I just want to be able to take a cab home quickly and conveniently. Right now I cannot with our current system, but I can with Uber.

Regulating for safety is great, but putting restrictions on supply is not. Limits on the number of cabs may protect incomes for a couple hundred people, but it fucks over the rest of us who want to be able to actually take a cab.

Through lobbying for restrictions while providing a rather shitty service the taxi industry brought this on themselves.

If that's the case, why has none of the discussion been about mandating that taxi companies integrate the newer, more convenient technology into their business structure?

I'd love a taxi that I could call from my cell phone, track, and make sure was actually on their way.

Also, I'd love to not have to carry cash to be able to pay them.

Oh, also, I'd love to have one that doesn't try to throw me out of the cab when I tell him I live in Columbia City.

Speaking of that, I'd love a system where a cab actually shows up in Columbia City when I call it, and not 1.5hrs later.

And, also, I'd love it if they'd update their call acceptance system so drivers are mandated to go to calls they said they'd pick up...

And also...

You get the point. I understand the concern about the ride shares, but this issue isn't going away if all you do is try to change the system in one direction and leave taxis a protected monopoly. Both sides of this are going to need to make serious changes.

Metro needs to start its own taxi service.

Let people use ORCA.

Why would you integrate TNCs into a system that is failing the consumers? The taxi system under current regulations is a failure, pure and simple. The service they're delivering isn't meeting the needs of the people the regulations should be serving. Why is that so hard to understand?

The assertion that taxi companies will all of a sudden not serve people who pay with cash or who don't have smartphones is false - the only evidence you have is saying that it happened 30 years ago, which is an entirely different Seattle than today. Why is that so hard to understand?

I've never had a problem getting a taxi. Maybe they are serving the portions of the city that are under served by Metro but over served by your density hungry private developers. Besides, if you want "walkable" then walk.

@4, here idiot since you have not been following along: Transportation Network Companies

It's trivial to get a smart phone and a payment card of some kind. The upfront costs are frequently less than a single ride if you don't buy the latest and greatest phone.

It's trivial to get a smartphone and a payment card of some kind. The upfront costs are frequently less than a single ride if you don't buy the latest and greatest phone.

@2 Try the TaxiMagic app. Currently works with Orange Cab and Eastside for Hire. Shows you where the vehicles are, estimates fares, and allows you to pay with credit card filed in your account. Not perfect yet, but getting better.

Or try Flywheel with Eastside for Hire. It's a pretty slick app. It also allows you to rate your driver.

As for Yellow, they are in the process of upgrading their dispatching system, and with that upgrade will come a new app, by the end of May.

As for refusing to take you to Columbia City, they are breaking the law. Report them.

It's not trivial to get a smartphone. There are many, many people who cannot afford one. I live on a fixed income. I pay $25/month for a trac phone with 1000 minutes (1 minute per text). Even if I could afford the cost of the actual phone, I can't afford the data plan. Even the plans that are "only $45" after all is said and done they cost between $60 and $75/a month. People who do not understand why people can't afford smart phones live in a self-absorbed bubble. There are people struggling to pay rent, be able to eat, get to and from work, and afford things like toilet paper, electricity, etc. Please try to pull your head out of your completely self-absorbed ass. Thank you.

Don't need a "smart" phone, just one that can text. That is just about every phone on the planet I'd think.

Don't need a credit card. Debit card will do. There are a great many free options out there, I personally really like Bluebird by American Express. But there are other options.

An app is not the solution to Orange/Yellow service. You act like the only reason people don't like traditional taxis is because they don't have an app. From the first page of reviews for Orange Cab Seattle on Yelp:
"Three times I've booked cabs through the Taxi Magic app (which they recommend) and three times they've failed to show up. "
"I figured via the Taxi Magic phone app, things were different. Nope. I booked a 4:15am pick-up to Sea-Tac airport, and by 4:16am a taxi had yet to be assigned. I called them up and the operator was rude and and not understanding."
"Booked a cab to airport with Taxi Magic app. Cab was 20 minutes late, car was disgusting and old and driver (Temple) was rude"

The app doesn't fix the service quality issues.

@12, hear, hear. I meet people every day who can't afford even a cheap smartphone.

But, that said, if you need a cheap, cheap plan, look at Ting. You have to pay upfront for a handset, which is a big chunk of change, but if you are very careful with your calling and data usage you can get by for $20-25 a month. My wife and I pay ~$35 for two.

But I understand that there are many people for whom even that isn't possible. Catering to the bubble people you mention -- "nerdbertarians" is a great word I learned yesterday -- is not good public policy.

