On 2018, Uber driver Doug Schifter shot himself outside of City Hall in lower Manhattan. His public suicide was, he wrote, a bid to draw attention “to the plight of drivers.” Schifter saw that conditions were only getting worse, and warned in a letter posted on Facebook: “All that is needed now for a total disaster is a serious downturn in the economy reducing riders and there will be at least half million people hit hard. Downturns always come.”
Two years later, amid a pandemic, the economic downturn has arrived. A recent report from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) shows a 75 percent drop in the number of taxi drivers; with 108,880 who drove in March dipped to 30,675 in June. That same month, drivers, including those on other ride-hailing apps, logged 251,696 trips per day compared to 750,000 daily trips in February. The result for…
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