Febrile thoughts on the Hackney Carriage
In less than a week, London is going to the polls over the selection of its new mayor. Many transport topics have received their fare share (haha transport joke) of the coverage, be it a new zone plan for the London Underground, cheaper fares before 7:30 in the morning, or just freezing fares before 2020. One topic, however, remains unspoken: the straight-talking black cab. The outgoing mayor, Boris Johnson (neé Bojo), promised that all London taxis would have to be capable of running in “zero emission mode” by 2018 – something that certainly hasn’t appeared during his tenure. But why won’t the current mayoral candidates talk about taxis? Are they too boring? Too sacred? It’s not an absent issue from the London Assembly. Well, to save prospective mayors the trouble, I’m here to discuss taxis, Ubers, and so much more (actually not much more) in this article.
The sheer quantity of taxis cruising on the streets of London, New York, or Los Angeles wouldn’t be a problem if not for the shockingly poor fuel economy of the vehicle itself. Taxicabs are incredibly harmful for the environment, and, on top of that, they spend long periods of time cruising without a customer. In comparison to their closest competitor, buses, they take up far more space – eighty taxis carry as many people as one new London Routemaster bus. This means taxis cause more congestion as well as polluting far more, and congestion causes more slow starts and longer journeys, which makes air conditions even worse. Let’s take Euston Road, for example. A menagerie of traffic lights and pedestrian crossings make congestion an inevitability, but even then, half of the vehicles clogging up the highway are black cabs, and it would be an even higher percentage including unmarked private vehicles. If we substituted all the taxis on this road for cycles, or lumped their users into a bus, we’d save so much space, and everyone would save time.
This, in essence, is the blind contradiction of the overused taxicab: it shoots itself in the foot by creating masses of traffic for everyone. This increases the journey time for all taxi riders, hence rendering the pursuit of taking a taxi obsolete – unless you want a longer journey that might be a little more comfortable. Additionally, it has been proven that riding in the back of a London black cab actually exposes you to more noxious fumes than walking on the street corner.
Nearly half of all taxi users in New York have a household income of over $100000. If that isn’t proof enough that taxis are a luxury good, I don’t know what is. While the London cab is certainly more humble, it has the same economic connotations; one on a modest income could hardly afford to use one with frequency, but a businessman would likely be able to carry the expense. The taxicab, then, when compared to the bus or the tube, is an example of product differentiation. One product for the rich (or the occasional treat), another product for everyone else. Of course, taxis are also the refuge of a late night out on the town, but with the Night Tube and 24-hr bus services, this use, in London at least, seems to be dwindling.
Meanwhile, Ubers are overtaking black cabs as the convenient private hire of choice. They’re usually cheaper, and, as such, they’ve dispelled the taxicab stereotype of being reserved for the modestly well-off. Awkwardly, what might seem like an exercise in egalitarianism is actually really bad. The best case scenario is less people should be using taxicabs and there should be less taxis on the road. What Uber has done is saturated the market and encouraged more people to use a service that pollutes more, while further increasing the number of circulating vehicles. This also makes running a legitimate black cab a less economically viable business. At the same time, ‘The Knowledge’, the famed test held by the humble cabbie, loses out to a satnav, which is still a questionable navigation tool. When your taxi driver is putting your destination into a machine instead of using their head, they’re hardly as qualified. Less qualified drivers means poorer driving and – you guessed it – even more congestion.
The issue here is that people simply don’t want to stoop to the level of public transport because it has a reputation for being a bit cheap and nasty. Unfortunately, it necessitates more people to use public transport before this can change. The more money Transport for London receive from buses and the Tube, the more they can reinvest in those services to make them less cheap and less nasty (but hopefully still cheap, as in, you know, money cheap-like). Moreover, why not just throw money at public transport anyway? Up the congestion charge! Why not?
We need to regulate the taxi business while pumping our public transport system with youth, vitality, and most importantly, cold hard cash. We'll save on balance, whilst simultaneously saving petrol and saving time, making our economies more efficient and our lives less polluted. On a more serious note, if you want to help make London more efficient, less polluted, and generally a lovelier place to live, you should vote Green on Orange, and vote Siân Berry on 5 May.
The sheer quantity of taxis cruising on the streets of London, New York, or Los Angeles wouldn’t be a problem if not for the shockingly poor fuel economy of the vehicle itself. Taxicabs are incredibly harmful for the environment, and, on top of that, they spend long periods of time cruising without a customer. In comparison to their closest competitor, buses, they take up far more space – eighty taxis carry as many people as one new London Routemaster bus. This means taxis cause more congestion as well as polluting far more, and congestion causes more slow starts and longer journeys, which makes air conditions even worse. Let’s take Euston Road, for example. A menagerie of traffic lights and pedestrian crossings make congestion an inevitability, but even then, half of the vehicles clogging up the highway are black cabs, and it would be an even higher percentage including unmarked private vehicles. If we substituted all the taxis on this road for cycles, or lumped their users into a bus, we’d save so much space, and everyone would save time.
This, in essence, is the blind contradiction of the overused taxicab: it shoots itself in the foot by creating masses of traffic for everyone. This increases the journey time for all taxi riders, hence rendering the pursuit of taking a taxi obsolete – unless you want a longer journey that might be a little more comfortable. Additionally, it has been proven that riding in the back of a London black cab actually exposes you to more noxious fumes than walking on the street corner.
Nearly half of all taxi users in New York have a household income of over $100000. If that isn’t proof enough that taxis are a luxury good, I don’t know what is. While the London cab is certainly more humble, it has the same economic connotations; one on a modest income could hardly afford to use one with frequency, but a businessman would likely be able to carry the expense. The taxicab, then, when compared to the bus or the tube, is an example of product differentiation. One product for the rich (or the occasional treat), another product for everyone else. Of course, taxis are also the refuge of a late night out on the town, but with the Night Tube and 24-hr bus services, this use, in London at least, seems to be dwindling.
Meanwhile, Ubers are overtaking black cabs as the convenient private hire of choice. They’re usually cheaper, and, as such, they’ve dispelled the taxicab stereotype of being reserved for the modestly well-off. Awkwardly, what might seem like an exercise in egalitarianism is actually really bad. The best case scenario is less people should be using taxicabs and there should be less taxis on the road. What Uber has done is saturated the market and encouraged more people to use a service that pollutes more, while further increasing the number of circulating vehicles. This also makes running a legitimate black cab a less economically viable business. At the same time, ‘The Knowledge’, the famed test held by the humble cabbie, loses out to a satnav, which is still a questionable navigation tool. When your taxi driver is putting your destination into a machine instead of using their head, they’re hardly as qualified. Less qualified drivers means poorer driving and – you guessed it – even more congestion.
The issue here is that people simply don’t want to stoop to the level of public transport because it has a reputation for being a bit cheap and nasty. Unfortunately, it necessitates more people to use public transport before this can change. The more money Transport for London receive from buses and the Tube, the more they can reinvest in those services to make them less cheap and less nasty (but hopefully still cheap, as in, you know, money cheap-like). Moreover, why not just throw money at public transport anyway? Up the congestion charge! Why not?
We need to regulate the taxi business while pumping our public transport system with youth, vitality, and most importantly, cold hard cash. We'll save on balance, whilst simultaneously saving petrol and saving time, making our economies more efficient and our lives less polluted. On a more serious note, if you want to help make London more efficient, less polluted, and generally a lovelier place to live, you should vote Green on Orange, and vote Siân Berry on 5 May.
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