It's about a New York City that's 25 years long gone, but this question, and thread, reminded of Ted Rall's recollections of driving a Cab in NYC during the early 80s

http://www.rall.com/longarticle_003.htm

Hey, that's still a great read. I love the little vignette about Woody Allen. I voted you up because reading this completely answers the question of "why won't NY cabbies take me to Brooklyn?"

It's almost impossible for me to get a ride out to Ozone Park in queens, but reading this totally makes me understand why.

The last time I was in NY, I emerged from a hotel in midtown, and asked the next cab waiting in line outside the hotel to take me to SoHo. He just shook his head and sat there. I asked the hotel cab-wrangler if the cab was working, and he just shook his head as well. I walked a block and got a cab on Broadway instead.

Only thing I can figure is that he was holding out for an airport fare. Give that it was raining pretty hard, this was kind of annoying.

> Any idea why a cab driver would want to reject a journey?

As stated by OP, shorter journeys within Manhattan tend to be more profitable. The main reason is that once in an outer borough, it takes longer to find a fare to get the cab back in Manhattan. So they either burn time and gas looking for the right fare, or they burn time and gas driving back to Manhattan empty.

> Does NYC deny this 1.5x for further journeys?

There are myriad rules and fare schedules for journeys outside NYC, airports, etc. The 5 boroughs are within NYC, and this is what OP is addressing.

So for example I live in SF but grew up in Millbrae (which is pretty much where SFO is actually located) I'd park my car there and then take a cheap cab ride back and forth to the airport.

The problem was the cab drivers at SFO are looking to get a $40 fare back to the city, not a local $10 drop off. I've had a driver refuse to take me once (I now know better). In NYC taking a fare to the outer boroughs is usually a one way trip, you're going to have to dead head it back to Manhattan which is time lost.

Here is the NYC taxi cab rates.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/passenger/taxicab_rate.shtm...

You have to pay $2.50 just to get in the cab in the first place, no matter how far you go. Thus, it is much better for the driver to do multiple short trips. It also means that longer trips are actually affordable for riders.

The biggest issue is probably just trying to find a return fair. Late at night most people are going from Manhattan to one of the outer boroughs - not the other way around. The usually end up driving an empty cab back to Manhattan, so they are effectively getting a half-fare.

I cannot disagree with the reasoning behind wanting to avoid an empty return trip. However, as a customer with a legit need, this isn't really my problem. Either the city, or the cab co, or the cabbie needs to resolve this problem, not me. The law exists for a very good reason, like many other "consumer protection" laws.