Upper East Side Cabbies Only Want to Go to Wall Street

A number of cabbies are being charged with a hideous crime, which is...they don't want to take passengers anywhere but Wall Street, according to the Daily News. We presume this has nothing to do with the Occupy Wall Street movement. But at any rate, passengers waiting at an upper East Side taxi stand have been shunned by drivers ("met with locked doors and icy stares"!) when they ask to go anywhere else, and those drivers have run afoul of city regulations.

The reason for shunning would-be passengers, including elderly ladies in the rain, is because they want a bigger fare. Interestingly, this is a taxi share stand, in which drivers can pick up four passengers to share a $24 ride to Wall Street, but they're also required by city law to take other passengers where they want to go, and have been caught turning down passengers despite having empty cabs. Often they use the trick of turning on their off-duty light and saying they would take people to Wall Street anyway.

Now city council members are getting involved to enforce the right of people to take cabs wherever they want to go (and one is introducing a bill that would make it illegal for a driver to keep his off-duty light on while at a taxi stand). But, what we have to ask is, now that Occupy Wall Street has been allowed to stay at Zuccotti Park, will cab drivers start finally wanting to take people to Brooklyn?

Cabbies at E. Side stand break rules, rile riders by refusing lifts unless Wall St. is destination [NYDN]

[JDoll / @thisisjendoll]

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