City taxi drivers have a new licensing facility in Long Island City.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission opened the new facility on 47th Avenue near 31st Street Tuesday. The TLC provides licenses for over 200,000 yellow cabs and for-hire vehicles. Organizers say they started planning the new space in late 2012 after spending 22 years at a facility on Queens Boulevard.
“Over the last few years, the number of people in New York City that have TLC licenses has exploded, so this allows us to process all these new applicants in a state of the art facility with more room. It's more convenient for the licensees,” said TLC Commissioner Meera Joshi.
The larger space has more electronic fingerprinting stations and a DMV station to better serve the 27,000 licensees and applicants who visit each month.