Comments on: Hail-A-Taxi Comes to Hollywood

By: manny

manny — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:28:16 +0000

It's hilarious that this is even being 'tested' of course there should be cabs! I know there are a lot of Angelenos who don't like that evil NY'ers and Chicagoans keep moving here and wanting some of the things that make those cities tick. (and tick more efficiently says this native Chicagoan) but it's time to grow up Los Angeles. We have TONS of visitors from around the world who are simply aghast that the rail system is a joke (and stops running by midnight) and are then left equally in the lurch when they learn that taxis are a mythological creature rather than a reality in a metropolitan area that has a population that is nearly as large as all of Holland. The red line MUST be turned into a 24 hour rail and cabs need to become more common. AW hit it on the head too, cabs and rail will reduce DUI's without a doubt. It's time to become a modern city again. LA used to have a rail system that was truly great. Let's connect the city again.

By: AW

AW — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:16:34 +0000

Let's not forget about DUIs.

By: Kerry Morrison

Kerry Morrison — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:03:31 +0000

My colleagues and I spent Tuesday afternoon posting the "hail a taxi" signs all throughout the core of Hollywood. (We work for the Hollywood BID.) We really hope people will experiment and see how easy it is to get from Pt. A to Pt. B in a cab. On Wed, we had to travel from Hollywood & Vine to a meeting at Hollywood & Orange. Where we normally would've driven a car, and paid for parking, we started walking westbound, saw a taxi, hailed it (!) and it stopped. Yay! It was $6.45, shared between two people, to get to our destination. The more we do this, the more the cabs will troll Hollywood.

By: DJB

DJB — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:53:38 +0000

Cabs are a nice pedestrian and transit amenity. As this piece suggests, we need systematic study to evaluate the impact of a hail-a-taxi system on VMT (anecdotes will be interesting but probably won't cut it). Of course this impact isn't static, but dynamic/dependent on people's travel patterns.

If lots of people use cabs instead of driving, it could reduce VMT. If hardly anyone uses it, or if people replace non-vehicular trips with cab trips it could increase VMT.

The exciting thing about taxis is, like other vehicle fleets (depending on how the cabs are owned), its easier to convert them to alternative fuels like natural gas, hydrogen, or even electricity because fleets can install their own refueling stations.

Even if a taxi system increases VMT it could reduce emissions by taking advantage of cutting edge cleaner-car technology. The trend away from the old Crown Victorias and towards hybrids in taxi fleets is encouraging.

By: chris

chris — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:20:08 +0000

The benefit of taxis is that they do not require parking spaces. A typical person who drives everywhere requires 9 parking spaces (1 for each location they go during the day, plus at home), while a taxi doesn't reqire any. If a typical taxi carries say 30 passengers a day, that would be 270 fewer parking spaces required per cab. Without the need for parking spaces breaking up the built environment, a far more pleasant, dense, and walkable city is possible.