Two taxi owners and the Boston Taxi Owners Association (BTOA) are suing the City for allowing Uber and Lyft to operate, arguing that the free rein ridesharing services have been given has crushed the value of their taxi medallions.

The two taxi owners named in the lawsuit are Raphael Ophir and Joseph Pierre, The Boston Globe reports. They, along with the BTOA, are accusing the City, specifically, of crippling taxi medallion values and have asked the court to force Uber, Lyft and other rideshare drivers are held to the same regulations cabbies face.

Boston’s licensed taxi industry is regulated by the police hackney squad; widely considered a monopoly that exploits licensed cabbies, the medallion system limits the number of taxis on the road.

Currently 1625 medallions are in circulation. BostInno reported over the summer that the cost of a single medallion, in 2014, had climbed to as much $700,000. As of October – the time of the last reported sale of a Boston medallion – market prices had dropped to as low as $561,000, according to The New York Times.

“Nobody wants to buy [medallions] now,” New England taxi medallion broker Lew Snapper told the NYT in a follow-up report, published Jan. 7, 2015. Snapper reportedly hasn’t sold a medallion in more than a year.

“The City has . . . permitted the de facto taxi companies to flout the law with open impunity by deploying an invasion of unlicensed cars and drivers with no requirement of any medallion” or other city taxi regulations, the lawsuit says, according to the Globe.

“The city has truly just turned a blind eye in allowing them to operate in the city,” Jenifer Pinkham, a lawyer for the taxi owners, told the Globe, which published its report on Friday. At that time, Boston spokesperson Melina Schuler told the Globe that the City had yet to receive the complaint but, when it arrives, city officials would review it.

Boston taxi drivers have been demanding since last spring that rideshare drivers be held to the same regulatory practices. Medallion owners, however, have curiously remained out of the spotlight – “greedy” medallions owners, who, Uber has argued, are to blame for cabbies’ struggles.

Mayor Marty Walsh’s opinions on ridesharing companies have evolved during his tenure in office. When the Taxi-Uber feud started to bubble over last spring, this had been the word from City Hall:

The Mayor continues to recognize that Uber is a popular mode of transportation, but that there are serious issues around regulation and questions around public safety. The City of Boston is committed to hearing all sides of the issue, and will work to find a solution that balances the needs of all those involved.

Mayor Walsh himself stated at the time: “We cannot turn a blind eye to public safety concerns around unregulated modes of transportation, but we also cannot condemn a popular, effective service that takes responsible steps to ensure the safety of their users. There is a balance.”

In a later televised appearance on Bloomberg Surveillance, in August, Mayor Walsh offered a more direct stance, saying he supports Uber in Boston.

Despite support from the Mayor’s Office, rideshare drivers are hardly a protected group. Boston police have pulled over and ticketed Uber drivers for providing unlicensed for-hire trips, and as recently as Dec. 1, City Councilors have said ridesharing companies are clearly operating outside the law.

Ultimately the popularity of Uber and Lyft has left lawmakers between a rock and a hard place, and left politicians with few options: The technology that makes ridesharing possible has exploited a loophole in existing for-hire livery service legislation; Uber, most notably, has become a go-to mode of transportation, which, at this time, may be impossible for governments to simply wideout.

Regulations recently filed by the state could, to an extent, solve the problem.

However, taxi owners told the Globe such regulations would “create an irrational, two-tiered regulatory system that unconstitutionally harms the economic property interests of taxicab medallion owners and drivers.” In addition to their lawsuit, taxi owners have also filed an emergency motion, asking the court to prevent the state from enacting the proposed regulations.

It’s unclear what good, if any, taxi owners’ recent actions will do. While ridesharing still – technically – remains illegal, public support for the Ubers and Lyfts of the world could outweigh gripes from taxi industry stakeholders – which there are a lot of. Further, now that Uber is an official data-partner of Boston, it seems as though the politicians have already chosen a side in the Taxi-Ridesharing War.

Here’s what Mayor Walsh said this week, when Uber announced it would share its data with Boston:

In Boston, data is driving our conversations, our policy making and how we envision the future of our city. We are using data to change the way we deliver services and we welcome the opportunity to add to our resources. This will help us reach our transportation goals, improve the quality of our neighborhoods and allow us to think smarter, finding more innovative and creative solutions to some of our most pressing challenges.

Photo via Richard Kelland