You do know why the medallion's exist right? It has nothing to do with your taxi cartel conspiracy. It had to do with too many (over 30,000) taxis on the road causing major traffic problems. In 1937, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia signed the Haas Act which introduced official taxi licenses and the medallion system that remains in place today. The law limited the total number of cab licenses to 16,900, but the number dwindled to 11,787 licenses over the next six decades until 1996 when the TLC added 133 new licenses bringing the total to 11,920.Since 1996, more medallions have been added to the fleet bringing the total number of cab licenses to 13,237 as of 2009.