1 or more franchises within its jurisdiction; except that a franchising authority may not grant an exclusive franchise and may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise. Any applicant whose application for a second franchise has been denied by a final decision of the franchising authority may appeal such final decision pursuant to the provisions of section 555 of this title for failure to comply with this subsection.

Before granting a new exclusive franchise, the city must hold a meeting.

That is not what the law says.

Didn't affect the existing franchises at all,

You are right. But it was enacted in 1992, which was 25 years ago. The standard franchise agreement at that time was 10 years. Any existing exclusive franchises will have long expired by now.

and nothing prohibits city and state politicians from granting new monopolies to their donors;

Except for this federal law.

Have a glance at the New York City franchise map on their web site sometime.

Can you provide a link to any exclusive franchise? You can't even provide a link the the NYC franchise map. Relax, I did it for you: here. Interesting how a "monopoly" has been granted to three different cable companies. Verizon's franchise is pretty limited: the entire city of New York. CableVision has separate Bronx and Brooklyn franchises, and TWC has four of the five boroughs (not the Bronx). Every one of the franchises is very specific in not being exclusive, and all appear to have been negotiated well after the federal law prohibited exclusive ones.

If there is just one provider at any specific address, it is not because the city has given a monopoly to anyone, it is because only one company chooses to serve that address. This reason is spelled out pretty clearly in the Verizon franchise as one of the whereas clauses: no one company has come forward to serve the entire city.

"That sort of thing" stopped, technically, in 1996 by federal law. No, really.

Here's the NYC cable franchise agreements: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doit...

Inconveniently, they're non-searchable PDFs. But, go read em. Every one of them is a non-exclusive franchise agreement, because exclusive ones have been illegal since the Telecoms act of 1996. True story.

Now, reality on the ground is that 'overbuilding' has basically lead to bankruptcy every time it's every been tried due to the huge first-mover advantage. And, it's not that government is blameless... they'll usually demand 100% coverage of a region not pick-n-choose customers. But, it's wrong to say that the Franchise Agreements are exclusive.

"If youre near the crime scene - you COULD be involved" Er, yes. If you are near the crime scene you COULD be. That is why police interview people, you know, that are near the crime scene.

Define near.

Cell phone tower location methods are accurate to around .75 square mile. https://transition.fcc.gov/psh...

Now let's take say, New York City, with it's over 27 thousand people per square mile https://www1.nyc.gov/site/plan...

So let's say half of these people aren't using a phone for some reason. It is still pretty easy to come up with a hellava lot of possible witnesses/suspects for a crime. Regardless, that is a hellava lot of suspects that have to be eliminated from suspicion in some cases.

Toronto itsellf is around 4150 people per square kilometer https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/ce...

This comes out to around 10749 peeps per square mile. For this alone, mass collection is going to be really inefficient. Given the margin of error location wise for the logs, some poor gumshoe may have thousands of people to cross off the witness/suspect list.

I have this vision of interrogation rooms starting to look like sports stadiums.

Nothing wrong with getting location data from a suspect, or even looking over phone logs for data, but turning everyone in the area into a witness/suspect is just so inefficient that you might as well just drag everyone in a square mile of a crime in for questioning.

I see an AC has already responded to you but let me add a comment since I've recently found some reports about New York City's stop & frisk.

Data archives for 2003 - 2015 are at http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/h...

Out of 5 MILLION stops in ~12 years, 25% were young black men but they make up NOT EVEN TWO PERCENT of NYC's population.
The percentage of stops annually where the suspect was found to be innocent was never below 75% and usually above 85%

Choosing to stop more black men is not racist. As stated above, why wouldn't you stop someone (whatever race/gender/age) who is more likely to be guilty?

I see an AC has already responded to you but let me add a comment since I've recently found some reports about New York City's stop & frisk.

Data archives for 2003 - 2015 are at http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/h...

Out of 5 MILLION stops in ~12 years, 25% were young black men but they make up NOT EVEN TWO PERCENT of NYC's population.
The percentage of stops annually where the suspect was found to be innocent was never below 75% and usually above 85%

Hey fucking moron, the agreement was between The City of New York and Verizon. RTFA. http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doi...

Are ass-holes like you totally incapable of reading!

Given that I (and noone else discussing this here) has actually read the contract, there's no way to say for certain

There's a link to the contract in the summary, reposted here. (That copy doesn't include the appendices, which are here.)

