Daughter of a cab driver makes feelings known outside City Hall.
A City Council committee today began figuring out how to regulate ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft, in a hearing that overflowed from the council chambers to two other hearing rooms and the hallways on the fifth floor of City Hall as cab drivers, Lyft drivers and Uber fans sought to show their support for one mode of transportation over the other.
Updated with info from the arraignment.
A Brookline cab driver had bail set at $1,000 today on charges he wielded both his fists and his cab as weapons against a bicyclist who had just run into a pedestrian at Tremont and Avery streets Friday night, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
According to the DA's office, the incident with driver Sam Chandler, 45, began when a bicyclist ran a red light and plowed into a pedestrian as she was crossing the street.
Four Massport workers admitted today they accepted cash and other items from cab drivers in exchange for letting them move up in the queue for passengers at Logan Airport, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
In exchange for the plea, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke ordered each of the four former "cab starters" to pay a $10,000 fine and placed them on two years of probation. He also barred them from trying to get a job with a government agency - or collecting their state pensions.
By Elijah Kaplan, SNN reporter
Somerville, MA, Oct. 21 –New, relatively unregulated “ride sharing” transportation companies like Uber and Lyft earn the praise of travelers but are prompting protests from traditional taxi drivers and others.
Across the country, and the world, the media, public officials and others are discussing how to regulate the multi-million dollar industry. Some places – like Germany – have banned the service altogether. In Somerville and the Greater Boston Area, discussions are underway, but so far no regulations, much less bans, have been announced.
Oct. 21, 2014 - Visit the Kiley Barrel site, march with the Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band, learn how Tufts is trying to improve its treatment of victims of sexual abuse, see what's up with the Union Square "Community Benefits Agreement," and explore the taxi-Uber conundrum. These stories and more on Somerville Neighborhood News #25. Check out other episodes at www.somervilleneighborhoodnews.org.
Somerville Neighborhood News is produced by the volunteers, interns and staff of SCATV.
Boston Police report arresting a Norwood man on charges he put a cab out of commission by punching its windshield early this morning.
According to police, a cabbie had driven a couple to Hanover and Union streets downtown around 1 a.m.:
Arlington Police report arresting a pair of alleged knuckleheads they say pummeled a cab driver when he insisted they pay their fare after a ride from Alewife station late Saturday.
Christopher LaFrance, 25, of Arlington, and Jacob Shaps, 24, of Boston, were arrested on charges of assault and battery, unarmed robbery and intimidation of a witness after police tracked down LaFrance's residence based on the ID cards he left behind in the cab's back seat, police say.
According to police, the cab driver picked the duo up at Alewife around 11:30 p.m. and drove them to Arlington, telling them the ride would be about $20.
The City Council agreed today to hold a hearing on how to regulate Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing services.
Councilors Bill Linehan - who proposed the hearing - and Steve Murphy said it was time for regulation to protect public safety and out of fairness to existing medallion owners, who are subject to scrutiny by the police hackney division.
City Council President Bill Linehan says it's time to bring companies such as Uber and Lyft under the same sort of regulations already that taxi and pedicab operators already have to follow.
On Wednesday, the city council considers a request from Linehan for a hearing on how to give city regulators say in the operation of the new services:
WCVB reports on an incident involving a couple who didn't like the route their driver was taking from Brighton to Watertown this afternoon.
Meng Mao captured the scene this afternoon as local cab drivers circled Uber's downtown office to protest its service.
Click to hear the sounds of dozens of horns held down in fury as cab drivers urge Uber to recognize the error of its non-regulated ways.
Boston Police report arresting a Charlestown man they say stole a cab early this morning after the driver refused to take him home because he appeared drunk and was fleeing after shoplifting something at a local Tedeschi.
Police say Sakaria Mohamud got into a cab parked at the 140 Main St. Tedeschi shortly before 4 a.m. and demanded to be taken to Bunker Hill Street and Corey Street. But the cabbie, who had just pulled into the store lot as a clerk and a security guard were arguing with Mohamud, refused:
At the height of the storm, East Boston's connections to the rest of the world dwindled.
Around 9 p.m., three cars crashed on the East Boston side of the Meridian Street bridge. Police shut the span for their investigation, hindered briefly because two of the drivers chased the third driver over the bridge into Chelsea.
A fire at Aquarium shut Blue Line service at the end of the night.
Flights at Logan were canceled, which normally wouldn't affect most East Boston residents, except it might explain this:
The Friends of Meridian Street reports cab drivers continue to act like the bypass built for them to avoid local streets continues to go largely unused:
It's 4am and still a steady stream of empty Logan Airport taxis using Meridian Street and East Boston public streets to Chelsea instead of the multi-million dollar Coughlin Bypass Road built with taxpayers money specifically to keep commercial traffic from Logan Airport off the public streets of East Boston. These words of Massport and Massachusetts Department of Transportation leaders have never been backed up and East Boston residents, families and children are still paying with their health, safety and maintenance.
The city reports the Boston cabbie who plowed into a Brookline cab at Berkeley and Chandler streets late Wednesday "has already had his licensed suspended and is in the process of being revoked."
The note comes in response to a citizen complaint about Boston cab drivers:
Very concerned about the city's regulation of taxi drivers who would race recklessly up Berkeley Street last night to catch a fare. This could have been a large loss of life as many were pouring onto the streets after the Red Sox Game.
And it comes the day after the mayor's office released a report on improving Boston cab service that included a recommendation to crack down even more on out-of-town cabbies trying to pick up fares on Boston streets.
Seems nobody's happy with the current cab situation in Boston, not riders, not drivers and owners and not large institutions that employ the sort of people who would be likely to need a cab.
The mayor's office today released a lengthy report on the state of cabs in Boston that features a number of findings and recommendations. Among them:
A roving UHub photographer came across this scene at Berkeley and Chandler in the South End, moments after the Sox game ended.
Boston Police today issued tips on how to identify a licensed Boston cab (they all have medallions on the right side of the trunk, along with other stickers on windows and inside) but stopped short of saying don't use services like Uber or Hailo:
Do not get into unmarked taxi or livery cars.
Use only licensed cabs or clearly identifiable livery service vehicles that are called to your location.
Wicked Local Cambridge reports Cambridge Police are investigating an incident in which a woman in Allston got in a cab, asked to be taken to an address in Cambridge and when she refused to pay the full fare because the driver took her to the wrong place, was basically held hostage in a parking lot while the driver started doing donuts:
The woman eventually jumped out of the cab, suffering minor injuries to her right foot and right elbow.
Tim photographed the remains of a hit-and-run crash on Kneeland Street in Chinatown tonight:
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