@Goldy, we all agree that some people don't have cards and smartphones, and will always need taxis. Now please explain why catering to their needs means that we have to restrict the options for everyone else.

@16 We're not restricting options. We're trying to find the right balance that allows both options to survive, while providing a decent living to the drivers.

Again... this is a two-year pilot program during which caps may be adjusted. And during which taxis have a chance to respond to this changing market.

@10 - I'll check that app out, and I look forward to seeing what Yellow Cab has to offer.

Here's another question: When you say we should report a cab driver, to whom should we report them and what evidence should we have? In the past, when I've had a bad experience with a cab not showing up or other problems, my only recourse has been to call the company and complain, which, as I'm sure you can imagine was just a waste of my time.

Who should I tell instead? When I do tell that person/office what happened, what happens to the driver or company?

Why is it so hard to understand that Lyft/Sidecar/uberX boosters don't want taxis to go out of business? Taxis are one kind of luxury, Uber is another. So is having a car or private driver. It's a spectrum.

@18 Seattle Department of Consumer Affairs taxi and for-hire complaint form.

@7 - Kucf your snottery. I didn't know what "TNC" stood for either. A link or definition would be useful.
My go-to definition is "Trans-National Corporation". Please define very general acronyms please.

As for not owning a smahtphone or a Cwedit Card --- YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. FINANCIAL BORG WILL ASSIMILATE YOU. THE FUTURE IS FRICTIONLESS DIGITAL TRANSACTIONS. GET WITH IT, MEATBAG.

I just found out that my hospital no longer takes cash. They told me that it will save them millions of dollars a year to not have to hire armed guards and cash trucks to schlep actual money around. Everything is credit/debit cards and bills for them now. Annoys me to no end, but what can you do? Wail a jeremiad into the wave of the future, I guess.

@17, Yes, the city is indeed restricting options. Only 300 TNC vehicles when there are currently hundreds more?

We don't need some "experiment" or pilot program. We need to legitimize the TNCs, and we need it now. You fail to realize that the TNCs are already the status quo for thousands of people and we don't want the city taking away or limiting something we currently enjoy.

Isn't the complaint about taxis the same? That you can't really connect to them with your smart phone and paying with a card is a nightmare. Maybe these services should take all the things one group of people like about them and design a system that respects that group of people across platforms. That would require technical work though. I'm not too sure we have the kind of manpower in Seattle to make computer programs work, not yet at least.

...and people who don't have smart phones and credit cards can use cabs instead of Uber or Lyft, therefore making sure the taxi industry isn't destroyed because they have a different client base. Not to mention tourists, contracts with hotels etc.

Never before have I seen a blog post that so obviously answers its own question. Thanks goldy!

Fuck the taxi industry. At least half of the cabs in Seattle are dirty, smelly, and operated by rude and/or reckless people. Contrast that to my experience with Uber and Lyft, where I've had a 100% positive experience. Plus they're faster and cheaper! There is no reason to protect such a horrible industry against some healthy competition.

@Goldy

You keep assuming anything that competes with the taxi industry will destroy it instead of taking more cars off the road.

You keep assuming that Uber will destroy the taxi industry even though you over and over again cite scenarios where people wouldn't be willing/able to use Uber.

Until you can bring some numbers to your argument to justify your scaremongering, there is nothing to discuss. You are acting no better than the dogmatic Seattle Times editorial board whom you constantly excoriate. You're like a taxi supply-sider.

How long has Uber been running in NY? What's their share of the market? How is taxi revenue there? San Francisco? DC? In DC you can call an actual taxi using the Uber app, in addition to UberX, Black Car, and SUV. What prompted that? How has it worked out for all involved?

There's a chance to do reporting here, if you actually want to take it.

One of the big taxi companies has launched an app down here. A driver handed me a voucher the other day. I haven't used it yet but from what I can tell it's an obvious response to Uber/Lyft/et al.

Also, debit card works fine for any of these services.

Not to pile onto cabs, I use them and have no real issue against them, but I suspect something else driving the success of TNCs is the ease of payment. Despite a mandate to install credit card machine in all cabs here, it's still a crapshoot your driver will accept anything but cash. Not a huge deal since most bars I frequent only take cash so I tend to have some on me to get home, but for others, a hassle.

@26,

Given that there's practically a fleet of cabs driving down any major street in Manhattan, New York is not a valid comparison. Hailing a cab in Manhattan will be more convenient than Uber most hours of every day.

