D.C. Taxicabs Fare Poorly in Survey

Photo by andertho

We've long heard that the District's taxicab service leaves something to be desired. Now we've got the numbers to back that up.

According to an online survey conducted by Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), 78 percent of the 4,025 respondents called the city taxicab service "fair" or "poor," while only 22 percent said it was "good" or "excellent." Additionally, 69 percent of the respondents said that the District's cabs are worse than those in other U.S. cities.

The survey was conducted as part of legislation introduced by Cheh to modernize the District's 8,500 cabs, and will likely serve as a foundation of a hearing she has scheduled for Monday on the proposal.

According to the survey, 94 percent of respondents support any move to improve cab service in the District. Amongst proposed improvements, credit card payment options received the most support (93 percent), followed by cruising lights to indicate if a cab is available (92 percent), more random cab inspections (70 percent) and increased training requirements for drivers (69 percent). Sixty-five percent of respondents said they'd like a uniform color scheme for all cabs, and of the options provided yellow won with 38 percent, followed by red (15 percent) and orange (11 percent.)

Interestingly, around 50 percent of those responding said they were fine with a proposed rate increase, but only if service was improved. Only around 25 percent of those surveyed said cans were already too expensive, while a smaller number said that a fare increase alone was just fine.

In a section prompting additional comments, respondents complained that cab drivers wouldn't drive to certain parts of town.

“These taxis need to stop refusing service to Wards 7 and 8," wrote one respondent. "I live in Ward 5 off Benning Road. Getting a taxi to or from here is a HUGE challenge. I call, they never come. I get in a taxi downtown and many refuse to bring me home. It's astounding how unreceptive to business many drivers are," added another.

Other comments included complaints of racial profiling and cab drivers refusing to take riders to destinations outside the city, such as Arlington or Bethesda.

"It is incredibly frustrating when I am in DC and need to take a cab to Virginia (Arlington, specifically). I was once turned down by five cabs in a row because they prefer getting no fare from a paying customer rather than just a one-way fare since they can't pick up in Virginia. Cabs should not be allowed to refuse a fare!," said one respondent.

Eighty-four percent of those that responded said they lived in the District, while 66 percent used D.C. cabs once or twice a week. The survey skewed young, with 63 percent of respondents saying they were between the ages of 18 and 34.

Taxi Survey Results FINAL

Contact the author of this article or email tips@dcist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Martin Austermuhle in News on January 26, 2012 10:00 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Fluxgirl

When the zone system was in effect, I noticed that the lines magically changed in the cabbie's favor. Planning how much I'd pay was a guessing game. They suck.

Liz

Why did my cab driver swipe my card for $15, but then there was a $50 pending charge on my card for almost a week??? Has this happened to anyone else? It definitely ruined my morning when I couldn't get IHOP after a long night out..

wasting_time_and_money

Good to see people want improvements, but don't want to pay for them. This is why we have a budget deficit. Cab service in DC is much better than many other cities. I'd say it's above average. You ever try to hail a cab in Green Bay, WI?

SClass

What I want to know is who are the 235 schmucks who voted "No" on improving taxi cab service? Why would you not want to improve something??

Where am I & how to leave?

Cab drivers?

Cyclists?

papawest07

Sometimes I use the strategy of giving them a cross street and then repeatedly using the line "oh its just a couple of more blocks down this way". That's how I got from Chinatown to Takoma Park a couple of times.

Andrew Roberts

Really? Who said that both Cabs are affordable and a rate increase is OK? Or are they referring to the 50 cent increase to pay for this and not the separate question which asked if the idea of taking off the extra fees (oh boy I save $1.00 if a friend rides with me, but after two miles I'm charged $1.30 and 65 cents for each mile after!).

I don't think they really understand that there's a separate fee that's being proposed to pay for the improvements, and this increase is separate and unrelated.

BombaySplashVermouth

I demand a recount - with commentariat support.

ADrauglis

We used to try to schedule taxi pick-ups to take my wife from our house in Woodridge (NE DC) to the airports for her early morning flights.
After a few close calls and no-shows i decided that it wasn't worth the anxiety and now I get up and take her and then get on with my day.

So thank you, sh!tty cab service! Not only do you give me an earlier start to the day but you've helped me earn tons of bonus points with the missus.

LoganHero

Call Redtop. They are prompt, clean, and have CC readers in every cab.

ADrauglis

we tried them. It worked two or three times, then they started showing up late or not at all.

HillmanDC

I've used Red Top probably 50 times. Never had a single problem. But then I usually use the sedan service. It's more expensive, but if you really have to be somewhere it's worth the extra $$.

ADrauglis

I should add an additional thank you to the equally sh!tty cab service that comes out of Virginia.

2 out of 3 times she gets into protracted journeys of doom after the cab drivers get lost, go to Maryland, or are just jerks. Now I tell her to have the cab take her to Churchkey. Yes, thanks to the cabbies I also get lots of beer and brat burgers and someone to drive me home all while keeping my wife's stress levels manageable.

Where am I & how to leave?

VA cab drivers couldn't find most places in DC with a map and a Benjamin.

System_Error

Most of the major VA cabs have GPS installed. It's right next to the credit card machine.

I'm sure DC cabs could install a GPS right next to the black electrical tape that's covering the "Check Engine" light.

Where am I & how to leave?

GPS is fine sometimes, but apparently it still requires some local knowledge to know that a one way means you don't try to use that street during hours x-x.

Or think it's an amazing idea to use streets that obviously will be jammed at that time of day/night.

DCTransplant

Ben moonshines as a GPS?

Where am I & how to leave?

If only Jackson could get in on that. Then DC cabs would have no excuse.

DCUnionGuy

Now how about devloping a 2nd set of data that involves MPD and DCTC inspecting the hell out of a bunch of cabs for compliance w/ every reg they operate under.

DT

you know if you get their hack license number before you tell them where you are going and they refuse to take you, you can report it to the taxi cab commission.. and they get fined.

HillmanDC

I tried that twice. Both times the taxi cab commission failed to respond to my numerous phone calls trying to report the incidents.

StinkyChees

Complaint system asks for the name of the cab driver - but if the dude just rolls down his window to ask where you're going and won't unlock the door, will he still be fined? I hope a license plate number is enough.

DT

we used to have the problem on weekend nights with them refusing to take us to certain areas because they wouldn't have a return fare - you sit there, don't move, take their hack number and tell them to take you to the place. most folks just get mad and get out without doing anything. after we figured out the hack reporting fines for refusing fare and told them we'd report them, they took us exactly where we wanted to go. every. single. time.

BrandName

"25 percent of those surveyed said cans were already too expensive." Fake racks require delicate surgery. You get what you pay for.

ms_last_minute

Oh this is just low.

MmmCashews

last friday at around 2 am no cab would take me to brookland, I had to chase one down at an apartment near mt vernon square and offer him $20. They should not be allowed to deny service. And yes, I even was already in the backseat of one when denied.

mirrorballdc

They are not allowed to deny service. But they do it anyway. I'd like to think better enforcement would do the trick, but I'm not optimistic.

PutABirdOnIt

I had a cabbie refuse to take me to Takoma Park because he heard it was a "war zone" over there.

Emily Blumenfeld

I used to live in Brookland, and had the toughest time getting cabs. One time, the cabbie thought I was talking about my intersection in NW not NE. So when he got around there (around the Columbia Heights area) I corrected him, and he got SUPER pissed. I had to argue with him that I didn't mislead him so that he wouldn't force my group out of the cab. Ridiculous.

Ollie Pooeater

I have now adopted @Hillman's response: "If you don't want to go where I've stated, then please take me to the nearest police precinct and we can discuss it there."

