How New York Got Green Cabs And Why They’re Almost All Gone

“TAXI!” bellows the New Yorker in that classic accent, heard in so many films and TV shows. Up squeals a yellow cab, the protagonists get in, and they’re whisked off to their destination. New York did a lot to ingrain the association between “yellow” and “cab” in the public consciousness. But that same city also created the green cab, a brief attempt at creating equity that’s little known to this day.

Once upon a time, taxis were the way to get from point A to point B without public transport or driving yourself. In New York, they were yellow, and you had to have a special medallion issued by the city if you wanted to drive one. There was no ridesharing, there were no apps—just a limited number of cabs which you hailed by waving, yelling, or doing one of those classic two-finger whistles.

Only, there was a problem. Traditional yellow cabs weren’t serving much of the city, focusing their pickups on the urban core of Manhattan. Something had to be done for people in outlying neighborhoods, and the Bloomberg administration had the solution: new cabs that were green. Literally.

Cabba-dabba-doo

The issues with New York’s yellow cabs came to light thanks to a study run by the Taxi and Limousine Commission in the early 2010s. “Due to the limited number of yellow taxis and the density of fares available in the Manhattan Core, yellow taxis served few neighborhoods outside of the Manhattan Core and the airports,” the agency stated in a report. “GPS data collected in all yellow taxis and analyzed by TLC consistently show that 95% of yellow taxi pickups occur in the Manhattan Core and at the airports and only 5% occur in Northern Manhattan and in the outer boroughs.”

According to the Commission, this left residents in New York’s boroughs with undesirable transport options. “Because yellow taxis were not available in their neighborhoods, they relied upon dial-a-car services (“livery cars”) and illegal street pickups by liveries and wholly unlicensed vehicles,” noted the agency’s report. These hire cars were only supposed to be hired for pre-arranged trips, but were often being hailed by desperate commuters on the street anyway—which was technically illegal. The Commission deemed that the street hail system outside the Manhattan Core was “broken,” with city administrators eager to fix it.

Enter the Five Borough Taxi Plan, announced by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2011. It was a two-pronged assault on the problem. It would see New York add 2,000 new medallions for wheelchair-accessible yellow cabs, increasing the provision of traditional taxis in the city. However, it would also create a new class of taxis, referred to as “boro taxis” or “street hail livery vehicles.” 18,000 permits would be issued for boro taxis at a price of just $1,500 for three years. This price was intended to attract new operators by being much lower than the usual cost of a yellow taxi medallion, which at the time sold for an average of $700,000 each.

The intention wasn’t just to flood New York with more cabs to solve the problem. Instead, the boro taxis operated under very specific rules to fill in the gap left by yellow cabs. They were allowed to pick up street hail fares in the outer boroughs, as well as Manhattan—but only above East 96th and West 110th streets. They were also not allowed to pick up at John F. Kennedy International Airport or LaGuardia Airport, unless by prior arrangement.

By banning green cabs from pickups in the Manhattan urban core, they would thus have to serve the outer boroughs to get fares. This also meant that yellow cab operators would not see their medallions devalued, or excessive new competition in their traditional service area from 18,000 new green cabs.

As for dropoffs, there were no restrictions on boro taxis in this regard. A green cab was allowed to pick up passengers from the outer boroughs and deliver them into the Manhattan urban core. However, they would not be able to pick up a new fare until they returned to the designated pickup region for boro taxis.

Boro taxis were to be regulated in much the same manner as yellow cabs. Beyond the required permits, the cabs would be painted a uniform green color and with standardized graphics. They would also feature fare meters and roof lights like traditional cabs, and feature GPS tracking for safety and to enforce the mandated pickup zones. Credit/debit card readers were mandatory for the rider’s convenience, and partitions or in-vehicle cameras were fitted just like in yellow cabs. The intention was to create “safe and legal vehicles that can be easily identified,” according to the Five Borough Taxi Plan.

The color chosen was a light green, specifically selected to differentiate the new cabs from the traditional New York taxis. “Call it how you see it: Lime. Mint. Wasabi,” reported the New York Times, which also coined the term “Kermit the Kab.” However, Mayor Bloomberg was ahead of the story, insisting that “apple green” was the official name for the shade. “We think ‘apple green’ is attractive and distinctive,” said Bloomberg. “It’s easy on the eyes and easy to pick out from a distance in traffic.”

The city promoted the new taxis with a fleet of vehicles, including a Toyota Prius wearing the designated apple green livery. However, there were no restrictions on the make or model of vehicles used for the boro taxi program, beyond a minimum requirement that 20% of the fleet were wheelchair accessible.

6,000 permits were issued for boro taxis for the first year of operation, beginning in the summer of 2013. Plans were to roll out 12,000 further permits over the following two years. That didn’t quite happen. By 2015, there were 7,513 registered boro taxi operators.

Despite the grand goals of the scheme, the program never quite gained the traction its proponents hoped for. The problem was simple. At the same time New York was establishing its special new boro taxi program, rideshare apps were rapidly building a customer base. By 2015, over 30,000 Uber drivers were operating in New York, as reported by the New York Post. The influx of extra vehicles was an unexpected occurrence that threatened the viability of the program.

In 2022 The City spoke to green cab drivers who struggled in the wake of the rideshare uprising. “We did the first two years very well, my colleagues were making money,” Nancy Reynoso told the outlet. “But then everything went grim when the apps came in.” She had worked as the city’s very first green taxi driver, securing permit AA001. “We were totally on board, we were so excited,” she told the outlet of the early, heady days. “We were going to be in the neighborhoods where yellow taxis don’t reach.” But almost a decade later, she was giving up the fight. “I’m throwing in my gloves, man,” said Reynoso, citing the extra costs she had to pay versus app drivers, like special livery insurance. “Everybody’s suffering in the industry and I just don’t want to be part of this any more.”

And thanks to all the taxi industry members who have supported me and listened when I felt broken.
Thank you to the politicians who all promised so much but did nothing.
I know who you are.
Thank you guys I love you all!
I will always have my NYC green cab❤️ pic.twitter.com/b7R8q5Limr

— My Green Taxi( now retired) (@Reynoso626) February 28, 2022

Reynoso was sorry to leave the industry, but felt forced by the influx of rideshare drivers in New York.

Reynoso’s story was not a unique one. Green cab drivers were fleeing the industry in droves. According to the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s monthly reports, just 2,876 green cab drivers remained by January of 2020. Today, that number has dwindled further, to just 673 boro taxi drivers on New York’s roads in January 2025. In contrast, the city recorded 12,567 yellow cab drivers in January and 81,324 “for hire vehicle – high volume” drivers—think Uber, Lyft, and the like.

In 2023, the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) tried to shore up the program with a new type of “for hire vehicle.” As covered by The City, these operators would not have to run cars in the “apple green” color scheme, nor would they require meters, standardized vehicle markings, or rooftop taxi lights. Instead, they would only operate on flat-rate, pre-booked trips from the outer boroughs. Termed the “Street Hail Livery Pilot Program,” it intended to issue permits to make up for the reduced number of green cab permits in use. The program was restricted to EVs, hybrids, and wheelchair-accessible vehicles, and provided more transport options in the outer borough areas.

The program limps on, far diminished from its peak. A handful of boro taxis are still getting around New York, completing around 1,500 trips per day as per TLC data. However, despite their unique color and heartening promise, the green cabs never quite lived up to their potential. Rideshares came along and offered a more convenient product in their home area, while yellow cabs continued to dominate in the public consciousness. There just wasn’t room for the apple-colored cabs to make their mark.

Image credits: S5A-0043 CC BY 4.0, Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC), New York Mayor’s Office via Flickr

Top graphic image: Alon Belker via Unsplash License