Seeing as my post is already unpopular, I'll get right to the point.
Over 2000 for-hire car services are being added to the streets every month in NYC. This is causing an unbelievable amount of congestion in an already crowded city. Within two years, the number of these will be double the number of yellow cabs we already have on the road.
The average speed of traffic this year was the slowest recorded - 8.5 miles per hour - and will slow further as we add more of these cars.
Actually taxis and personal automobiles do not create an equivalent amount of congestion. Personal automobiles tend to go point to point during several peak periods, after which they park and are off the roads. Commercial vehicles like taxis, on the other hand, are in service all day. Taxicabs, in particular, produce a lot of congestion since they're always stopping to pick up/drop off fares.
The money shot on this is that a single taxi produces congestion equivalent to about 40 personal vehicles, and a 15% increase in taxicabs reduces all traffic speeds by about 12% [1]. A certain level of taxis is a good thing, but they don't solve the need for an effective mass transit system.
A single taxi replaces several cars, so its unremarkable that a taxi "causes congestion equivalent to" many cars. You said a 15% increase in taxi cabs reduces traffic speeds by 12% but you didnt compare it with a similar increase in private cars.
The article did address that - the simulated "15% increase in traffic volume" results from adding either an additional 2,000 taxis OR the equivalent 80,000 private cars.
You may think that it's more socially optimal to have the taxi instead of the equivalent 40 private vehicles, of course. This is just speaking strictly in terms of congestion.
Over 2000 for-hire car services are being added to the streets every month in NYC. This is causing an unbelievable amount of congestion in an already crowded city. Within two years, the number of these will be double the number of yellow cabs we already have on the road.
The average speed of traffic this year was the slowest recorded - 8.5 miles per hour - and will slow further as we add more of these cars.