Joe Nocera, Columnist

The Taxicab Bubble Couldn’t Last Forever

It’s convenient to blame Uber and Lyft for drivers’ woes, but the taxi lobby’s greed plays a role.

June 19, 2018 at 5:15 PM UTC

Joe Nocera is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. He is the host and writer of the Bloomberg-Wondery podcast "The Shrink Next Door."

Going my way?
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Bloomberg News on Monday posted an article about something that has become a pretty big deal in New York City: Taxi drivers are committing suicide.

Since November, six drivers, beset with financial difficulties, have taken their own lives, most recently last Friday. After every death, there are calls from the Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents the drivers — and plenty of others — for the city to start restricting the number of Uber and Lyft cars on the road. Taxi drivers view Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. as not so much disrupting their industry as destroying it.