This taxi has driven 550,000 miles. His days may be numbered.

Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we take a ride in the two oldest taxis still on the streets of New York City. They are 12 years old. We’ll also find out why the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan says control of Rikers Island prisons should be taken away from the city.

In the 12 years since Ravinder Sharma bought his taxi – a 2011 Ford Crown Victoria – he has driven more than 550,000 kilometers, enough to circle the Earth at the equator 22 times.

Only one other taxi that age is still carrying passengers in New York, according to the city’s taxi-regulating agency. That cab, which sat unsold on a dealer’s lot in the Bronx until Haroon Abdullah found it in 2013, has just 491,000 miles on the odometer.

The agency, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, says neither car should be on the road. The reason: both taxis are long past the seven-year retirement age for taxis.

The two drivers have dates for administrative hearings — Abdullah on Friday, Sharma on Dec. 8 — to respond to summonses issued after they skipped taxi inspections in recent months. If the taxis had been inspected, the meters could have been confiscated due to the age rule, rendering the cars useless as rental vehicles.

Now if the drivers lose in their hearings, the taxi agency could send a wireless signal to automatically turn off their meters. The two drivers could also face fines for failing to inspect the car, up to $500, and have their licenses suspended, the agency said.

A spokesman for the agency said the two Crown Victorias were “the last of their kind” but had to go. “Like the Model Ts, Checkers and Caprices before them, their final act of safety should be a well-deserved retirement,” said spokesman Jason Kersten.

Like many New Yorkers, Kersten said he had fond memories of Crown Victorias: As a college student in the 1990s, he used one as a moving van and loaded everything he owned into the trunk. Now even Sharma and Abdullah admit that their taxis are antiques. “You know you’re in a classic taxi,” said Sharma, as his Crown Victoria – stately, imposing and majestic – glided down the Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. “I love this car.”

He and Abdullah maintained their cars; they are shiny and quiet, even when weathered. But when the two Crown Victorias were new, Barack Obama was president; Michael Bloomberg was mayor; and more than 7,400 other Crown Victoria taxis of various ages roamed the streets of New York – more than half of the yellow taxis in the city at the time.

Old school sedans

The Crown Victorias are old-fashioned sedans with thirsty engines. Federal rankings show that the 2011 Crown Victoria averages 16 miles per gallon in the city. Abdullah said he got 15 to 26 miles per gallon in the city and 17 to 18 miles per gallon on highway trips with airport passengers. Sharma said he has not done any such calculations. “I don’t think about the gas,” he said. “I’m 64. I raised my children. I just drive.”

Abdullah said he bought his Crown Victoria after his previous taxi was flooded during Hurricane Sandy while parked in front of his home in Howard Beach, Queens. It sat on the high ground of a car dealership in the Bronx until 2013, when he paid just over $21,000 for it.

Both drivers say their cars passed recent state inspections, but they skipped required taxi inspections rather than risk losing their cars and their livelihoods. Kersten, the taxi commission spokesman, said both drivers had been given pandemic extensions so they could continue driving their Crown Victorias.

Abdullah said he wanted a Toyota Siena, a minivan, but couldn’t afford the $30,000 down payment. “I’m behind on my mortgage,” he said. ‘I’m behind on my bills. If they don’t allow me to drive this car, I won’t earn the income I need to buy a new car.”

Sharma said he would ask the taxi commission to let him drive his Crown Victoria for at least a few more months until he turns 65. “I think if they allow me to drive, I’ll drive,” Sharma said. “If they don’t, I’ll take my Social Security and retire.” He said he was under financial pressure because he owned four taxi medallions and lost his savings when the medallion bubble burst in 2014.

Sharma said he had driven almost three million kilometers since he became a taxi driver in the 1980s. “It’s a lot of miles,” he said. “If they let me drive, I’ll drive. If not, I did it for 35 years.”

Weather

It’s a sunny day in the mid 40s, with a partly cloudy evening dropping to the mid 30s.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In effect through Thursday (Thanksgiving Day).

The federal government formally joined an effort to wrest New York City’s control of Rikers Island, asking a judge to transfer oversight of the troubled prison complex to an outside authority known as a receiver.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, joined lawyers representing people incarcerated in New York City jails in a lawsuit saying the only solution to the ongoing chaos at Rikers was to appoint a receiver. Williams said in July that an outside authority was needed to correct “a collective failure with deep roots that included multiple mayoral administrations” and prosecutors.

The judge who will decide a takeover, Laura Taylor Swain of Federal District Court, said Mayor Eric Adams’ administration had failed “to address the dangerous conditions that continue to plague prisons.” In August, she set out a schedule for federal prosecutors and attorneys for inmates to argue for guardianship. Friday’s filings were the first step in that process.

Williams’ filing, along with those from the Legal Aid Society and a private law firm representing people detained at Rikers, comes at a time when the city is under renewed pressure to make improvements to conditions at the troubled complex. City Hall announced last month that Prison Commissioner Louis Molina would leave the job in the middle of this month to become assistant deputy mayor for public safety. Adams has not yet named his successor.

Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s legal department, said this weekend that the Adams administration had made progress in addressing long-standing problems at Rikers and that receivership was not the solution.

METROPOLITAN diary

Shoe shopping

Dear Diary:

Frustrated by an endless search for apartments, I stopped at a shoe store on the Upper West Side for distraction.

As I sat down, a nearby woman turned to me.

“Do these shoes look old to me?” she asked calmly.

“Of course not,” I said. “They look great on you.”

She said she lived on the Upper East Side but used to come to the store with her late husband.

She asked where I lived. I mentioned that my lease had not been renewed due to what I perceived as corporate greed and that I had been living in a hotel for the past two months.

She said her building’s management company had three rental units. I took the name of the company and thanked her.

After she left the store, I looked at the shoes she had tried on. I asked for a pair in my size. They were perfect.

Back at the hotel an hour later, I looked up the management company online and saw no available listings. I sent a note anyway, expressing my interest and explaining what I was looking for in a new place.

Two days later I received a response about a brand new ad. Two days later I saw the place.