Pittsburgh and Taxi Cabs (Washington, Lawrenceville: leases, home, car tax)

[UKyank]

Does anyone know how many cabs Pittsburgh has and how that number compares to other cities?

I have to vent about something here - went out to Lawrenceville this past weekend, called for a cab at about 1:15am, luckily found an alternative way home around 2, and when I woke up I had a voicemail from the cab saying they were there at........ 3:42am.

Sadly, this is more the norm with my experience regarding cabs if you need one anytime after 10pm.

The only place that seems to have any regular evening cab traffic (and even then way below their demand) is the Southside, Station Square.

I know Pittsburgh is smaller, but I have never had a hard time hailing or ordering a cab even at the most peak times anywhere else I have lived.

[gg]

In general, this is a pickup/SUV town and a cab would be public transportation. I don't think we will see cabs much in Pittsburgh. They have a horrible reputation. Better off riding a bike.

[I_Like_Spam]

Pittsburgh has about 300 yellow cabs out on the road, which according to the wikipedia article is about the same as Milwaukee- but certainly fewer than Washington or Boston or Detroit.

A lot of them like to go out to the airport- when I took a cab out there last month there were 100 cabs waiting out in the lot for trips leaving the airport.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

In general, this is a pickup/SUV town and a cab would be public transportation. I don't think we will see cabs much in Pittsburgh. They have a horrible reputation. Better off riding a bike.

You always adamantly proclaim this to be a "pickup/SUV town". Why? I drive a hybrid. My partner drives a small older Suzuki sedan. My best friend drives a VW Beetle. Her boyfriend drives a Civic. My landlady drives a Sonata. My neighbors mostly drive smaller fuel-efficient vehicles. There are fellow hybrid owners galore in this part of town, too, including about 1/4 of my colleagues. Even many of the huge SUVs I see here say "Flex Fuel" on them.

We're becoming a greener city, h_curtis, whether you want to accept that or not.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by UKyank

I have to vent about something here - went out to Lawrenceville this past weekend, called for a cab at about 1:15am, luckily found an alternative way home around 2, and when I woke up I had a voicemail from the cab saying they were there at........ 3:42am.

Sadly, this is more the norm with my experience regarding cabs if you need one anytime after 10pm.

The only place that seems to have any regular evening cab traffic (and even then way below their demand) is the Southside, Station Square.

I think there are 2 factors at work here.

1. Yellow Cab has a lot of drivers with 24 hour leases that don't stay out that late at night.
Even though their lease is for 24, they still need rest.

2. About a dozen years ago, they switched from voice dispatching to computerized dispatching. The drivers have to be logged into a geographic zone in order to take a trip in that zone. While you were sitting in L'ville, there were probably at least several drivers taking folks home to Lawrenceville from other locations and might well have wanted to pick you up but didn't know you were there. When I was driving in the 90's they had voice dispatching and if I had someone in the cab and I knew I was going to say 39th St., I'd keep an ear to the radio and come in to take a L'ville , Herron Hill or Strip trip even before I dropped the passenger off. Can't do that nowadays, from my understanding because of the different technology.

[gbpriv]

Yellow Cab is notoriously unreliable. We called Classy Cab last weekend at 10pm and were in the cab around 10:45 in Shadyside (the taxi that came actually had Veterans Cab on it). A Yellow Cab would, among past experiences, have taken twice as long or would have never arrived. I don't know how many here have recently been to the Southside on weekends, but there is a huge concentration of plain car taxis / jitneys / underground or illegal cabs.. Not sure what they are technically.

[ML North]

I usually try to flag down a jitney. The price and service are generally superior to Yellow Cab.

[Clint.]

Originally Posted by ML North

I usually try to flag down a jitney. The price and service are generally superior to Yellow Cab.

How can you tell which cars are jitneys?

[ML North]

Originally Posted by Clint.

How can you tell which cars are jitneys?

When it's not yellow, has no indications of being a taxi and no meter, and there's a man -- who you believe is not trying to kidnap you -- hanging out the window offering a ride.

[sealie]

I talked to a cabbie less than a year ago - young guy, native Pittsburgher - really gregarious guy. Anyway, we were talking about the cab availability thing, and he'd said it was a dead night, he was done for the night and just took us home on account of it was on his way. He went on to say there aren't that many cabs in Pittsburgh because you can't make any money on it, Pittsburghers are sort of cheap to start with, so the cabs only really work the airport and maybe a little downtown, so the wait especially on game days is awful, so people learn not to rely on the cabs, so they don't call the cabs, so the cab companies don't run as many cabs.... you see the circle this is heading in. But yeah, a cabbie will go home for the night once he's figured out that running the cab is costing him more than he's making in fares.