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A comment on 2 Taxi Medallions Sell for $1 Million Each. Parent comment

Re:2 Taxi Medallions Sell for $1 Million Each by hugh3 on Thursday October 20, 2011 @07:19PM (#3137581)
It's hard to say that's "all it takes" when the actual Mayor of New York City had a huge fight on his hands just to wrench a tiny amount of power away from the medallion owners: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/nyregion/bloomberg-plan-to...

I don't understand it. The taxi industry is a huge and powerful lobby which manages to twist the law in its favour in just about every first-world city on Earth. I don't know how they do it, but they do.

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Re:2 Taxi Medallions Sell for $1 Million Each by vacri on Thursday October 20, 2011 @07:40PM (#3137649)
Melbourne Airport is on the outer fringe of the city and there's always a push to get public transport to the airport, in the form of light rail - a taxi to the CBD is north of $30, from memory. The land is there, the public support is there, but the taxi lobby keeps killing it every time. I've never understood where they get their power from.
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Re:2 Taxi Medallions Sell for $1 Million Each by salem on Thursday October 20, 2011 @07:56PM (#3137685)
Now you know. From Medallion holders.
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Re:2 Taxi Medallions Sell for $1 Million Each by vacri on Friday October 21, 2011 @12:45AM (#3138462)
They use custom license plates instead of medallions, but the effect is the same. I think a set of Melbourne taxi plates goes for around $500k these days - a quick search just found "a bargain - 485k!".

I really don't see where that much value is, beyond blocking potential competitors from the market.

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