The best part: All but 5 percent of the fare \u2014 the credit card fee that Curb takes \u2014 stayed local, most of it going into the pocket of my driver, who either owned or leased a taxi license through the PPA. The PPA takes another 1 percent per Curb ride, and 1 percent of the driver\u2019s quarterly total. So with just that one ride, I paid less, supported a local businessman, kept money circulating in Philly \u2014 and stuck it to Big Tech. Win, win, win, win.<\/p>\n
As if that weren\u2019t enough \u2026 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a tough time for taxi drivers these last few years. Just look at the numbers: At its peak before rideshares came to town, Philly had nearly 2,000 taxis on the road. In February, there were just 663, according to Robb. That\u2019s the result of an influx of ride shares like Uber and Lyft, plus a downturn during Covid. The numbers, Robb says, are slowly recovering, but \u201ctaxicab drivers complain every day that there should be caps on [ride shares], which take money out of their pockets.\u201d A taxi medallion \u2014 similar to a liquor license, with limited numbers bought and sold by individual cabbies or companies \u2014 used to cost $350,000 each. Now, they go for just $16,000 \u2014 a fairly devastating depreciation for anyone who bought one years ago.<\/p>\n
While many of the medallions used to be owned by New York companies, Robb says the majority are now locally-owned, either by the drivers themselves or by a company that leases them to others. Unlike with ride shares, taxi drivers periodically undergo three days of in-person training on customer service, dress code, car condition and the like; they must also take an English test and a driver\u2019s test, plus pay a fee before they receive their certificate of operation. The PPA does two trainings a month, Robb says, with about 10 drivers each, so for about 240 people a year.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019d told me when this year started that 10 weeks in I\u2019d be penning a love letter to the Philadelphia Parking Authority I would have assumed you\u2019d lost your mind.<\/p>\n
After my first trip, I\u2019ve made taxis my go-to ride any time I need a car service, and have encouraged everyone I know to do the same. More often than not, folks are happy I suggested it. One friend came back from a trip to Florida this week and stepped out of the airport to find dozens of travelers staring at their phones, waiting for their ride shares to arrive. She walked by all of them, straight to the first cab in the taxi line, and was home before some of them probably even got in their cars. \u201cAnd,\u201d she told me, \u201cthe driver knew exactly where to go without any directions.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the regulatory agency for taxis, the PPA enforces its standards through safety inspections. It also fields complaints from riders. And, as I learned, it has another helpful role as well.<\/p>\n
One of my recent taxi excursions felt like a throwback. I accidentally left my house without my cell phone, so I wasn\u2019t able to call a car to go back home. Instead, after an evening event in Fairmount, I headed to the SEPTA stop \u2026 just in time to watch my bus drive away. As I was standing in the frigid cold, I spotted a cab with the lights on up the street. So I did like we did in olden times and waved my arms, shouting \u201ctaxi\u201d \u2014 to the surprise of a young woman at the bus stop who called out \u201cI have never seen anyone do that!\u201d while I ran across the street to catch the driver\u2019s attention. I paid cash for the ride \u2026 and then promptly lost my wallet.<\/p>\n
The next morning, when I realized what had happened, I assumed there was no hope. After all, I had no electronic record of the taxi driver or cab number. But I took a chance. Another driver gave me the number of his dispatcher; the dispatcher sent me over to taxi lost-and-found, which turns out to be a PPA operation as well. A lovely woman named Eliza answered the phone, and asked me for as much detail about my ride as I could give \u2014 where I got in, where I was dropped off, how much I paid, what time I arrived. Eliza then spent three days tracking down the driver; leaving him a message; calling him back; leaving followup notes for her colleague on night duty; and periodically giving me updates.<\/p>\n
Finally, at 7:30 in the morning a few days later, Eliza called me back. She\u2019d talked to my driver \u2026 but no dice.<\/p>\n
So why is this a happy story? Because who would have thought \u2014 in this day and age, at this especially hated semi-governmental organization \u2014 that anyone would care enough about one customer\u2019s wallet to actually spend three days trying to find it?<\/p>\n
Turns out, Eliza does this \u2014 as well as fielding other customer complaints \u2014 all day long. Robb says Eliza has fielded more than 120 lost and found calls since January 1, often \u2014 often \u2014 managing to get people back their property. A couple weeks ago that included tracking down and mailing a rider\u2019s iPad \u2014 to England. \u201cWe do everything we can to get people their belongings back,\u201d Robb says. \u201cWe will take calls about Ubers and Lyfts, but mostly people have to do that through their apps.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if I wasn\u2019t already inclined to skip the Big Tech rideshares, now I have another reason to always take taxis. I mean, would you rather have a human with a name and a nice phone voice trying to solve your problems \u2014 or a nameless voiceless app? I think you know my answer.<\/p>\n
MORE ON GETTING AROUND THE CITY<\/p>\n
Photo by Spencer Platt for Getty Images. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019d told me when this year started that 10 weeks in I\u2019d be penning a love letter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,5204,2155],"class_list":["post-142689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-parking-authority","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}