In Seattle, having a ton of cabs driving around, even downtown, is not part of our culture. Uber presents a valid threat to the very existence of regular cabs without some sort of regulation.

For my part, I'd like to see the city massively increase the number of medallions and/or figure out some way to pull the heads out of the asses of the owners of Yellow/Orange Cab. I can't figure out why it's so damn impossible to get a cab most hours of every day in almost any West Coast city. But letting Uber run rampant isn't a solution for most people who rely on cabs.

Cash payment provides the opportunity to go about your business without having a record of your travel made. Not so for charge cards and mobile phones.

@7: Christ, what an asshole you are. The guy even tried to Google it first.

And he's right: If an abbreviation doesn't show up on the first page of Google results the post shouldn't assume the whole world knows what it means.

@1 "Limits on the number of cabs may protect incomes for a couple hundred people, but it fucks over the rest of us who want to be able to actually take a cab. "

If the income of cab drivers isn't protected, you won't be able to hire adequate taxi service.

@32 Not true. So says the Federal Reserve: "Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law which says otherwise."

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/curre…

@29 there may not be a financial record created when paying cash, but there is a record of where you were picked up, dropped off, and a video of you riding in the cab.

@33, that's slightly vaguely worded, but I think they're referring to the freedom of businesses to decide not to sell you a good or service ahead of time (called "invitation to treat" I think). Once you've incurred a debt (e.g. at the end of a cab ride when you owe money), that's where the "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" comes into play.

Good lord, Goldy. You're dangerously close to calling people who like rideshares poopyheads. These are people who most often agree with you on other issues and read your paper, by the way.

There's some tipping point I assume, where the voice of the people who like the services offered by rideshares becomes louder than the voice of the taxi industry lobby. Judging by the desperate tone I'm hearing from the taxi lobby and its supporters, I'd say we're close to that point or past it already. City council will listen to the louder voice and it's as simple as that.

The rideshare genie is out of its bottle.

Oh @32 that's horrible advice. Businesses are not required to take cash. In this city, advice like that could very well end in someone being wrongfully gunned down. Do you want that on your conscience?

@32 and 35 - the airlines just won a legal battle to no longer accept cash in-flight. "federal legal tender laws require creditors to accept payment denominated in dollars, but generally do not require businesses to accept any particular form of payment -- such as cash."
- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/busines…

Apple also defended their right to refuse cash for iPhones.

In my years as a cashier it was completely legal (as I understood it) for a business to refuse to accept 1,000 pennies as payment as well as $100 bills if they so choose.

The entire point is "fuck the taxi industry."

We are looking at you taxi industry.

Fuck you.

if you can't afford a smartphone, you can't afford a taxi ride either, so moot point.

As every other ex-cab-riding commenter has already said, cabs provide an expensive, unreliable and overall shitty service with monopoly protection. What's not to hate?

Goldy is wrong, and perhaps is getting paid by the cab lobby to defend it's terrible service history.

And Eastside for Hire? Fuck those fucks. Soon as they detect a drop of booze in your system, you're handing over your wallet.

@38, those are both descriptions of "invitation to treat", not settling a debt already owed (as in the case of cab fare).

@42

Is anyone forcing them to use uber? Use a taxi.

problem and specious argument solved.

@43, that was in response to "if you can't afford a smartphone, you can't afford a taxi ride either, so moot point."

Goldy is becoming a worse editorialist over time, his bullshit east coast limo liberal because I said so logic has gotten so bent over issues like this, and stadiums, he is resorting to exasperation and name calling as if it held some magical point.

The only reason apps for traditional cabs exist is from external pressure from ride-share services.

Every time you cite cash as being some great equalizer, you forget that the bus system, and state foodstamps operate via card systems ( orca, ebt ) and somehow the poor and destitue dont starve and walk everywhere.

You have yet to provide one example of "scrip" even though you refer to it as if its somehow really important.

Ride shares coming up with a voucher system for people without smartphones or cards is a trivial, and legislative-able task.

No one gives a shit about the privilege that cabs have had for revenue generation via the medallion system because they have so throughly abused it. The prevailing argument for saving it assumes people want to.

@35 seems like a stretch to me, but I'm not a lawyer so you could certainly be right. Even if so, seems like if a cab company didn't want to accept cash all they would have to do is make that policy clear before accepting a fare, or require (as Uber does,) a credit card up front. Of course, the opposite is true--most cab drivers prefer cash in my experience. The example @32 is referring to is a hospital. That's what I was replying to at any rate.

@44 your now that internet know it all, who despite having no proof or backing, insists he is correct on a technicality. go for a walk dude.

