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Cambridge cracks down on Boston cabbies trying to pick up business on the wrong side of the river
By adamg on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 6:46pm
Cambridge Police report issuing tickets to three Boston cabbies spotted picking up fares in Harvard and Porter squares yesterday afternoon and evening. Police say it's part of a crackdown on non-Cambridge taxi drivers trying to steal business away from the locals.
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Comments
Right next to the Boston cab
Right next to the Boston cab , will be an Uber and lyft picking up fares. No problem for the gypsy. What the hell is going on with this waste of tax payers money. Enforce laws for some but not others.
Being a cabbie for Uber or Lyft is being a cabbie
Just because some company has an app, and knowingly breaks the law, doesn't mean the company should be allowed to break the law.
Fix the cab rules for everyone, buy back medallions if you have to, and make all cab companies follow the same rules.
Here's how you do the transition. You immediately ban and fine Uber and Lyft for breaking the rules, and sit back while their investors sue the founders for knowingly running illegal operations. Then you figure out how the laws should change to provide better service, better jobs, better streets, more fairness.
You don't let Uber and Lyft get away with this, while you study the problem for years.
You need to keep up with the state of the law
Cambridge was, in fact, one of the first communities to sue Uber over this sort of thing. They lost.
And then the state legislature up and took away all potential local control of companies such as Uber and Lyft away from cities and towns, so there's now nothing Cambridge can do about where or how their drivers pick people up, so, no, they're not breaking the law.
If you don't like it, you're going to need to yell at your legislators, not your city councilors.
Labell
Should have crackdown on all Lyft and Uber drivers whose should follows company policy DISPLAYS LOGOS ON THEIR VEHCILE,2z
Just use Uber
Just use Uber
Thank goodness for Uber
It's this kind of regulatory nonsense that led to the rise of ride-hailing services and the death of traditional taxis.
I recall many a late night in Cambridge seething with rage, watching empty Boston cabs drive past my outstretched arm, unable to give me a ride because I was standing a quarter mile outside their 'jurisdiction.'
Now you tap a couple buttons and voila.
Cambridge - Hammering in the last nails in the coffin
The Taxi biz is done. This act by Cambridge just highlights the absurdity of regulation in the era of ride sharing.
The only people left driving regular taxi cabs are people trying to hide cash income from child support.
uber is done!
uber is done!
4% of drivers remain on platform after one year
1b loss on 2b?
Even Fidelity wont even given them anymore money!
51 reported deaths have been tied to passengers of Uber and Lyft services since 2014.
Since 2013, 101 physical assaults and 384 sexual assaults have been alleged against Uber and Lyft drivers.
Eighteen passengers have reported being kidnapped or held against their will by their Uber drivers since 2014
Endless accidents on road, moving violations, stopping whereever whenever with no signals ...unmarked cars make it more hazardous to avoid.
If you're going to bring up
If you're going to bring up statistics like that to try and make Uber look less safe than cabs, you need to provide the statistics for cabs too, to compare.
Also, Uber cars haven't legally been allowed to be unmarked in MA for several years now - all must display an Uber logo on both the front and rear windows.
You remind me of a guy I once knew
Back in 1999 he told me the internet was a fad.
So...
"Endless accidents on road, moving violations, stopping whereever whenever with no signals ...unmarked cars make it more hazardous to avoid."
Apparently this behavior is A-OK as long as the vehicle is marked as a taxicab?
And your statistics are meaningless without a comparison to the taxicab industry with respect to the number of incidents of each type per million passenger miles.
Remember this series from the Globe? https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/specials/taxi
God help you if you were ever injured by a barely-insured (and self-insured for that matter) taxicab.
Ubers and Lyfts are by far
Ubers and Lyfts are by far the biggest source of bad driving in the city. Whenever I see a car driving slowly drifting out of its lane, or double parked as badly as possible, or flinging its doors open into traffic, there's almost always a purple light or U sticker.
And yet
Taking Uber and Lyft are still 100% better than taking a taxi.
Enjoy your little fantasy; rideshares are here to stay. Provide a vastly superior service and the customers will come and stick with you. The taxi industry has only itself to blame.
Uber is only popular because
Uber is only popular because it’s below cost it will have to be subsidized by your tax dollars to sustain it 85% of people who take it never took a taxi anyway
Great!
Great! Now where is Boston Police enforcing the same rules in Boston?! Cambridge cabs just sit in front of bars and other hotspots all night without interference for the local gendarmerie.
I would hope that Boston
I would hope that Boston Police use their time and resources to pursue something more worthwhile.
A step in the right direction...
...now ban/ limit Uber/Lyft like NYC is doing and we're getting somewhere....
Not great for Cambridge residents
Maybe this is great for Cambridge taxi businesses, but this enforcement makes it near impossible for Cambridge residents to get a cab from Boston to Cambridge. Cabbies would rather take people to destinations where they'll be able to pick up a return fare.
(and yes, I know that they're legally not allowed to refuse service based on destination. But try explaining that to a cab that's already pulled away from you at South Station at 2 AM.)
The real solution
Regionalize cabs. No more of this boundary crap in a city that never developed like other cities.
I'm not excusing their
I'm not excusing their illegal behavior, at the end of the day they are at fault. But what the hell are you doing telling the driver where you're going before you get in the car? This is 100% the driver's fault, but can be prevented by the rider 100% of the time. This isn't even a Boston thing, this is generic "street smarts" stuff.
The Cambridge taxi industry
The Cambridge taxi industry is in trouble.
Ambassador Brattle recently went out of business. Various newcomers are attempting to pick up the scraps.
It's silly
It's silly that regulations for things like cabs are so balkanized around here -- there really ought to be a single authority for the whole metro region for things like this. I'm not sure there are any good parallels to the Boston/Cambridge/Brookline situation in the US that don't involve cities sitting on a state border.
The problem with this
The problem with this approach is probably best illustrated by New York City with its five boroughs. All of the cabs want to stay in Manhattan, where most of the business is, to the point that they city had to create a second tier of taxi that only serves the outer boroughs.
If we combined different cities' taxis under a regional entity (e.g. the MBTA), what incentive would there be for cab drivers to stay in outlying cities like Cambridge, Brookline, etc.? They'd all just head downtown. You'd probably still be able to find one in Harvard Square, but this would significantly decrease your odds of being able to hail a cab in quieter neighborhoods of Cambridge or Brookline.