For now, commercial parking signs leave yellow cabs out.
“Commercial parking, we cannot park there. If we park there, they give us a ticket,” cab driver Khandaker Maniruzzaman said.
The city’s Department of Transportation is proposing to change that, allowing taxis to pay to park at commercial meters for up to three hours.
The drivers NY1 found taking a break at a relief stand on 21st Street and Seventh Avenue hadn’t heard about the proposal. But they didn’t need an explanation of the parking problem.
“We have very limited restroom and parking spot in the city, so we face a lot of difficulty,” cab driver Gurbachan Singh said.
The DOT said the Central Business District has 55 taxi relief stands, with nearly 300 spaces available to taxis, some shared with for-hire vehicles.
The commercial parking meter network is much larger, with roughly 13,000 spaces in that same part of the city.
“It’s very hard to find parking,” Maniruzzaman said.
This proposal would be an extension of a City Council pilot program opening commercial meters to for-hire vehicles.
“It depends on the cost for the pay per hour,” cab driver Oumar Barry said.
Barry said when a free taxi relief spot isn’t available and a driver needs to pull over, the alternative can mean parking where they’re not supposed to and risking a ticket.
“I get tickets. It’s a big problem,” Barry said.
Finding a space to stop without losing part of the day’s earnings is what the Taxi and Limousine Commission said the proposal is meant to ease.
For now, the signs still say commercial parking.
The proposal would change what those signs mean for thousands of cab drivers looking for somewhere legal to stop.
If the agency moves forward with the proposal, it would then have to decide when cabs could begin to park in commercial spots.
The provision would remain in effect through July 2028.