It's been a while since we've been in touch, and I want to let you know what I'm doing. Since March, I've been running the City's Taxi and Limousine Commission. After leaving the City Council, I looked at the private sector and nonprofits - but I continue to be drawn to the opportunity that the public sector offers to shape our City and improve the quality of life here. The TLC is a terrific place to put ideas about innovative and results-focused government into practice. The industries we regulate - taxis, car services and commuter vans - form a decentralized, market-driven version of mass transit: 40,000 vehicles that carry 1.2 million passengers a day, about half what the buses carry. And for the 100,000 drivers who are our primary customers, the job of taxi driver is still a genuine route to the middle class.
My goal is for the TLC to regulate intelligently - to ease up on unnecessary regulations that prevent the market from operating at peak efficiency. For example: Last week, we approved a new "group-ride van" service to help commuters stranded by recent bus and subway cutbacks. (I've reprinted below a New York Post op-ed describing the plan.) Of course, smart regulation does not mean no regulation: We must protect the public (as in the overcharging scandal I confronted right upon joining the TLC) and push the industry toward critical goals (like fuel-efficiency) that it would not reach on its own. I'm also focused on improving the TLC's own customer service, and have introduced a range of productivity measures to accomplish that.
Since joining the TLC, I've been reminded that taxis are one of those classic New York topics - everyone has an opinion. If you have a good idea about how the industry can work better, I'd love to hear it - you can just reply to this or email me at commissioner@tlc.nyc.gov .
The bottom line is I'm having a ball. I remain enormously grateful for all the help and support I received during the 2009 campaign, and afterward as well - I am blessed to have such a wonderful group of friends. Diana and the girls are doing great, and they also appreciate all the well-wishes.
Hope all is well with you, and keep in touch.
David
City stepping in when the MTA cuts
By STEPHEN GOLDSMITH & DAVID YASSKY
The recession is forcing all levels of government to cut spending. The city budget eliminated some worth while services that just aren't affordable right now; the state is doing the same -- and last week the MTA cut dozens of subway and bus routes.
But tough budget times don't have to leave New Yorkers in the lurch. Creative government can often find ways to do more with less. And affordable, reliable transit options are certainly high on anyone's list of services the government should provide.
That's why Mayor Bloomberg has announced a plan to let group-ride van services help New Yorkers scrambling to replace lost commuting options. Passengers will pay $2 a ride, about the same fare as the bus and subway, and the communities hardest hit by transit cuts will be the first to receive the service.
The idea builds on the "commuter vans" that have proliferated in some parts of Brooklyn and Queens but with two important differences:
* These vans will pick up and discharge passengers at fixed stops, rather than roaming freely as the commuter vans do.
* And they'll have to carry adequate insurance and be driven by certified drivers, in contrast to the hundreds of unlicensed vans that can cause problems on neighborhood streets.
This will be a "pilot program" -- we'll try it in a half-dozen locations and expand if it succeeds.
The goal is to help New Yorkers get to work -- or to the supermarket or the doctor or wherever they're going -- just a little faster and more easily. Who could object to that?
Yet some leaders of the Transit Workers Union have actually threatened to sue the Taxi and Limousine Commission to stop the service. The subway-workers' union argues that the city, by providing group-ride vans, helps justify the MTA service cuts.
In fact, the MTA's cuts have already gone into effect, leaving us with two choices: Do nothing, or take action to provide assistance to thousands of New Yorkers in Jamaica, Flatbush, Kew Gardens and other neighborhoods that have lost bus routes, many of them in neighborhoods with working families who already faced limited transportation options.
We share the mayor's hope that -- whether through a better budget in Albany or congestion pricing or some other innovative solution -- the MTA will receive more resources and restore routes. But hope for the future is no substitute for concrete solutions now -- so we're taking action. The new group-ride vans will provide a valuable service to New Yorkers at virtually no cost to the city.
They'll also nicely complement the city's recent efforts (in collaboration with the MTA) to establish designated traffic lanes that allow buses to speed through key corridors. These "bus lanes" are improving service at minimal cost to taxpayers. Along with the group-ride vans, they are perfect examples of the mayor's belief that, in these tough times, we can and must do more with less.
Government has a responsibility to serve its customers well. To do that, we need political, labor, business and civic leaders to pull together to solve real problems. Otherwise, too many New Yorkers will be left to stand on the corner, waiting for a bus that may never come.
Stephen Goldsmith is New York's deputy mayor for operations. David Yassky is the Taxi and Limousine commissioner.
You can read this op-ed on the Post's website at: