November 1, 2007
Let There Be Taxi Roof Light
We can't believe we at first skimmed over this little nugget from the Mayor's announcement this afternoon about the upcoming switch to taxi meters:
The meters will be connected to the light on top of the cab allowing passengers to see if a taxi is available. The light will be illuminated when a taxi does not have a customer and will extinguish when a fare is activated on the meter.Whoa! That's another big change. Adding meters means that the lights will go on and off automatically. Can you feel the excitement, D.C.?
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My experience is that DC cabs turn the light on when the cab is occupied.
Sort of like that college trick of hanging a lei on the doorknob? I think the cabbies are bragging to their compadres about how many fares they get.
That is excellent news.
How sad is our city for not having this in place decades ago. Damnit I feel like we are just getting out of the caveman days with news like this.
Hope for a new D.C. shines like a cab light in the night.
Wait, are we losing the TAXI CALL 911 signs?
DC cabbies are such jokers, but in some way they are making Fenty look like an absolute genius for doing the most mundane, logical and reasonable things.
Wow, that's definitely part of some grand master Fenty ruling the world plan.
Praise Jebus. Now I can hail a cab with at least some certainty that it's actually available.
Ok, so does this also mean that cabbies will be unable/forbidden to pick up a second unrelated fare while you're in the cab?? Because that's big.
The two things I want out of this switch are that and an end to the practice of charging twice for fares who get in a cab together and travel to separate destinations. (Which is not the same thing as a small surcharge for each extra passeger, something I think we can live with.)
Finally! Since I moved here four years ago, this has ALWAYS been my biggest pet peeve with DC cabs. I could deal with the absurd zone system, which the cabbies themselves don't understand half the time, but trying to pick out shadows to figure out if there were any fares in the car always frustrated me.
Ginwedding:
The Post says there will be no more picking up a second passenger. Except, apparently, at Union Station. Which seems sortof stupid. Union Station taxi stand is a clusterfuck not because people don't share cabs - it's because it's run by morons and they literally can't even run a taxi stand.
OOOOOh how FANCY. *SO* worth the overpriced $4.00 initial fare.
Yeah, I'm surprised more people aren't talking about the $4.00 start. That's pretty hefty!
YES! FINALLY!
wait...$4 base fare? I missed that...
Ahhh...I hadn't read the other thread. I knew the outrage would be somewhere.
Love it.
duh, sorry. Reading DCist backwards.
What will be confusing with these lights is that when a cab has been dispatched for a pickup, the light will still be on (because the meter hasn't started running), but the cab will be unavailable. It would be nice if there were a way to indicate that without causing confusion, and without giving the drivers control over whether the light is on or not.
I hope DCist updates us on the 4.00 dollar charge. I think there def. needs to be a change. If this policy is just a starting point and it will be changed after public input then I'm fine with it.
If that doesn't happen then I'll do whatever I can to NOT take a cab in DC.
That $4.00 initial fee is going to be a tough sell for me. I guess I'll stick to metro and the bus and continue my boycott of district cabs.