Demand is high for new green taxi permits

ERIN DURKIN


A waiting list of 6,300 drivers has already formed to snap up 6,000 new outer borough taxi permits the city plans to issue in August, the head of the Taxi and Limousine Commission said Monday.

Mayor de Blasio’s new taxi commissioner, Meera Joshi, had said last month that expansion of the program would be delayed indefinitely - but quickly reversed course and pledged to release the next set of permits by the end of summer.

Now, she says demand is sky-high. “There is a small business opportunity here that people think is viable, and that’s why so many people have signed up to buy in the second wave,” she said.

In the year since the green cabs hit the streets, they’ve taken 5.8 million trips with 6.9 million customers - with the most rides, 1.8 million, in northern Manhattan, and Staten Island lagging way behind all the other boroughs with only 1600 trips.


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