@40 "if you can't afford a smartphone, you can't afford a taxi ride either, so moot point."

The cost of a handful of cab rides per year is a lot less than for a smartphone. Taxi services have to provide adequately for all usage frequencies.

@31, But yet every other service in my life manages to get along without caps.

Before these services, my solution was to just drive. If the city decides to cap them and they become unusable, I'll just go back to driving everywhere as I sure as fuck am not going to wait around an hour for a poorly cleaned cab with a surly driver.

@50 - Most inner urban public transportation services are provided by the city/state that regulates (caps) how many employees it needs.

"Not Everybody Has a Smartphone and a Credit Card!"

Yes, that's true. And many people who are disabled or elderly or non-English-speaking just can't or won't deal with TNCs. But if those people are stuck with taxis, don't they deserve a GOOD taxi service? They shouldn't be relegated to the rude, disinterested crappy experience that is the current norm for all taxis.

Why do you think taxi drivers and dispatchers treat their customers like shit? It's because they've had a monopoly forever. And the more you protect them, the freer they are to be unreliable, unsafe and unpleasant. Which actually ends up causing the most problems for the people who can't easily switch to TNCs.

Competition from TNCs might just constitute the kick in the butt that the taxi industry needs, so that it will change its evil ways and start providing an actually good service to the customer base who still needs them.

Fundamental issue at play here is insurance. Are TNC passengers, and the public, protected? And the answer is NO unless the operator has valid commercial vehicle insurance.

Your typical auto policy DOES NOT provide coverage when the vehicle is in commercial use, i.e. selling rides to people you don't know. When your insurance company finds out you are selling rides, your entire policy is cancelled.

It's pretty clear the TNCs have not been providing insurance coverage. For more, see http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/01/20…

Goldy,

Have you used both Taxi Magic and Uber/Lyft/Sidecar? Because it seems hard to imagine that you could think Taxi Magic is good if you've used both.

- Taxi Magic basically forwards your web request to the legacy dispatch system. It's about as reliable as the old dispatch system, i.e. not at all. You have no idea when your cab will get there, or if it will even arrive.

- You don't know who your driver is. They don't know who you are. This is bad for safety.

- There's nothing to stop you from stiffing the driver. You use Taxi Magic, call the cab, and then walk out before you pay. I talked to an Uber driver who used to work for Yellow Cab. He told me that customers used to stiff him all the time. It was hard for him to be nice to passengers, or to go out of his way to provide good service, knowing that there was a good chance he wouldn't get paid. Because Uber/etc. already has your credit card, he's guaranteed to be paid (plus a generous tip), and so he provides much better customer service ever time.

I find it interesting that you're happy to praise Flywheel, but you seem so opposed to Uber, even though their Black Car service is *exactly the same thing*. Uber Black Car only works with licensed town cars. The drivers have to follow all regulations, and must carry proper insurance. Even the price isn't much different, when you factor in the fact that Flywheel prices don't include tips but Uber prices do. Why does Flywheel meet your bar for acceptability, but not Uber?

It has been a while since I used taxis as a main form of transportation. But I can tell you that in Seattle if the weather gets bad, there is a big event, or it's the wrong time of day, you are in trouble getting a taxi. I can think of many times that it would've been nice to have a reliable form of transportation besides taxis and the bus.

As for the condition of the taxis in which I rode, there were many times that I was really afraid due to the conditions of the taxis in which I was riding. Many of the taxis in the city are not safe vehicles.

It really makes me wonder why there would be people who would be defending the taxi industry and not taking care of the people who ride in them.

Things sure have been tough on those without smart phones or credit cards since all the bus lines were irreversibly shut down...

@2: I'd love to not have cab drivers tooling around on their cell phones, thanks.

All the anecdotal cab stories are irrelevant. We know cabs are often terrible. The whole purpose of their regulations were to keep them from being worse.
It is certain that people will continue to use cabs, whether it's phone, debit card related or not. It will assuredly effect those with less money than you. You don't care? Good for you. Let's hope it's not your grandma who has never heard of Uber and doesn't know how to use the app anyway.
What might effect you is that the rider is not insured in the standard "ride share" set up. There is already a lawsuit out there about an accident, who will pay remains to be seen. It will probably not be Uber.
It would seem fair that everybody driving strangers for money should have a minimal standard, most basic being commercial insurance coverage and a business license.
Based on comments it appears that one of the versions (UberBlack?) just arranges a private car, seems like you Saturday-nighters would be just as happy. All the convenience and cleanliness you deserve.
Listen to Goldy, he might have actually looked into the issue.