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Boston to Brookline cabbies: Butt out
By adamg on Sat, 06/21/2008 - 9:43pm
Boston Police report arresting a Brookline cabbie Thursday night for trying to pick up passengers on Cambridge Street - only Boston cabbies are allowed to pick up people who hail them on the street in Boston. Ironically, the driver of the Brookline Red Cab is an Allston resident.
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Comments
Utopia Achieved!
Well, I'm glad to see they've finally solved all the city's real crime problems. This is like the cops who are best used by the city going into bars where there are people watching a ball gamed and issue a citation to the bar owners for not having an "entertainment license". Good thing there aren't any unsolved homicides out there, or kids walking around with guns and crack.
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah blah blah blah. Why can't both kinds of laws be enforced? My own pet peeve is the Brookline cabbies who use the inbound #57 bus stop on Brighton Ave at Commonwealth as a taxi stand. Which is doubly illegal and 100% annoying for those of us who use that bus stop for it's designed purpose.
That said, it's completely legal to CALL a non-Boston cab company to come into the city for a pickup, and I do that in preference over Boston companies because for some reason Brookline and Cambridge drivers seem to be able to find their way to my house but most Boston drivers do not.
Why not deregulate taxis?
A better idea would be for the state to invalidate all laws that limit taxi drivers to picking up fares in only one city, and to also remove all limits on the number of taxi licenses that can be issued. This will disrupt the market in the short term, but make much more sense going forward.
Potential problems with ending city-based licensing
I agree that the regulations governing taxi licensing are far from perfect, but ending the local pickup requirements could lead to a couple of problems:
1) A dearth of service in certain towns and cities near Boston as cabbies there opt to do business at Logan and in the city
2) A decrease in quality and an increase in costs in some areas, as non-local drivers are less likely to know the best routes
3) More congestion at Logan
huh?
A dearth of service in certain towns and cities near Boston as cabbies there opt to do business at Logan and in the city
Cabbies will go where the demand is. If there are people in "certain towns and cities", someone will offer cab service there.
A decrease in quality and an increase in costs in some areas, as non-local drivers are less likely to know the best routes
Require cabs state-wide to list their home service town prominently. If people want a local driver, they'll wait/call/look for a local cab.
More congestion at Logan
It's really simple. There are taxi stands with space for X cars. Ticket/fine the drivers who park outside the taxi stands. If they don't want to waste money on the gas, tolls, and fines...they won't crowd Logan at inappropriate times.
The ONLY reason the medallion system exists is to earn megabucks for the city and create a government-sanctioned, automotive equivalent to sharecropping.
By the way, we've seen several fare hikes with gas prices. Now that they're at record lows, where is the fare discount?
the problem Ive found with cabs is that...
although they do go where the demand is, you will often find them crowding up certain areas where there arent enough spots. Now it is easy to simply regulate those spots by issuing tickets to cabs that violate that area, but this just leads to cabs "driving around the block" like hawks waiting for that first cab to leave the stand, and then that cab tries to fill in the last spot (for the case of a cab stand)
pickups anywhere
I don't know all the implications of this, but it might save me some money.
I tend to tip especially well when taking a cab between towns, on the assumption that the cabbie has a long drive before s/he can pick up another fare.
Better Yet
Maybe the cops should start issuing traffic citations - starting with the "professional" drivers. There should be a crackdown on cabbies who drive aggressively and belligerently, and endanger motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
I don't give a fig whose medallions they bear - just get the #*&% out of the bike lanes (they are NOT your taxi-specific right turn lanes!), quit using bike lanes for cab stands, quit playing pedestrian chicken because you can't be arsed to stop at a red light when making a turn, knock off the illegal u-turns and left turns from right lanes, and stop trying to simultaneously occupy a travel lane with me when I have the right of way!
Now if they could get all of
Now if they could get all of the goddamn brookline cabbies to stop using Chestnut Hill Ave in front of my Apt as an overnight parking lot, that would be swell.