New York City Taxi vs. Uber and Lyft - YouTube

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