Comments on More Cab Licenses!
It seems like I am always waiting hours for cabs. Even from the U-District on a Friday night it takes 25 or 30 miuntes.
At least they are better than the cabs in Japan.
Screw cabs, we need more town car services, cheaper, friendlier and better maintained.
Ugh, cab service. Crazy drivers, looooong waits, and rude, uncooperative dispatchers (Yellow Cab, I'm looking at you, you nasty, nasty little fucks). Thanks, Stranger, for finally shedding some light on the sad state of cabs here. More cabs and more competition is definitely called for. However, I'm kinda surprised that more unlicensed cabs haven't popped up around the airport and downtown, as they do in NYC.
You know what I'd really like to see here, though? Tuk-tuks. Those would be loads of fun.
unlicensed cabs haven't popped up around the airport and downtown.
Are you kidding me? Haven;t you ever heard of danny cab?
Tuk-Tuks are called Auto Rickhaws in India and they are the worst thing ever hahaha.
So you’re saying we need more cars on the road then?
Your ability to dialectically switch to a diametrically opposed position would astound even the most dedicated Marxist-Leninist.
The reason waits are longer on the south side is because cab service is centralized with the Downtown area, and neighborhoods like Rainier Beach are farther away, with more complex routes required to reach them, then the central and northern neighborhoods.
It's also because those are the predominatly minority neighborhoods, while the areas up north are much whiter.
It's an historical problem that cabs don't like the non-whites.
Hey Sid,
Taking a cab is much better than owning a car, from an eco POV. a)It's one car shared by many people (and as I've noted before, I do like Flexcar and think there should be more of them.) b) A huge proportion of the energy a car consumes happens during the manufacturing of the car. So if I take cabs instead of buying a car, that energy never gets consumed.
@ 8 & 9:
yeah dude, dont ask me to go out there after dark.. 'cept to pick up some o' that stanky green. otherwise , big problemo, bro, cause you know i value my life, dude.
Erica, well posted.
It's great to see the Stranger begin to embrace the libertarian position that business protection laws and restrictions on licensing, etc. only inconvenience and raise prices for the consumer, for the sole benefit of protecting existing businesses, often whom helped write the restrictive laws in the first place. Reason had a great post on this, covering limousine regulation in Las Vegas, where the existing business actually get to challenge your application for a license if it would in any way threaten their profits.
To be fair, there are a hell of a lot more New Yorkers and they use a hell of a lot more cabs. While we're at it, could we get rid of that stupid anti-cab hailing law?
it's illegal to hail a cab in seattle?!?! huh?!?! wha?!?!
Whether or not the inherent racial issue is a factor, Enigma, the distance and topography plays a much bigger role in the delays.
Supposedly, it's illegal for cabs to pick up passengers who've hailed them down. It seems like many cab drivers stop anyway, but it's still stupid.
when was this law passed? is there a good reason for it? it seems almost counter-intuitive to the point of having cabs driving around. i had no clue this was illegal. well, i do it a couple times a week and have had no problems yet...
Just thinking, that when one takes a cab, the cab has to drive to get to where one is, take one to where one is going and then drive to the next pick-up which is rarely at the same address - if one hails a cab that means the cab is just driving around burning up gas - since cabs either cruise around or drive to pick-up it would seem many more miles would need to be put on the vehicle and it would need to replaced in far fewer years than the car (Mini) one owned. Cabs also tend to be very big cars that cost more co2 to build and run.
On the racial tip: It's true, cabbies are truly some of the most racist people I've ever met. This opionion is based on two years of driving a cab and hundreds of discussions with the other drivers about it. Specifically, there's incredible racial tension between African blacks and African American blacks (and directed primarily by the Africans). As a result of the racism, there are very few cabbies who want to drive in the south end, which makes a vicious circle for the long wait times there.
That's just one small note to a huge story: kudos for broaching the subject.
@12,
I disagree that licensing, etc. is always unnecessary - I want doctors licensed, etc. I do agree that it's often a problem, and shows that the simple left-right argument of gov't good vs. gov't bad is the wrong argument. (The argument should be how to improve the quality of government.) Regulation is often businesses attempting to gain competitive advantage, and screwing consumers in the process.
Erica - is there any impetus on doing something about this at City Hall? One method would be to increase the number of licenses to catch up after 17 years, then have some sort of formula to regularly increase them each year.
@20
I didn't see anyone say that licensing per se is bad, but economic protectionism masquerading as licensing is. Licensing a cab driver to a) drive and b)...whatever other skills a cab driver must have is fine, but "licensing" which actually means "your future competitors can keep you from competing" is the issue here.
"Regulation is often businesses attempting to gain competitive advantage, and screwing consumers in the process." Amen.
There is some sort of license board in Florida that approves produce for the market, and it's the same story: the produce board decides is new types of produce are "suitable" for the market:
The produce gatekeepers on the Florida Tomato Committee, a New Deal relic charged with judging tomato quality (apparently a task too esoteric for consumers to handle on their own), won't allow a tasty but bumpy variety known as the UglyRipe to be shipped from the state's main growing area because they don't like the looks of it.
The committee explains that its aesthetic requirements "serve to ensure customer satisfaction and improve grower returns. Not holding the UglyRipe tomato to these same standards defies orderly marketing and provides it unfair, undue marketing advantage." On one hand, the committee wants us to believe consumers would be so horrified by the UglyRipe's irregular appearance that they would run screaming from the produce section. On the other hand, we're told the UglyRipe would enjoy a competitive advantage over its smoother cousins, which would of course be wrong.
In an interview with USA Today, the committee's manager raised an even more chilling prospect. "If you allowed the producers of UglyRipe to ship any quality of tomato," he asked, "then how could you justify not allowing any quality tomato into the marketplace?"
Truly, government at its finest: protecting us from oddly shaped tomatoes.
I drove and dispatched taxis in Seattle for over 20 years -- no, it's not illegal to hail a cab. If it's busy, most of the drivers might be on dispatched calls already, that's why they're all driving by you.
The longer wait times in the South End are a combination of the racial and class prejudices and the difficulty of getting there easily, compared to the North End,
The wait times are getting longer because traffic keeps getting worse every year. More cabs won't do anything but put more cars on the street downtown (since the new drivers will just concentrate in the same areas where all the other drivers are already) and make it harder to make a living. During those few hours a week when it's really busy (afternoon rush hours and Friday and Saturday nights) you could probably use twice as many cabs on the street -- but they'd be sitting around idle the other 125 hours of the week.
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