[charlesray]

I live in Pittsburgh and the situation isn't much better. Taxi service effectively doesn't exist here. One newspaper wrote a "review" of sorts of Pittsburgh Yellow Cab and found that, for the most part, they wouldn't take you anywhere put the airport. The author would call them, ask for a ride to the airport, get a cab at his door immediately, then change his destination once he got in the car. They made him get out of the car every time.

Everyone I know who lived here before Uber/Lyft has a story about going out to the bars, calling a taxi, waiting two hours for it to come, and ending up walking two more hours home because the taxi never arrived. And I'm sure many more people have had the same experience and simple chosen to drive drunk. It's quite literally a publicly safety issue. Luckily Uber and Lyft came along two years ago and are now operating legally.

The #1 thing we've all learned from this debacle is that many, many cab companies are the scum of the earth. To be fair, though, some are still good. In Chicago, for example, you can hail a cab without even trying. You can go to the bathroom and find a cab waiting for you in the toilet. They are everywhere, they are reasonably priced, and they know the city a hell of a lot better than most Uber drivers. They continue to thrive because they are full time professionals who provide a better service than Uber and Lyft. That's a lesson the drivers in Paris and Pittsburgh need to learn.

[glogla]

> The #1 thing we've all learned from this debacle is that many, many cab companies are the scum of the earth.

Given the "god view" incident and the "let's follow journalists" incident, that's something that Uber didn't disrupt.

[themartorana]

Sounds like cabs need "body" cameras (interior cams that can't be turned off?) as much as cops do. It's an unbelievable shame, and a really terrible indictment of cab drivers' ability to do their job professionally.

I always thought the cabs in Philly were bad. Apparently they're decent, comparatively.

[gphil]

> I always thought the cabs in Philly were bad. Apparently they're decent, comparatively.

I also have a laundry list of complaints about Philly cabs, but I've never been anywhere where I felt the cabs were definitively better. Compared to some of the other things on this thread, my most consistent complaints are relatively minor (won't take credit cards, don't have the AC on, etc.) At least they are omnipresent, and never say no to my destination. Almost every time I call for an Uber an open cab rolls by first. If Uber shortened their cancellation window, I probably wouldn't even try to use it at all.

[charlesray]

>Sounds like cabs need "body" cameras (interior cams that can't be turned off?) as much as cops do.

That's what Paris needs, from the sound of it. Pittsburgh just needs competition, which we now have. The cabs haven't gotten any better, though. They still effectively don't exist, I almost never see one, and as far as I know they continue to almost exclusively serve the airport...probably because, until recently, Uber and Lyft weren't allowed to pick up riders from the airport. Maybe Yellow Cab will start improving their service now? But I doubt it.