That said, I infer that the contract reduces that performance bond when certain milestones are met.

Correct. The bond reduction schedule is on page 42 of the contract, and references performance benchmarks in Appendix F.

Interestingly, it says the bond was to be reduced to $15 million after meeting the 2011 performance numbers. It lists three more step-downs after that ($10 million, $5 million, and $1 million) that Verizon apparently didn't claim.

So a few things: First, this has been brewing for several years, and probably just boils down to whether Verizon met the 2011 benchmarks, not any of the earlier step-downs. Thus, if they didn't meet the 2011 benchmarks, the bond theoretically would only go back up to the 2010 level, $25 million, not the full $50 million. And the letter only claims 38k addresses in NYC are without service. That's a vanishingly low percentage, and according to Appendix F they only had to provide 66% coverage across NYC in 2011.

Given all that, this default letter strikes me as more of a media ploy than a reasonable expectation of legal recourse.

Are you acting like an idiot on purpose? The medallion as a significant investment of the Taxi company brings on more oversight to drivers as the users. There are also major regulations on operations, for example in NYC, where rates are regularly restricted and safety is a huge concern for all parties with respect to traffic flow, insurance for accidents, and background checks as described here.

Are you acting like an idiot on purpose? The medallion as a significant investment of the Taxi company brings on more oversight to drivers as the users. There are also major regulations on operations, for example in NYC, where rates are regularly restricted and safety is a huge concern for all parties with respect to traffic flow, insurance for accidents, and background checks as described here.

Notify NYC has been in place for a year or two now and has worked very well. Except that one time they sent out a WEA for an Amber Alert and had everyone's phones blaring 2:30am (pissing off all 8.4 million residents simultaneously is no easy feat, but they pulled it off).
 
It sends out text messages, emails and has an RSS feed. Subway outages, "police actions", etc. all get texted to you if you subscribe. All my friends use it, it's actually a great system.

favoring some types of web traffic over others

I can not identify an argument for "net neutrality", that would not also not apply to attempts to prioritize — such as by designating traffic lanes for them — buses, bicycles, cars with electronic toll-payment transponders, and even for emergency vehicles.

In fact, I suspect strongly, that, had the Internet-service provision been in government's hands already, the same people arguing for "net neutrality" today, would've been arguing for "sensible measures" to prioritize "special" traffic.

And vice versa — had private corporations been in charge of streets and highways, their attempts at prioritization would've attracted the same criticism currently hitting the ISPs.

Some neutralities are more neutral than others...

I've always viewed the entire net neutrality debate as a (hopefully) temporary sideshow while/until we fix the larger problem of lack of competition. The only reason (e.g.) Comcast is able to pull the shenanigans that they are is because we can't go anywhere else. Otherwise, if an ISP decided to slow down Netflix and try to extort money from them, their customers would just leave.

I can not identify an argument for "net neutrality", that would not also not apply to attempts to prioritize — such as by designating traffic lanes for them — buses, bicycles, cars with electronic toll-payment transponders, and even for emergency vehicles.

Except for the difference in footprint and the character of the purpose.

I mean, really, if you can come up with a use scenario where a hospital sending remote radiologist data has a priority over some ISP's traffic, you're more than welcome to show it.

Of course, in those cases, they CAN pay for a dedicated line with guaranteed bandwidth, so...

In fact, I suspect strongly, that, had the Internet-service provision been in government's hands already, the same people arguing for "net neutrality" today, would've been arguing for "sensible measures" to prioritize "special" traffic.

Suspect all you want, it won't make them a reality.

And vice versa — had private corporations been in charge of streets and highways, their attempts at prioritization would've attracted the same criticism currently hitting the ISPs.

Some neutralities are more neutral than others...

Different things are different. Discernment is very important. Pizza Hut and Dominos delivery vehicles are not the same as Ambulances and Fire Engines. Even the bus companies, they don't get more money from their bus lanes, it's about reducing congestion and the costs of individual vehicles, not a profit scheme.

Even toll payments, it's about processing, not profiteering.

The same cannot be said for what the companies in these cases want.

favoring some types of web traffic over others

I can not identify an argument for "net neutrality", that would not also not apply to attempts to prioritize — such as by designating traffic lanes for them — buses, bicycles, cars with electronic toll-payment transponders, and even for emergency vehicles.

