It's time to call Rideshare what it is: Taxi

Riding my bike around Chicago these days I'm always wary of cars pulled over, idling by the curb, or, more often, blocking the bike lane. A few years ago most of these obstacles in my path were clearly identifiable by their markings—they were taxis. Now it's much more difficult to tell public vehicles from private. But from my many years as a cabdriver I can still catch the telltale signs.

Though the only outward thing to give them away is an airplane decal on the back window, a dumb pink mustache or that ominous U on the dash, the drivers' behavior is very familiar. They pull illegal u-turns, they slow down and speed up eratically, wedge their way into traffic without looking, and generally clog up already congested roadways. In short, they are cabdrivers. We can say it's something new, different, the gig economy, blah, blah, blah. That's just a bunch of marketing bullshit that tech-bros cooked up to fool drivers and passengers. It's time to call this what it is: they are taxis and the people who drive them are taxi drivers.

The traditional taxi industry is its death throes. The unfortunate suckers stuck with medallions which lose value by the day are quitting or committing suicide and the only people taking taxis any more are either very old or, like me, refuse to use smartphones. The other night it took me almost half an hour to flag one on a busy corner in Wicker Park. That would have been unheard of even three or four years ago. Uber, et al are just about the only game in town so it's time to treat it the way Yellow, Checker, American United, and all the other taxi affilations were treated.

Municipalities should demand that public vehicles are clea…

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Riding my bike around Chicago these days I'm always wary of cars pulled over, idling by the curb, or, more often, blocking the bike lane. A few years ago most of these obstacles in my path were clearly identifiable by their markings—they were taxis. Now it's much more difficult to tell public vehicles from private. But from my many years as a cabdriver I can still catch the telltale signs.

Though the only outward thing to give them away is an airplane decal on the back window, a dumb pink mustache or that ominous U on the dash, the drivers' behavior is very familiar. They pull illegal u-turns, they slow down and speed up eratically, wedge their way into traffic without looking, and generally clog up already congested roadways. In short, they are cabdrivers. We can say it's something new, different, the gig economy, blah, blah, blah. That's just a bunch of marketing bullshit that tech-bros cooked up to fool drivers and passengers. It's time to call this what it is: they are taxis and the people who drive them are taxi drivers.

The traditional taxi industry is its death throes. The unfortunate suckers stuck with medallions which lose value by the day are quitting or committing suicide and the only people taking taxis any more are either very old or, like me, refuse to use smartphones. The other night it took me almost half an hour to flag one on a busy corner in Wicker Park. That would have been unheard of even three or four years ago. Uber, et al are just about the only game in town so it's time to treat it the way Yellow, Checker, American United, and all the other taxi affilations were treated.

Municipalities should demand that public vehicles are clearly marked as such, insured properly, and that their numbers are capped. I know some cities are finally taking steps to control this industry but it's past time that the effort be undertaken in earnest. The Ayn Rand-loving creeps who own these apps think that they are "disruptors" or revolutionaries, but to me, they're exactly the same as the money-grubbing chiselers who ran cab companies. The only difference is they might dress a little better and get more expensive, fashionable haircuts. At root, it's unadulterated greed which drives them all.

A taxi is a unique combination of private and public enterprise. Though individual vehicles may be privately owned, the service itself is part of public transportation service and is thus regulated by local governments. As passengers and drivers we deserve to have safe, predictable, and dependable public vehicles rather than the Wild West chaos of surge pricing and incompetent drivers which is the norm now. Perhaps calling it rideshare rather than taxi makes people think it's some new thing which shouldn't conform to the rules of city life, but it's time to drop the charade and call a spade a spade.

Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, Hailo, jitney, whatever, it's all really the same thing. That thing is called a taxi.

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