Good morning. It’s Wednesday. We’ll find out about proposals to change the way pedicabs are regulated. We’ll also get details on a ruling that was a major setback to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan for a tax on people who own second homes in New York.
Tom Harris is tired of hearing the Jay-Z/Alicia Keys song “Empire State of Mind,” the anthem that declares that “these streets will make you feel brand-new” and “there’s nothing you can’t do.” The problem is how loud the song can get, and how often it’s played. “It’s blasting from the pedicabs,” said Harris, the president of the Times Square Alliance, which represents businesses in a stretch of Midtown Manhattan that thinks of itself as the crossroads of the world and includes Broadway theaters, office buildings and tourist attractions — as well as the city’s busiest subway station. A pair of bills before the City Council would shut the pedicabs up, and Harris is rallying support for the measures. Perhaps more significantly, they would change the way the city oversees the pedicab industry and drivers whom many New Yorkers scorn as swindlers. High prices and stories of tourists stuck with hundreds of dollars in fares don’t help pedicabs’ place in the city’s consciousness. A hearing on the bills is scheduled for next week. One of the bills before the Council would transfer responsibility for monitoring and supervising pedicabs to the Taxi and Limousine Commission, from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Pedicabs would then be required to have city-approved meters, city-issued identification and standardized fare signs. Another proposed change: scannable codes on their registration plates, to make it easier for consumers and enforcement agents to track them. The measures would not change the number of registration plates allowed by the city, which has long been fixed at 850, but almost twice as many are on the streets: As many as 1,500 were operating in 2024, according to a report from the Midtown Community Justice Center. Of the pedicab drivers on the road, too many “are either unlicensed or uninsured or driving unregistered vehicles,” Danielle Mindess, the project director of the center, told me. Pedicabs also generated complaints: 172 were called in to 311, including 86 about overcharging and 35 about unlicensed operators. Some passengers have reported being charged $1,000 for rides of only 15 or 20 minutes. “Supposedly there’s a sign on the side of the pedicab” listing prices, said Gale Brewer, a sponsor of the bills, “but you can’t see it. You could get charged way over the price. Passengers need to know what they are being charged and who is responsible for the pedicab they are riding in.” The bills follow a “road map” from the Community Justice Center that called for structural reforms to end “rampant price gouging” and ease strain on the court system. More than 2,000 pedicab-related cases have clogged the community court in Midtown since November 2024 without addressing the causes, according to the report from the center. “You don’t meet a pedicab driver in New York City who hasn’t been to the court,” Mindess said. But she told me that the underlying problem was that “there is not a regulatory system that works.” That echoed what she said in a statement last month: The current enforcement system “metes out too much punishment for drivers trying to follow the rules, and zero deterrence for those operating illegally.” Kenneth Winter, a driver who is a spokesman for the New York Pedicab Alliance, said that the group was open to shifting pedicabs to the taxi commission “as long as there are no unintended consequences.” “We want to protect the public from scams,” he said. “That will bring consumer confidence back to the industry.” A provision in one of the bills would bring quiet back to the theater district in the hour or so before the curtains come down, when pedicabs, looking to be well-positioned as the crowds come out, pull up in front of theaters with “Empire State of Mind” playing. “Theaters are not as soundproof as you would like them to be,” said Harris of the Times Square Alliance, and the pedicabs arrive before the shows are over, Harris said. “When the music starts blasting outside, it ruins that theatrical moment inside.” Winter said theatergoers had told him that performers in some shows improvise to take the distraction into account. A bill introduced in the Council last year would have prohibited pedicabs from operating within 50 feet of the entrance to a theater. That measure died at the end of the year. The one sponsored by Brewer would ban pedicabs from using sound equipment “that makes illegal noise.” WEATHER Today, expect mostly sunny skies and temperatures near 75. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a low around 65. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Oct. 3 (Shemini Atzeret). QUOTE OF THE DAY “I’ve never, ever done the big Broadway musical, with the big ensemble and big dance numbers, and I’ve always wanted to.” — Neil Patrick Harris, who will play the Devil in a revival of the 1955 musical “Damn Yankees” on Broadway in the spring. The latest New York news
In other news …
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Judge tells the city to scrap the rollout of Mamdani’s second-home tax
A judge sided with Staten Island homeowners who had sued the city over its second-home tax. The judge, Justice Wayne Ozzi of State Supreme Court, said that the city had mishandled the introduction of the tax and would have to start over. He said that “homeowners are being substantially harmed and penalized needlessly” by the rollout of the new levy. A spokesman for the mayor said that the city would appeal. That would put the ruling on hold until an appellate court weighed in. In the meantime, the city will “continue implementing the surcharge fairly, efficiently and in full compliance with the law,” the Mamdani spokesman said. That lawsuit did not challenge the legality of the tax on second homes, also known as pieds-à-terre. But two other lawsuits, filed separately in Suffolk County, did, claiming that the tax was unconstitutional. The two suits also called the tax discriminatory, because it applies only to residents of states other than New York. One of those suits was filed by Wilbur Ross, who was secretary of commerce in the first Trump administration; his wife, Hilary Geary Ross; and the casino mogul Steve Wynn. All three live in Florida but own homes in New York. Notices from the city indicated that the second-home tax would cost the Rosses roughly $83,000 and Wynn about $183,000, according to the lawsuit. METROPOLITAN DIARY Second shot
Dear Diary: I was walking through Prospect Park on a glorious fall afternoon, admiring the foliage and taking in the scene. Ahead of me, a cyclist tossed something toward a garbage can and missed. Without slowing down, he continued on. When I reached the spot, I picked up the litter. It seemed clear to me that the man had meant to throw it away. I wanted to do my part to keep the park clean. As I straightened up, I noticed the cyclist coming back. He had turned around to retrieve what he had dropped. I gave him a thumbs up. “I got it,” I said. He waved, said, “thank you,” circled around and continued on his ride. — Dasi Ilowitz Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reac |
