To complicate things, we have found out some the commuter vans that you have been seeing picking up and discharging people are not considered commuter vans. We have been told that any commuter van with “BA” at the end of their license plate number is considered a bus. At this point we assume the vans with “LA” at the end of their license plate are considered commuter vans. NYC Department of Transportation is in charge of the “BA” license plates while NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) is in charge of the “LA” license plates. If you think that is complicated, we are now seeing commuter vans with a “T” at the beginning of their license plate number and a “C” at the end. This is now being investigated and we are curious as to what the answer will be.
We have been notified that the NYC TLC has undertaken a project to revise its existing rule book. During the first phase of the rules revision project, all of the existing rules will be redrafted, then posted on a chapter-by-chapter basis on the TLC Website for review and discussion by interested members of the public. We are hopeful that we can propose some changes that will be instrumental in resolving the ongoing problems that we have been dealing with.
Dominic Collucio, Special Assistant to the Commissioner has promised to send COMET President Roe Daraio a copy of the commuter van guidelines and NYC DOT guidelines pertaining to the commuter buses. Everyone in COMETland will just have to wait for the next chapter to find out if we will, in fact, unravel the commuter van and commuter bus dilemma/mystery.