They were omnipresent on the streets of New York day and night, as emblematic of the Big Apple as the Empire State Building or Yankees caps. But the pandemic has made yellow taxis scarce and facing an uncertain future.
‘We’re on the brink of utter collapse.’ Yellow cabdrivers in New York struggle to stay alive as the pandemic rages on
For Augustine Tang, driving a taxi was a way to carry on his father’s legacy, who died unexpectedly in 2015. But the coronavirus pandemic has turned his taxi into a burden, a sentiment shared by thousands of other cabdrivers in New York.
“It’s a ghost town,” Tang remarks, as he drives through Chinatown.
With ridership down 80 – 90% since March 2020, drivers count themselves lucky if they are able to snag three passengers a shift. The vast majority of Manhattan office workers haven’t returned to the workplace, public school students have been in and out of classrooms, and tourism has slumped. On top of that, ride-sharing platforms such as Uber and Lyft have saturated the streets, capturing the lion’s share of riders even before Covid-19 reached the city.