'We Won': Taxi Drivers, Astoria Leader Celebrate Debt Relief Plan

ASTORIA, QUEENS — After months of organizing and 15 days of hunger striking, an Astoria lawmaker and dozens of taxi drivers celebrated a lifesaving debt relief agreement with the city Wednesday.

The deal between the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and medallion lender Marbelgate Asset Management will restructure outstanding medallion loans and reduce owners' sky-high debts to a maximum price of $200,000.

“This agreement will change the lives of taxi drivers across our city," said Zohran Mamdani, the state Assembly Member representing northwest Queens who has been hunger striking in solidarity with taxi workers for more than two weeks.

He credited NYTWA organizers, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for helping to end the "crisis created by the Bloomberg administration," where industry leaders drove up the price of medallions — which allow drivers to own their taxis — to the benefit of the city and the detriment of mostly-immigrant drivers. The New York Times reported two lengthy stories on the topic in 2019.

Above all, Mamdani thanked the "relentless organizing" of NYTWA drivers, who he said he's gotten to know over the past few month.

"They fight to put food on their family’s table, to keep their homes, to send their kids to college, to fight for those we lost to suicide, and to live a future free of the devastation of the debt crisis," he said of the drivers. "It is through solidarity with each other, that we finally got drivers what they deserve."

In the months leading up to the agreement, the de Blasio administration and taxi drivers have been at odds over a debt relief plan.

In March, the city provided a relief fund to help medallion owners restructure their loans, which a litany of drivers and advocates said fell short of the relief that drivers — many of whom owe upward of $500,000 in debt — need.

The deal brokered on Wednesday is made up of a $170,000 guaranteed loan, a $30,000 city grant, and includes a 5 percent interest rate and a 20-year, fully amortizing term — meaning if medallion owners make every payment according to their original schedule, their loan will be fully paid off after 20 years.

This restructuring will cap debt service payments at $1,122 per month for eligible medallion owners.

Schumer, who helped broker the deal after city officials and taxi drivers reached an impasse, said that the agreement helps make cabbies' debt manageable — calling it a "just resolution" to the crisis.

"The taxi drivers are going to have to pay a lot of money each month, but it will be at least money they can afford," he said.

While the deal falls a bit short of NYTWA's initial proposal — which called for a plan that refinances loans to $145,000 with monthly payments of no more than $800 — the group's executive director, Bhairavi Desai, agreed that the more aggressive plan offers real debt relief.

"Drivers will no longer be at risk of losing their homes, and no longer be held captive to a debt beyond their lifetime," Desai said.

"This victory was not possible without our broad coalition of supporters. The city we love had our back and so today we can say, we have won," she said.

Related Article: Taxi Drivers, Astoria Lawmaker On Hunger Strike For Debt Relief

Patch reporters Gabby DeBenedictis and Matt Troutman contributed to this report.