nowadays people tend to default to uber or lyft or other share rides
rather than take a taxi in new york city i was like this when i first moved to new york i was
too millennial to ever ride the taxi i felt taxis were antiquated and that share rides were a way of
embracing progress and ultimately the future that was a little naive of me to automatically conclude
when i had never ridden a new york city taxi but after living in new york for a few years i've come
to realize that taxis are not as irrelevant as one might think especially now that there's an
app that's very similar to the technology that lyft and uber use there are situations where
taxis are better to take over lyft and uber and there are times when it's the opposite
things to consider are pricing and convenience for example taxis don't have surge pricing the
way uber and lyft does so in this video we are going to talk about the general rules of thumb
of when is it better to take a taxi and when is it better to take a share ride like lyft or uber
and at the end of this video i'll also talk a little bit about the taxi industry and how it
relates to share rides like lyft and uber but first welcome to my channel my name is thea and
you're watching urban caffeine where we talk about urban life and culture and basically surviving the
urban jungle if you are new to my channel i invite you to subscribe and hit that notification bell
hitting that notification bell assures you that you won't miss future videos and also don't forget
to like this video and if you want a full guide on how to ride the new york city taxis i've made an
entire video on that link is in the description below so when is it better to take a taxi over
lyft and uber and the other way around i'm going to list my general rules of thumb here please know
that these are not engraved in stone it's always worth checking the prices when you can also every
city is different the taxi world is going to be different in new york than it is in las vegas or
san francisco and so your taxi experiences will differ from city to city one scenario when it's
better to take a taxi over share ride is when you are traveling short distances have you ever tried
calling a lyft or uber when you're only traveling 10 blocks first of all you might be thinking
why not just walk these 10 blocks that's about 10 15ish minutes which is not a bad walk in new
york and i would say that too if it weren't so cold that your snot's turning to icicles
yeah new york gets pretty cold some months so i tried that once calling a lift because it was just
way too cold and the subway was just not reachable with your average human effort so first i had to
wait five minutes for my lyft ride to just even be in my vicinity and then our stars couldn't align
and he couldn't find me so we had to do the whole phone tag thing that was another five minutes and
by then there's just ice crystals in my blood what killed me the most is that the amount of
time it took me from ordering lift to even getting in the car there were probably like several taxis
that drove by and i could have easily hailed one i probably would have gotten to my destination
half the time but no i was way too millennial for any of that on the flip side a time that you might
want to take a share ride is if you're traveling a longer distance the reason behind this is based
on predictability of costs i find that the price that uber gives me at the beginning of my ride
stays the same despite unexpected traffic or any delays in my trip there comes a time in
every new yorker's life where they will be struck by unexpected oppressive traffic you will never
know when this time comes but it is a prophecy destined to happen like a motorcade that appears
from nowhere and causes all traffic to stop in all directions for about half an hour and this
happened to me a 10 minute ride ended up being 45 minutes long and because murphy was having a roll
that day on the way back in an uber i hit the same motorcade so a 30 minute errand turned out
to be a two-hour extravaganza with traffic delays like that riding a taxi would have charged me the
entire time we were idle during that motorcade but since i was riding an uber that wasn't the case
so what do i mean by short and long distances short distances are about less than a mile
maybe a mile and a half anything for two or more miles i recommend taking a share ride
which brings me to the second instance when it's generally better to take a taxi and that's if
you're traveling within manhattan even though brooklyn and queens are gentrifying rapidly
there's something in the air that makes brooklyn brooklyn and queens queens one of the contributing
elements to this is the fact that yellow cabs are not hiding out in the bushes in these boroughs
manhattan is the watering hole for these yellow cabs and you won't find many of them in the outer
boroughs that's why when you're traveling within the confines of manhattan especially below upper
manhattan it's far more convenient to take a taxi that is if you don't want to walk or take
public transit but if you want to take public transit like the bus or the subway or the ferry
i've made videos on these and links are in the description below also from my understanding and
if you're a taxi driver correct me if i'm wrong is that taxi drivers prefer to stay within manhattan
maybe an exception to this are the airport rides because when you're picking up and dropping off a
passenger in manhattan chances are you're gonna get another passenger right away whereas if you
