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NEW YORK Get ready to put on your walking shoes! A fight with the city over high-tech equipment has New York City taxi drivers on strike Wednesday.At the 5 a.m. bewitching hour, a significant number of cabbies parked their vehicles and planned to keep their meters off for 48 hours to protest new rules that require New York City cabs to carry electronic equipment, including GPS tracking devices and credit card machines."We would say over 12,500 of the cabs are off the road today. That"s what we are counting," says Bhairavi Desai, co-founder of the Taxi Workers Alliance, the main union behind the strike. With about 13,000 cabs servicing the city, Desai's estimation is likely inflated for union spin, but there was a noticeable decrease in cabs on duty at major hubs such as Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Station. Sources agree that number is much much lower. While Times Square wasn't peppered with its usual flashes of yellow during the morning commute, there were cabs to be had, and waits of only five minutes. Still, some passengers at Port Authority told CBS 2 they waited up to 25 minutes to hail a cab.Taxi comission officers at some stations even required passengers to double and sometimes triple up. That was the case at the major airports, where small amounts of cabs forced travelers to carpool."As you can see we have a limited amount. So far it's going good, everybody's been cooperating to try and make my job easier," said taxi dispatcher Maria Padmore...To read more go to:
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