In fact, I suspect strongly, that, had the Internet-service provision been in government's hands already, the same people arguing for "net neutrality" today, would've been arguing for "sensible measures" to prioritize "special" traffic.

And vice versa — had private corporations been in charge of streets and highways, their attempts at prioritization would've attracted the same criticism currently hitting the ISPs.

Some neutralities are more neutral than others...

Uber drivers and their cars are not TLC-Licensed so no Uber does not follow the rules.

From NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission, I'm seeing that Uber IS TLC licensed.
LICENSEE NUMBER ALTERNATE NAME OF LICENSEE STREET ADDRESS CITY LICENSE TYPE DESC TOTAL AFFILIATED
B02598 UBER-HINTER LLC 27-55 JACKSON AVE LONG ISLAND CIT TLC License Base - Black Car 1523
B02617 UBER-WEITER LLC 27-55 JACKSON AVENUE LIC TLC License Base - Black Car 2161
B02682 UBER-SCHMECKEN LLC 27-55 JACKSON AVENUE LIC TLC License Base - Black Car 7822
B02764 UBER-DANACH-NY,LLC 27-55 JACKSON AVENUE LIC TLC License Base - Black Car 4357
B02765 UBER-GRUN LLC 27-55 JACKSON AVENUE LIC TLC License Base - Black Car 1540
B02835 UBER-DREIST NY LLC 27-55 JACKSON AVENUE LIC TLC License Base - Black Car 3954
B02836 UBER-DRINNEN-NY LLC 27-55 JACKSON AVENUE LIC TLC License Base - Black Car 2917
B02864 UBER-SIEBEN-NY,LLC 628 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 15
B02865 UBER-VIER-NY LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 37
B02866 UBER-ZWEI-NY LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 111
B02867 UBER-FUNF-NY LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 30
B02869 UBER-ZEHN-NY LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 62
B02870 UBER-NEUN-NY LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 15
B02871 UBER-ACHT-NY,LLC 628 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 294
B02872 UBER-EINS-NY,LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 16
B02875 UBER-SECHS-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 32
B02876 UBER-VIERZEHN-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 16
B02877 UBER-ZWOLF-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 19
B02878 UBER-ELF-NY,LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 584
B02879 UBER-FUNFZEHN-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 32
B02880 UBER-NEUNZEHN-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 75
B02882 UBER-ZWANZIG-NY,LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 10
B02883 UBER-SECHZEHN-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 10
B02884 UBER-DREIZEHN-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 30
B02887 UBER-EINUNDZWANZIG-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 20
B02889 UBER-ACHTZEHN-NY, LLC 636 WEST 28 STREET NEW YORK TLC License Base - Black Car 11

So, with it being shown that they ARE TLC licensed bases, with well over 9k associated drivers/vehicles, do you have any further complaints about widespread non-following of NYC's own rules? I know uber violates the rules in other jurisdictions, but they seem to follow the rules in NYC. At least as much as the taxi companies themselves do.

The main difference in the business models is that Taxi companies have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a taxi license/plate/medallion, the supply of which has been artificially restricted by government regulation. This forces costs up for them and prices up for customers.

Given that this is specifically about NYC, which I've done a bit of study on, it's actually worse than you say. NYC taxis are some of the most highly controlled in the world. London's Black Taxis are up there too, but at least they require quality drivers. NYC, from my understanding, is much more concerned with the vehicle, medallion, and operating methods.

Peak price for the medallion was over $1M, and the loan using one as collateral ran roughly 10%. So the 'permit' to operate a taxi in NYC ran, as an opportunity cost, roughly $100k/year. Before the costs of the car, insurance, fuel, and driver. If you figure on 3 rides an hour, 24 hours day, 365 days a year(they hand off the permit to successive drivers in the company), that's 26k rides. Or the permit being $4 for every ride.

2014 factbook: 13,437 medallions, 485k per day. That's 36 rides per medallion(I was figuring 72, double theirs), which increases that to $8/ride. Though I think the value of medallions have dropped from their high, and interest rates are lower. $740k@7% is only $142 per day, or still around $4/ride. ;)

Wrong. The whole point of surge pricing is to only offer taxis to those who can afford it, screw the non-rich folks. That's gouging.

