Soaring Gasoline Prices Inflict Pain on Cabbies, Drivers, City Budget

Although soaring gas prices have left many New Yorkers’ wallets feeling lighter, the impact of rising petroleum costs is perhaps most devastating for drivers of the city’s roughly 50,000 taxis.The Taxi and Limousine Commission sets rates for the city’s 12,187 “medallion” cabs – the metered, yellow cars that are ubiquitous on the streets of Manhattan – and the commission says that as of now it has no plans to increase fares.One medallion cab driver, Zaki Atef, 49, of Bay Ridge, said that even in favorable economic conditions, he earns less than 20 cents on every dollar he receives in fares. And with gas costs eating into his slim profit margin, Mr. Atef said, he has fallen two months behind on his rent payments.Several months ago, Mr. Atef said, he routinely paid about $18 to fill up his tank – which he must do every day at the end of his 12-hour shift. Now he pays more than $30.He used to take his family on a one week summer vacation, either to the Jersey Shore or to South Florida, but this year the Atefs must forgo that break.And with his 17-year-old daughter about to enter her senior year of high school, Mr. Atef said, he is looking for ways to cut back on his food and clothing costs so he can save money for her college tuition payments.The TLC’s chief of staff, Ira Goldstein, said his commission has received no complaints from cab drivers reeling from soaring gas costs.The commission has not upped fares since May 2004, when a 27% increase took effect. According to Mr. Goldstein, any proposal for a fare hike would have to go through a formal vetting process that takes a minimum of two months. A 22-year-old driver for Twins Car Service on Staten Island, Frank Kaldas, said that even though his fares are not set by the commission, he cannot raise rates without losing customers.The Staten Island driver estimated that for each of his 12-hour shifts, he now spends $25 more on gas than he did a year ago.According to the Automobile Association of America, the average regular fuel price in the city now is about $2.66, up from $2.16 a year ago.The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, too, appears to be feeling the impact of rising petroleum prices. In fiscal year 2005, fuel costs for its fleet of buses totaled $119.1 million – up 26% from a year ago.And the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which buys gas for a host of municipal agencies, projects that it will spend $470.9 million on fuel and power costs in fiscal year 2006, an increase of $82.2 million from just two years ago.“That’s real money,” the chief of staff of the city’s Independent Budget Office, Douglas Turetsky, said. But he noted that given that the city’s fiscal year 2006 budget tops $50 billion, “It’s not going to break the bank.”Meanwhile, the executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops, Ralph Bombardiere, said gas retailers “end up on the short end of the stick as prices rise.”Mr. Bombardiere, former owner of an Exxon station in downtown Brooklyn, said customers are increasingly using credit cards, rather than cash, to pay their escalating gas bills. And with credit-card companies taking a 3% fee on purchases made with plastic, the trend away from cash takes a heavy toll on stations’ bottom lines.In an indication of the cutthroat nature of the retail gas market, a 2002 study by the National Association of Convenience Stores found that 40% of drivers will switch the station where they fill up their tanks to save as little as 3 cents per gallon, according to a spokesman for the association, Jeff Lenard.At a Mobil station in Manhattan on Tenth Avenue between 14th and 15th streets, however, which according to yesterday’s issue of The New York Sun was charging the highest price in the city for gas, business was brisk.“They’ve got the best smoothies in town,” a driver for a florist company, David West, 67, of Chelsea, said, offering a reporter a sip of his strawberry and-yogurt shake.He said the refreshing taste washed away any sorrows he might have had after paying $2.94 a gallon for regular.A 28-year-old nanny from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Melanie Waddell, pulled up in a silver 2005 Range Rover and filled the gas tank to the brim with $3.14-a-gallon premium.“It’s a gas guzzler,” she said, pointing to a vehicle that, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, gets just 12 miles per gallon on city streets. “But it’s a pretty damn nice car, and I don’t have a problem driving it.”Ms. Waddell doesn’t have a problem footing the gas bill either, which yesterday afternoon topped $70.“Honestly, I don’t even pay attention, because my boss pays for it,” she said.Not all New York drivers are as nonchalant in the face of rising fuel costs as Ms. Waddell. But the director of the Independent Budget Office, Ronnie Lowenstein, said the Big Apple is in better shape than almost all other municipalities as it experiences the economic impact of skyrocketing gas prices. In part, that is because according to the 2000 Census, 54% of households in the city do not own or lease a car.Still, New York’s politicians are vowing to take action to lower gas prices.At a press conference yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg said the Department of Consumer Affairs is inspecting gas stations to make sure that retailers aren’t watering down their petroleum or manipulating their meters.And in June, Senator Schumer introduced an amendment to an energy bill that would have opened the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to domestic consumers. The amendment died after the Senate, in a vote of 57 to 39, voted to table it.A spokesman for the Automobile Club of New York, Peter Crescenti, said motorists can reduce their gas costs by keeping their tires properly inflated. He said if a car’s tires are between 4 and 5 pounds-per-square-inch below the recommended inflation pressure, the vehicle’s fuel efficiency falls by about 10%.Mr. Crescenti said motorists can also increase fuel efficiency by keeping driving speeds below 60 miles per hour, by avoiding sudden starts, and by turning the engine off if the car will be idle for more than 30 seconds.

Soaring Gasoline Prices Inflict Pain on Cabbies, Drivers, City Budget

Soaring Gasoline Prices Inflict Pain on Cabbies, Drivers, City Budget

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