[ohsnapman]

Whoa, taxis showed up 2 out of 3 times for you? The official study has it at 49%:

https://archives.sfmta.com/cms/rtaxi/documents/2005TaxiAvail...

I even remember when the number was lower ...

[Kalium]

If you called three companies and waited half an hour, odds favored at least one showing up.

But, yeah. Things were pretty miserable unless you were somewhere taxis actually wanted to be.