Marching for meters

One thing that should be noted about the DC cab market is that the zone system is byzantine and opaque, to the vast enrichment of the cabbies. I happen to live three steps north of U Street, which is the dividing line between zone one and zone two; I spend a lot of time doing elaborate kabuki rituals with the cabbies, who invariably try to drop me on whichever side of the street takes me into a second zone. My mission--and I always choose to accept it--is to force them to drop me on the zone-minimizing street side, without acknowledging that they are trying to cheat me.

Cabbies also charge an additional full fare for multiple stops, making it completely pointless to ride share, and otherwise take the average consumer for all he is worth. Cabs cost here twice or more what they cost in New York for all but a handful of special journeys--funnily enough, the ones that are frequently taken by congressmen and their staffers.

It's very clearly a system set up to help a semi-organized interest groups rook the tourists at the expense of the locals; but as more affluent and politically active people who take a lot of cabs move into the district, this was bound to change. So I'm not surprised that the cabbies are complaining; only that they have settled on the big cab companies as the source of their complaint with the meter system.

Frankly, I'm not terribly sympathetic. They can damn well cheat tourists by accidentally taking them from Capitol Hill to the Mall via the Beltway, like all the other cab drivers have to. What makes them think they're so special, anyway?

Comments

I've lived in both NYC and Wash DC, and I found in general that cabs were less expensive in Wash than in NYC, so I'm surprised that Megan says they cost twice as much.

Posted by Gene | October 30, 2007 12:14 PM

I find it interesting that they are choosing to go on strike on Halloween, when Georgetown (among other places) will be awash in drunken revelers needing rides home. Given the fact that on such holidays partiers are begged by law enforcement officials to cab it instead of drive, this seems to be directly oppositional. I wonder if MADD will weigh in.

Posted by Christina | October 30, 2007 1:48 PM

I've also found cab fares in DC to be generally cheaper than in NYC, but then again I don't really use them all that often. Given the rather suboptimal traffic light timings in this town (and the resulting traffic) meters might very well make things worse for riders.

Posted by Christian | October 30, 2007 3:06 PM

Ms. McArdle,

In your recent comments on healthcare you display quite a soft spot for rent-collecting doctors, and yet in this entry you show an especially keen eye for cabbies you think are out to cheat you.

But do you think there's a principled distinction between the cabbies who favor limiting the number of taxi permits and who take you the long way home to increase their income, and the doctors who favor limiting the number of doctor permits and who perform unnecessary procedures to increase their income? There's good evidence
that much medical spending is as unwarranted as a cabby's detour, but least getting an unnecessarily long cab ride isn't as dangerous to your health as unnecessary medicine.

Posted by CL | October 30, 2007 4:22 PM