A caravan of taxis closed the Brooklyn Bridge and the Queensboro Bridge on Thursday afternoon, resulting in local traffic warnings.

The latest in a series of protests, the driver group, organized by the NY Taxi Workers Association, is calling for debt relief due to lost income amid the pandemic.

With the number of drivers working at 75% in June, the most recent month The data is available from the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, and ridership is down 90%, drivers say they are unable to keep up with locket loan payments.

Marblegate Asset Management, the largest holder of taxi loans, has granted loan repayment leave to around 2,000 medallion-owner drivers since mid-March, in addition to lowering some loans to $ 300,000 (including $ 25,000). $ are needed to finance the restructuring) and reduce the average monthly loan repayment from about $ 2,800 to $ 1,500.

Those costs, taxi drivers argue, are still too high, especially for drivers who are still struggling to find passengers amid the pandemic.

The association is asking lenders like Marblegate to cut loans to $ 125,000 and cut monthly payments to around $ 750 to “lift drivers out of poverty,” calling the company’s offer a “life sentence. to prison for debtor “.

In a statement to Forbes, a Marblegate spokesperson said the company agrees loan restructuring “is the only way to start stabilizing the taxi industry and getting drivers back on their feet,” but believes a “one-size-fits-all approach” deprive owner-operators of the equity they have worked for years to build.