But for some reason, you haven't broken into an art gallery and stolen a Picasso to give it to some of those non-rich folks. And before you tell me that a taxi is different because it's a basic necessity, 1) there is already a federal almost-ban on surge pricing during disaster events, 2) Uber isn't a monopoly, 3) there is a difference between limited surge pricing and absolutely no surge pricing, which you have failed to address, 4) did I mention Uber isn't monopoly, which is typically a pretty damn important component of price gauging?

And look, I can link to articles too. Here's one:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ub...

Hey, look at that, even the NYC council isn't considering completely banning surge pricing, only limiting it:

http://dailysignal.com/2015/09...

And even that seems to be dead in the water:

http://legistar.council.nyc.go...

>We have local monopolies and oligarchies, horrible service, and obscene prices.

Yep. Why? Section 622 of the Cable Communications Act of 1984 allows local governments to collect 5% of cable company revenue to the city (plus campaign contributions) in exchange for granting an exclusive monopoly in an area, disallowing competition. This is known as a franchise.

In some cases, such as New York (where this investigation is occurring), the franchise is carved up neighborhood by neighborhood. Time Warner pays a bribe^H^H^H^H^H fee to local politicians for their monopoly north of 86th street, Cablevision owns the Bronx via political decree. Here's the map from NYC.gov:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/...

Given the fact that the New York government created the monopolies and enforces them, I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to fix it. I don't expect that will happen until the CCA is amended to prevent state and local governments from granting monopolies in exchange for kickbacks^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fees.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc

Of which individual medallion holders are all members. Now, it's a government monopoly, self-regulated in coordination with all the medallion holders, but there is a single authority and a single set of all rules under which all operate. A monopoly. You are licensed by the TLC, or you don't operate. Uber tried to break that monopoly, and that's why there was an issue.

Computer Science for All: Fundamentals for Our Future

Growing square footage, population... good luck.

Not to mention the climate swings that have been increasing since 2004, requiring both more cooling in the summer and more heating in the winter.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc...

Maybe they can build vertical solar farms, and pass an ordinance that the sun has to shine horizontally...

If this comment's source is correct:

Among pedestrian fatality and severe injury crashes: LT crashes outnumber RT crashes 3 to 1

Then if you have to make three right turns to make up for a left turn... do you come out the same? I am not confident enough in my command of statistics to determine whether the relationship is that simple.

That's a supremely good idea. Left turns from/to two-way streets are difficult and disruptive in New York City.

Except... don't pedestrians fall under threat from right turns, too?

Short answer: when drivers finally find a gap in oncoming traffic while turning left, they are likely to be much faster at the pedestrian traffic than when doing a right turn.

Long answer - TLDR: accidents with pedestrians are >3 times as likely on left turns as on right turns.

I wonder if they read their own statistics.

According to the document above, malignant neoplasm is the #1 cause of death for children under 13. Myabe they should send a letter to Google asking that maps also cure cancer.

In NYC they have been very common

In NY hired cars have to be licensed by the NY Taxi and Limosine Commision

Average fare in NYC is $13.40. Initial drop is $3.80-4.30, depending on time of day.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/do...

Where do you live? some cities don't license many of those jobs. But in Australia nearly all of them are. Think it is the same in the US too, e.g. a quick search of the two obvious ones that I know regularly need city licenses showed up

https://www1.nyc.gov/nycbusine...
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/ht...

Where do you live? some cities don't license many of those jobs. But in Australia nearly all of them are. Think it is the same in the US too, e.g. a quick search of the two obvious ones that I know regularly need city licenses showed up

https://www1.nyc.gov/nycbusine...
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/ht...

Because the article explicitly points out (like every other Ars Technica or Dice article on the front page) points out the political affiliation of the councilman here as

uh...

Funny, it doesn't say that at all... I wonder what political affiliation he is...

http://council.nyc.gov/d4/html...

Oh... this article obviously just represents GENERAL government overreach and not the fault of any one political party in general.

NY law requiring all dwellings (regardless of when they were built) to have CO detectors.

NYC law requiring all office buildings higher than 100 feet (regardless of when they were built) to have sprinkler systems installed.

Ummm, no. Please see the relevant laws. A black car - a car hired to pick you up from one location to another - is not limited as a taxi. A taxi can pick you up from the street (wave for the cab). A black car is what Uber is - you contract for a ride from one location to another, ahead of time, not "spur of the moment" like flagging down a cab.

How far will 50,000 cameras go, nationwide, when the NYPD alone has some 34,500 troops?
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/h...