HillmanDC

Works like a charm, every time. Actually had one pretend to take me to the substation on NY Ave before he re-routed and took me to the Hill when I told him I'd gladly wait in the cab while he went inside.

As a backup plan, I have plenty of grandma midget porn on my phone. I'm more than willing to plan that very loudly until they move in the right direction.

PutABirdOnIt

Then the cabbie says "FINE BI*Ch! But I do not know where one is, so you will have to give me directions.

JC

That should have been a hint to move out of Brookland.

Kev29

Or a hint to publicly execute cabbies.

Where am I & how to leave?

I can see how some might rate it as decent, though not excellent. Where I currently live, there is a hotel a block away. There are several hotels within a few blocks and as a clincher, both a gas station and a car wash. I rarely have problems getting a cab and most of my destinations are in places where they can easily pick up a fare.

That's not to say it's ideal. They still cheat a lot, with the fare zone (2 instead of 1), they drive slowly (which never happened when we had zones!) and as others have noted, getting to VA is a pain in the ass. I used to work in Pentagon City, and if I picked it up at 14th & I, my odds were somewhat better. It helped to focus their mind on the proximity to DCA to get a fare.

DT

"they drive slowly (which never happened when we had zones!)"

wrong. they would drive in an out of zones to charge you for two zones instead of one. they find ways to cheat and they could just do it easier in the zone system if you didn't know what was going on.

Where am I & how to leave?

You haven't disproved my point. At all.

If you were too dumbass to recognize where the zone boundary was and you weren't a tourist, that was your own damn fault.

DT

i never had a problem with it, you shit-for-brains,i paid exactly what it was supposed to be. if you were successful at life you wouldn't have to take cabs and be bitching about an extra two bucks the cab drivers are bleeding from you.

Where am I & how to leave?

You clearly failed reading comprehension. You failed to negate my supposition that they drove faster than they do now. I admit my knowledge is mostly anecdotal, but it also underlines how the meter system makes it more profitable to take your time to get places when you get a nice bump for the time it takes to get places as part of the metered rate.

knackers

@copperreddc:disqus , @twitter-19460966:disqus : what is this, Chicagoist?

DT

funny thing is you're bitching about a cab driving slow to get an extra .25 per minute on top of the regular fare. if that's a nice "bump" to you, you really need to get a new job.

considering you lived a few blocks from the 2nd zone which technically would run you 12-13 dollars for a zoned fare. For a metered fare of 6 bucks. so fare meters aren't more profitable for the cab drivers, you idiot; driving slow doesn't make them more profitable than the zoned system. If they are driving slow then don't tip them. If you can't afford cabs then take the damn bus and stop complaining about them driving so slow you are losing .25 a minute.

DT

you win at life. and your 1500 comments. you must have a lot of friends.

Where am I & how to leave?

And you're on twitter; that's pretty much like being an acne scarred basement dweller still desperately trying to get a date. See we can both draw childish, illogical conclusions from little data available, although I don't care one way or another about this.

monkeyrotica

I was once turned down by five cabs in a row because they prefer getting no fare from a paying customer rather than just a one-way fare since they can't pick up in Virginia.

This is just stupid. DC cabs should be able to pickup Virginians for the trip back and versa visa. Imagine if Metro rail ran this way: you'd have to transfer at every border station. These exclusivity rules all need to be scrapped: any cab should be able to pick up anybody anywhere, be they in DC, MD, or VA. There's nothing in the Constitution guaranteeing you the right to drive a smelly old cab, rip people off, and refuse to pick up passengers because they aren't "white." And if the cabbies don't like it they can get eat f**k pie and another f**king job, preferrably far away from DC. Let's say...Ashburn.

Where am I & how to leave?

Can you get your fair Commonwealth to change its laws on pickups? I doubt the three of them can get along on that.

mirrorballdc

Well I'm just uber shocked by this.

