Friday
Nov172006
The United Nations (of airport taxis)
Friday, November 17, 2006 at 01:31AM
I was in Houston last week and I had to take a taxi to the airport from where I had been working. I had a great conversation with Steve, the driver. I asked him how long he had been driving and he told me "about a month, and tomorrow's my last day." Well, that was a new one.
Turns out Steve had been a railroad conductor for twenty years, but got in a train accident where his partner lost his life. He took a year off and then decided he was too bored, so he thought he'd drive a taxi for a little while and then look for another job.
It's always interesting to see somebody doing something they enjoy, and this guy thoroughly enjoyed driving his cab. It reminded me of temp jobs I've worked, (the best was, of course, driving a forklift in a candy factory) and how you can enjoy tasks that seem mundane when you know you don't have to do it for the rest of your life. That was Steve, behind that wheel. I learned a really interesting thing from him, that he had just learned a few weeks ago.
You know how there are always taxis at airports, but always only a few? It turns out that, depending on the size of the airport, there can be as many as 400 or 500 taxis waiting in a holding area a mile or two away, waiting their turn to pick up a fare. The airports build big parking lots and the taxis line up in rows and then park and wait for their row to be called. At really big airports, like Houston, a driver could wait for up to six hours for their row to be called.
These areas have rec buildings, with bathrooms and showers, TV rooms, ping-pong tables, food service and even a worship center. Steve was telling me that a lot of the drivers actually live there. They grab a comfy chair, get a few hours sleep, drive somebody around, come back, watch a movie and take another nap.
Most of the folks that drove at the airport, he said, were recent immigrants. Not a surprise there, having met some amazing people from all over the world by taking cabs and asking questions. He said that a lot of these guys were really educated, Masters degrees and city planners and economists. For whatever reason, a thick accent, a lack of references or cultural understanding, these highly educated people can't get the jobs they came to America to find. So they drive these cabs and live at the airport.
A lot of them save the money and send it back to their families, and like Steve, the job is a temporary thing. Others just enjoy having cash, a cool watch and a nice jacket. Things they can't get back home.
Like anyplace where people congregate, community develops, and smaller communities develop within. Apparently, people from different countries tend to congregate and become their own little groups there. The Ugandans watch TV here, while the Ethiopians play pool in here....
I don't really have a point to this, I just found it incredibly fascinating. If I were a filmmaker I'd be running out the door with a hat and a camera to make a documentary. (why the hat? I don't know) As it is, I'm a guitar player who writes songs and is trying to learn iMovie, so maybe I'll try to write a tune about it someday. I've tried to Google these places, but can't find anything. If any of you internet Sherlocks can dig anything up, please pass the links along.
Well, that's all for me tonight. I must retire. We're having a great time at the ol' Metropolitan Museum of Modern Paul and I can't wait until I have something decently polished to share with you. I think you'll like it. Take care. Happy Friday.
Turns out Steve had been a railroad conductor for twenty years, but got in a train accident where his partner lost his life. He took a year off and then decided he was too bored, so he thought he'd drive a taxi for a little while and then look for another job.
It's always interesting to see somebody doing something they enjoy, and this guy thoroughly enjoyed driving his cab. It reminded me of temp jobs I've worked, (the best was, of course, driving a forklift in a candy factory) and how you can enjoy tasks that seem mundane when you know you don't have to do it for the rest of your life. That was Steve, behind that wheel. I learned a really interesting thing from him, that he had just learned a few weeks ago.
You know how there are always taxis at airports, but always only a few? It turns out that, depending on the size of the airport, there can be as many as 400 or 500 taxis waiting in a holding area a mile or two away, waiting their turn to pick up a fare. The airports build big parking lots and the taxis line up in rows and then park and wait for their row to be called. At really big airports, like Houston, a driver could wait for up to six hours for their row to be called.
These areas have rec buildings, with bathrooms and showers, TV rooms, ping-pong tables, food service and even a worship center. Steve was telling me that a lot of the drivers actually live there. They grab a comfy chair, get a few hours sleep, drive somebody around, come back, watch a movie and take another nap.
Most of the folks that drove at the airport, he said, were recent immigrants. Not a surprise there, having met some amazing people from all over the world by taking cabs and asking questions. He said that a lot of these guys were really educated, Masters degrees and city planners and economists. For whatever reason, a thick accent, a lack of references or cultural understanding, these highly educated people can't get the jobs they came to America to find. So they drive these cabs and live at the airport.
A lot of them save the money and send it back to their families, and like Steve, the job is a temporary thing. Others just enjoy having cash, a cool watch and a nice jacket. Things they can't get back home.
Like anyplace where people congregate, community develops, and smaller communities develop within. Apparently, people from different countries tend to congregate and become their own little groups there. The Ugandans watch TV here, while the Ethiopians play pool in here....
I don't really have a point to this, I just found it incredibly fascinating. If I were a filmmaker I'd be running out the door with a hat and a camera to make a documentary. (why the hat? I don't know) As it is, I'm a guitar player who writes songs and is trying to learn iMovie, so maybe I'll try to write a tune about it someday. I've tried to Google these places, but can't find anything. If any of you internet Sherlocks can dig anything up, please pass the links along.
Well, that's all for me tonight. I must retire. We're having a great time at the ol' Metropolitan Museum of Modern Paul and I can't wait until I have something decently polished to share with you. I think you'll like it. Take care. Happy Friday.
Reader Comments (10)
Well Derek had Bus Driver, I think its time for Cab Driver
Yeah, 'cause we all want Andy to be DerekLite.
It is fascinating, Andy. It's enforced scarcity creating inefficiencies in the system that everyone agrees to because of cartel pricing. I wonder what the economists-cum-cabbies think of it?
i wish i drove a taxi
Geof, I think I understand what that means, but it's requiring far too much thinking for a Friday morning. :-)
For whatever it's worth, I, for one, have never ridden in a taxi.
Sherlock's is big time here in Texas. It's the happy hour awesome place.
http://www.sherlockspub.com/
Nor have I ever ridden in a taxi. Although I would like to. It seems like something cool that people do in the movies. I'm from small town Michigan—not many taxis around here. Lots of SUVs though...and pick-ups.
The secret life of a cabbie sounds like a great documentary. I'm a journalist and if we had something like that around here, I'd be on that hot tip in a second. People love stories about people...and animals.
Here's something interesting to check out. Read some of the stories. It is actually really cool.
nycabbie.com
Balderdash! Besides, Milt Friedman died yesterday ... we should all honor him by doing more economical-type thinking!
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Essentially, what I said was that these guys create artificial scarcity---a limited number of cabs at the airport for rider pickup---to keep the prices up. If there were an excess of cabs at the airport, they'd eventually start competing[1] by lowering their prices in order to attract riders. It would become a chaotic mess, and that's not what the airports want. But by creating scarcity, the prices stay up. That's a cartel in action.
And yes ... I read The Economist. I'm a nerd.
[1] The competition would be limited at some level by pricing structures by the locality; as I remember it, many municipalities fix minimum and maximum pricing of taxi rides by ordinance, and because the ordinances also control who may legally provide such services for a fee, those are price controls. Often, they're pro-consumer---for example, there's a cap on pricing to provide taxi service in my small city, which is good for the consumer, but in situations as Andy describes, the enforced cartel pricing drives up the cost.
You might like this:
http://www.last.fm/user/ClumsyFly/
I have ridden in a cab once in New York City coming to my hotel from the airport. At the time, I almost peed my pants from the driving the man did, but currently, after reading this post, I think I would be a little bit less scared... I don't know why...