The value of the once-vaunted New York City taxi medallion has🌃 dropped by more than 40 percent in recent months and will soon become “worthless” unless the city puts the brakes on Uber, a new lawsuit charges.
Melrose Credit Union, a major medallion-financing agent, which filed the suit in Queens Supremꦛe Court, claims that, as of May 31, delinquencies across its medallion-loan portfolio tota🏅led nearly $168 million, with struggling taxi owners unable to pay.
“Unless the TLC immediately begins enforcing medallion owners’ exclusive right to hails” and compels “companies like Uber to stop illegally aꦦccepting E-hails, the value of the taxicab medallions will continue to drop until it becomes worthless,” Melrose supervisor Lawrence Fisher said in an affida🔴vit.
The value of the medallions steadily rose each year from 2011 through 2014, topping out at $1.05 mil🅠lion last year before plunging to $800,000 this past January as Uber has🍸 lured drivers away, according to Taxi & Limousine Commission data.
Only a fraction of Uber’s trips go through its yellow-cab service, uberT. Most are done through its other services and u﷽se black cars — which aren’t allowed to make street hails.
Taxi drivers and their supporters have long maintained that the Uber model is nothing more than an electronic, modern-day street hail that’s taking money out💝 of their pockets.
Cabby Jaswinder Singh, 44,🉐 says he is having trouble paying the mortgage on his medallion despite working 12 hours a day, seven days a week because he can’t findꦆ second-shift drivers.
“No drivers want to because they go to Uber,” he said after a Queens cour෴t hearing Monday.
Si🅰ngh said the bank seized his medallion in April.
Last month, taxi king Gene Freidman — who controls 900 yellow-cab licenses — hatched an 11t💫h-hour deal with Citibank to prevent the seizure of his medallions. Citibank had sued Freidman in March to foreclose on 90 medallions to recoup $31 mܫillion in overdue debt.
Additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory