September 12, 2020, 12:00 PM

What Happens When NYC’s Taxis Have No Passengers

Some 10,000 drivers are delivering millions of free meals instead.

September 12, 2020, 12:00 PM

▲ New York City cabdriver Boubacar Kane.

By Josh Saul
Photographs by Don Brodie for Bloomberg Businessweek

Drivers are drinking coffee. Drivers are sleeping. Drivers are listening to the radio, smoking, and chatting under the early morning streetlights, waiting in a line that stretches along a once-busy street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The first driver took his place at 3:30 a.m. on this August day. At about 8 a.m., he and few dozen others in line will move to a nearby parking lot on the East River and start loading their yellow cabs and private cars with boxes of free food. Then they’ll hustle out to hungry people across the five boroughs of New York City, deliver the meals, and return for more. They’ll each make $53 per route, a few hundred dollars a day if they hurry. Most days they don’t earn as much as they would with passengers, but “it’s better than nothing,” says Faisal Tawfiq, a driver from Ghana.

▲ “I grew up in the Lower East Side, Chinatown. I been driving a taxicab since the early ’70s. It was a good job, I could get a car from a garage and work at nights. I turned 67, I’m collecting my Social Security, so this is extra money. This is money I can save up so when I retire I don’t have to stress about how I’m going to pay the rent. Covid’s bad. I depend on this food delivery service. It’s hard work, but whatever they pay you is guaranteed. Cruising around is not guaranteed money. I could drive two or three hours and not see anybody. I can take somebody to the Bronx, get off at the bridge that connects the Bronx to Manhattan, and drive north to south and not see anybody all the way through Manhattan. My taxi lease broke down to about $1,100 [a month] before Covid. Now it’s $500, and even at $500 my garage only has 18 actual drivers working. It used be maybe 300 drivers working. Last week I had to lay out money out of my own pocket for the lease. If you don’t make the $500, at the end of the week you still owe the garage $500. If you didn’t make $500, you have to pay the difference.”

THOMAS JUNG, 67

“I grew up in the Lower East Side, Chinatown. I been driving a taxicab since the early ’70s. It was a good job, I could get a car from a garage and work at nights. I turned 67, I’m collecting my Social Security, so this is extra money. This is money I can save up so when I retire I don’t have to stress about how I’m going to pay the rent. Covid’s bad. I depend on this food delivery service. It’s hard work, but whatever they pay you is guaranteed. Cruising around is not guaranteed money. I could drive two or three hours and not see anybody. I can take somebody to the Bronx, get off at the bridge that connects the Bronx to Manhattan, and drive north to south and not see anybody all the way through Manhattan. My taxi lease broke down to about $1,100 [a month] before Covid. Now it’s $500, and even at $500 my garage only has 18 actual drivers working. It used be maybe 300 drivers working. Last week I had to lay out money out of my own pocket for the lease. If you don’t make the $500, at the end of the week you still owe the garage $500. If you didn’t make $500, you have to pay the difference.”

THOMAS JUNG, 67

Sound is off

Drivers line up in a parking lot near the East River, in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge and public housing and luxury apartment complexes — ▲ Once the food pickups begin, the drivers line up in a parking lot near the East River, in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge and public housing and luxury apartment complexes. Everyone wears a mask. They back their yellow cabs and private cars up against boxes of food stacked higher than their vehicles, and within seconds the boxes are loaded and the drivers speed off to deliver them.

The Covid-19 pandemic was catastrophic for New York City cabdrivers. Some were already in debt because of predatory loans; most were still adjusting to the competition from Uber and other ride-share services. Then, in a matter of weeks, demand for taxi and for-hire rides dropped 84% from pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent report from the Taxi & Limousine Commission. Drivers described cruising a desolate Manhattan for hours without picking up a single fare.

photograph of ALEX ZERELLI & AKRAM CHANCHANE

▲ ALEX ZERELLI: “You know the yellow cab, usually you talk, ‘Where you going, how’s your day going.’ Now you drive by yourself. Sometimes you talk to the boxes. It’s not easy for us. We’re missing everything. People talking, the business. With people in the back we talk, we talk about our health, everything is fine. Nobody gets in the car now. You drive on the street, nobody stops you. You run and run for five or six hours, you make $10 or $20. We miss the business before.”
AKRAM CHANCHANE: “We are happy because we feel like we are helping people survive. Some of them are in very bad condition, they can’t walk, they can’t go to the store. A lot of the people give us water because they see we are sweating. They really appreciate it.”

ALEX ZERELLI (LEFT) & AKRAM CHANCHANE (RIGHT), BOTH 44

ALEX ZERELLI: “You know the yellow cab, usually you talk, ‘Where you going, how’s your day going.’ Now you drive by yourself. Sometimes you talk to the boxes. It’s not easy for us. We’re missing everything. People talking, the business. With people in the back we talk, we talk about our health, everything is fine. Nobody gets in the car now. You drive on the street, nobody stops you. You run and run for five or six hours, you make $10 or $20. We miss the business before.”
AKRAM CHANCHANE: “We are happy because we feel like we are helping people survive. Some of them are in very bad condition, they can’t walk, they can’t go to the store. A lot of the people give us water because they see we are sweating. They really appreciate it.”

ALEX ZERELLI (LEFT) & AKRAM CHANCHANE (RIGHT), BOTH 44

Sound is off

▲ Teams of National Guard members and city sanitation workers quickly load boxes of food into each driver’s vehicle.

Photograph of SURINDER SINGH and BALDEV SINGH — ▲ Far left: SURINDER SINGH, 21. Far right: BALDEV SINGH, 50

Photograph of BOUBACAR KANE — ▲ BOUBACAR KANE, 55: "I don’t have a choice now. I can’t stay home. I have a family so I make the delivery so I can make money."

Photograph of KISHOR PERSAD — ▲ KISHOR PERSAD, 55: “It’s great to make the money, but it’s more about getting the people the food.”

Photograph of KOSSI SAMLA — ▲ KOSSI SAMLA, 43: “Due to the crisis, this one is more better for the time being.”

Meanwhile, the spreading virus created a potential crisis for the thousands of people who couldn’t leave their homes to get food. TLC Commissioner Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk came up with a plan to help both the idling drivers and the homebound New Yorkers. “I pitched the idea of using TLC drivers because they were going to be in need of work, they are background checked and deemed essential,” Jarmoszuk says. “They were an ideal workforce, hardworking, professional drivers who are vetted.”

Photograph of JOSELITO MATAILO WITH ERICA LICEA

▲ “With Uber, I could make the same amount of money, but I would have to start at 6 a.m. and work until 4 or 5 p.m. I would make about $20 or $30 per hour, on the weekends I make more. But I make more money now doing deliveries with less time. I’m going to do this until they say, ‘No more.’ We do between four and six routes. Sometimes you can deliver six addresses in the same building. But if they send you to Queens where there’s only houses, you have to drive around. This is my wife. She comes with me on days she doesn’t have to work. She stays in the car so I don’t get a ticket. We talk, we listen to Spanish music. Radio Amor is 93.1.”

JOSELITO MATAILO, 42 (WITH ERICA LICEA, 41)

“With Uber, I could make the same amount of money, but I would have to start at 6 a.m. and work until 4 or 5 p.m. I would make about $20 or $30 per hour, on the weekends I make more. But I make more money now doing deliveries with less time. I’m going to do this until they say, ‘No more.’ We do between four and six routes. Sometimes you can deliver six addresses in the same building. But if they send you to Queens where there’s only houses, you have to drive around. This is my wife. She comes with me on days she doesn’t have to work. She stays in the car so I don’t get a ticket. We talk, we listen to Spanish music. Radio Amor is 93.1.”

JOSELITO MATAILO, 42 (WITH ERICA LICEA, 41)

Sound is off

Photograph of packed car with boxes that each hold nine meals — ▲ Drivers pack their cars with boxes that each hold nine meals. They’re paid $53 for each route, which always includes six stops. Some drivers can complete six routes in a day.

▲ “I was born in India and raised in India, and then I came to U.S. six years ago. I’m from Punjab. I went to the yellow cab school because yellow cab is the main source of income for the Sikh community in New York City. Now there’s Uber, but in 2014 the main source was yellow cab. I have a Ford Escape, 2009 model, it’s a hybrid car. My dad bought the car for me, back in 2016. Covid has been very devastating. A lot of cabdrivers, their whole families depend on the income of the fathers. They all depend on the yellow cabs. Normally we get fares at the airport, there’s a huge line at LaGuardia airport, JFK airport, but now the airports are dead. No taxi drivers go there now, the business is completely shut down. Before Covid, I make $1,200, sometimes $1,000. With yellow cab I make more money. Food delivery, I make $600 a week, or sometimes $500. I have to go in the building, old people and sick people don’t want to come outside, so I have to go upstairs to provide them with the food. I do double mask and double gloves, and then afterwards I throw them in the garbage. In the taxi you have to sit in one spot, and I have back pains. With this job I park my car and I walk a lot as compared to the taxi. I personally feel if I am sitting all the time I am more tired, but going outside, delivering the food, walking upstairs, I get more energetic working this kind of work. It’s like exercise.”

TARLOCHAN SINGH, 25

“I was born in India and raised in India, and then I came to U.S. six years ago. I’m from Punjab. I went to the yellow cab school because yellow cab is the main source of income for the Sikh community in New York City. Now there’s Uber, but in 2014 the main source was yellow cab. I have a Ford Escape, 2009 model, it’s a hybrid car. My dad bought the car for me, back in 2016. Covid has been very devastating. A lot of cabdrivers, their whole families depend on the income of the fathers. They all depend on the yellow cabs. Normally we get fares at the airport, there’s a huge line at LaGuardia airport, JFK airport, but now the airports are dead. No taxi drivers go there now, the business is completely shut down. Before Covid, I make $1,200, sometimes $1,000. With yellow cab I make more money. Food delivery, I make $600 a week, or sometimes $500. I have to go in the building, old people and sick people don’t want to come outside, so I have to go upstairs to provide them with the food. I do double mask and double gloves, and then afterwards I throw them in the garbage. In the taxi you have to sit in one spot, and I have back pains. With this job I park my car and I walk a lot as compared to the taxi. I personally feel if I am sitting all the time I am more tired, but going outside, delivering the food, walking upstairs, I get more energetic working this kind of work. It’s like exercise.”

TARLOCHAN SINGH, 25

Sound is off

The result was the GetFoodNYC emergency home food delivery program, which is funded by the city and has paid around 10,000 drivers about $35 million for delivering more than 64 million meals to homebound New Yorkers since March. The drivers line up near a half-dozen loading sites around the city and wait for National Guard soldiers and city sanitation workers to load their cars with big brown boxes that each hold nine meals. Some drivers have a baby in the back seat; others pack their small sedans to the roof. “For me it’s more safe, that’s the important thing,” says another driver, Claudia Salazar. “Maybe sometimes I only get a hundred dollars. That’s better than the risk.”

Some interviews have been condensed.

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