ADrauglis

ahh..I see what you did there.

JC

You mean "uberraschen"?

monkeyrotica

On the positive side, DC cabs rated "excellent" when compared to rickshaws in third-world $h!tholes; limping through a cholera epidemic; and nailing your nuts to a plank, dragging the lumber down the sidewalk, and making that nice scraping sound.

ObserverDC

That's shocking, as all of the listed are less painful and smell better than being in a DC cab.

Fun fact, on my last cab ride, the cabbie spent the entire ride doing is voicemail on the speaker phone. 60% of the calls were from insurance agents about accident claims.

Shiba Fussa

Odds of the Taxi Commission doing an undercover sting on the survey originator?

Ollie Pooeater

The knock on this survey is going to be the age demographics: too many myopic little twits responded and the old heads are going to try to argue that it's not representative.

Morley1

They should have fewer respondents in these surveys so they could always claim that the unfavorability is within the +/- 80% margin of error.

Kev29

I don't know, hating cabbies is a rare unifying force in this divided city. Old, young, black, white, liberal, conservative. Only certain Transylvanians seem to stick up for the drivers.

Ollie Pooeater

Right, but the overwhelming support for some issues could be dismissed by the overwhelmingly young demographic of the survey. Older folks in DC remember taxi employment as an economic ladder from the 80's into the middle class and they're (frequently) nostalgic for the time when you could afford a house with a second job as a taxi driver*. The demographics of the taxi survey don't match the demographics of the voting population of the city, so what looks like a strong survey result could easily be muddied unless Cheh breaks out the responses by age demographic.

*Or so said my last "native" taxi driver. Of course, what made the house affordable was the 465 murders per year from the crack trade, not the fare on the meter.

Where am I & how to leave?

Partly too they'd need numbers on who actually takes cabs, which I'm not certain we have.

Ollie Pooeater

I think they addressed that in the survey unless I misunderstand your statement.

monkeyrotica

DC cabs provide a valuable service: make-work programs for out-of-work Ethiopian pirates and a reliable delivery service for Count Chocula's delicious victims. Blah! BLAH!

Christopher

Stop teasing me with references to Count Blah.

Where am I & how to leave?

Ethiopia hasn't had a coastline in years. Which is probably your point. Bastard!

Over the River

Not all pirates love the sea.

http://i945.photobucket.com/al...

b0tn0t

Gee, but how do DC cabs rank against other states? Can't wait to see another post about how our fair city ranks!

Over the River

I'll bet we are Number 1 in worst cab ride memories.

ms_jlynn

148 people rated taxi service as excellent? I want to know where to find those cabs.

StinkyChees

81 are taxi drivers, but the other 67 must be high.

PutABirdOnIt

They go from Metro Station to Chinatown and back.

ADrauglis

I think that they're the same people who approve of congress

Newhce

The respondents' IP addresses track back to Addis Ababa.

Pope Lando

That's weird -- I just got an e-mail saying they wanted me to hold $7.5 million for them.

Where am I & how to leave?

Get it upfront and use an empty unlinked bank account.

Pope Lando

I'll borrow one from Mitt.

Pope Lando

Family and friends? Uber?

Joan Arkham

Obviously this would never actually happen, but has anyone ever floated the idea of a DC/MD/VA communal cab zone?

ADrauglis

that is a very good idea, actually.

Gigs

I was thinking the same thing - then you wouldn't have the problem of DC cabs not being willing to go to VA/MD because they can't get a fare back (or vice versa).

IMGoph

it "works" for WMATA, right? (honestly, it's a good idea, i think, to discuss regionalizing this structure).

Joan Arkham

Not to downplay my obvious genius or anything, but someone must have floated this idea before, right? But I can't remember ever hearing about it.

monkeyrotica

The last three people who made that suggestion disappeared under mysterious circumstances only to have their dismembered remains found floating in an oil drum off the coast of Eritrea.