drop off a passenger in the outer boroughs you might not get a passenger on your way back into
the city by the way some local lingo for you new yorkers call manhattan the city it's because of
this infrequency the inner borough travel would most likely mean you would have to order a ride
rather than hail one off the street at that point a taxi is no longer different than a lift or uber
except that like i said earlier pricing would be a lot more predictable unless prices are surging
one thing that's nice about taxis over share rides like lyft and uber is that they don't have surge
pricing well they do but it's very minimal but sometimes these share rides will have promos curb
the app you use in conjunction with riding taxis also has promos but not as often as lyft and uber
some of the most popular trips that both taxis and share rides take are to and from the airports
new york is served by three commercial airports jfk laguardia and newark of course there are
cheaper ways to get to and from these airports other than taxis and share rides like lyft and
uber and that is through public transportation and i plan to make a future video on public
transportation to and from all these airports so subscribe and hit that notification bell
when it comes to traveling from jfk airport into manhattan a taxi might be a good choice
because jfk to anywhere in manhattan has a flat rate of 52 dollars granted you have to add tax
fees and tip but even so the total might still be better than taking a lyft or uber
as for laguardia taxis there do not offer flat rate but many times when i'm at the airport
surge pricing takes into effect because of the odd hours the rush hour and the high demand for lyft
and ubers and other share rides in the airport an experience i had not too long ago is when i
was at laguardia trying to get an uber home and normally a trip from laguardia airport to where
i live is about $30 to $35 and that night uber was charging a whopping $65 and that's when i learned
that a taxi ride from the airport to my home was only $20 if you notice that prices are surging
when you're in laguardia airport or any airport for that matter you might want to check on taxis
also consider where you're going to from laguardia remember that laguardia is a stone's throw away
from manhattan and it's already in queens because remember like i said sometimes if the distance is
short enough you might want to consider taking a taxi and when it comes to convenience there are
official taxi lines at the airport because sometimes when it's very busy it's hard to
sync up with your lyft or uber driver as for newark since newark airport is in new jersey
there's going to be a guaranteed toll fee since you are crossing state borders into new york
it doesn't matter if you take a taxi a lyft an uber the toll gates do not discriminate but when
it comes to a cab on top of the base fare toll and tip there's an additional $17.50 surcharge
i don't know about you but that $17.50 surcharge is already enough for me to lean towards lyft or
uber and lastly i want to call out the state of the taxi industry today for some context there's
a set amount of taxis that can operate within new york at any given time to operate a taxi you need
a medallion and this is basically a permit so that you can pick up passengers off the streets
and this is not exclusive to new york other cities use the medallion system
and i can create a whole video on just the taxi medallion and if this is something that interests
you let me know in the comments below anyway these medallions are either bought or auctioned off so
with that in mind about 15ish years ago there was an inflation in the price of these taxi medallions
but not just in new york other cities experienced this we're talking chicago san francisco miami
boston etc and to give you an idea of how insane the inflation was in chicago a $50,000 medallion
started costing close to $400,000 this was absurd and this had a lot to do with investors trying to
take advantage of the system so with these inflated prices these taxi medallion owners
found themselves heavy into debt banking on the fact that the taxi industry is going to be a solid
one for years to come but as we all know lyft and uber came into play and it just disrupted
the way we do semi-private transportation the taxi industry couldn't evolve fast enough to
compete with the innovations of share rides like lyft and uber and spoiler alert the taxi industry
started to decline with the emergence of share rides like lyft and uber these taxi medallion
owners found themselves in a tight spot because the value of a medallion suddenly plummeted
we're talking like a million dollar medallion in new york city costing only $75,000 to $100,000
this situation was so dire that there was even some taxi owners who took their own lives
personally i like to support the local community and small businesses so i try to take a taxi as
often as i can when i can and in new york i find a lot of situations where taxis tend to be cheaper
than share rides like lyft and uber of course taxis and share rides are only two options of the
many options of transportation in new york city my preferred way is still the subway and buses
and i've made videos on both of these as well as a whole playlist of all the different transportation
options in the big apple i hope you enjoyed this video don't forget to subscribe if you
haven't already and hit that notification bell so you won't miss any future videos
with that thank you so much for watching and happy new yorking don't forget to hit that like button