Why Does The City Of Seattle Think It Needs To Control Your Every Movement? & Out-Of-Control Hopelink: Spending Over 175 Thousand Dollars Over Seven Years Transporting One Individual & Certainly All Wet: New Seattle September to November Rainfall Record & An Endorsement I Can Accept

 It All Started in the 1970s with all those Damn Traffic Circles

The popular mythology applied to the City of Seattle is that it is "free and easy," where anything goes, a new Pacific Northwest "Amsterdam" of liberal and progressive manners and styles, but nothing in reality could be further from the truth, Seattle as stern as any Scandinavian Lutheran minster blasting his congregationalists, shaking his finger on a chilly and rainy Sunday morning, reminding them that SIN is your daily thought and Satan's SULPHUROUS home will certainly be your final destination.  No further proof of that is required after Seattle's November announcement that more traffic cameras will soon be installed upon city streets, the City quite prepared to pilfer your pocketbook if not knock you in the head like they did in the good old "Police Days" when Seattle cops beat you up just because they could, and why not, because you requested the beating, didn't you?  For further reference, see "On the Take: From Petty Crooks to Presidents," by Bill Chambliss, Indiana University Press, 1978.

Yes, for decades, and now today in December 2021, Seattle remains that taunting, admonishing Lutheran cleric scolding its citizenry, penalizing you for simply being human, a crime it seems you only have yourself to blame, having affronted all commonsense by allowing yourself to be born, and worse, to walk and drive upon Seattle's sacred streets. For shame!---for the message that the City of Seattle is delivering, and has delivered over the years, is STOP! you are going to STOP! there being no alternative to this governmental injunction.  

And all of us will be stopping in traffic as Seattle has the second highest ratio of car ownership (461,000 cars) per population (724,305) in the United States, Long Beach, California holding the top spot.  With a 2021 Seattle metro population of 3,461,000, it means there are cars and trucks and motorcycles everywhere during a twenty-four day, and Seattle's response has been, and will be, is to keep removing invaluable traffic lanes, thus creating clogged and congested streets for everyone's driving pleasure.  And who is to blame?  Why we are, of course.  Who else?

On November 15th, 2021, Seattle announced it would be installing a total of 8 new traffic enforcement cameras, stating that it would no longer tolerate drivers blocking intersections and illegally utilizing bus only lanes.  While on the face of it, all this seems sensible until you instead consider two important components, the first being Seattle's longterm plan of both removing and narrowing lanes by changing 4-lane roads down to two, as they did to 12th Ave East and 12th Ave back in the early 1990s; and second, converting many lanes in the downtown core to transit/bus only; these kinds of decisions making a tight transportation corridor even tighter, subjecting drivers to the VERY conditions Seattle will now be issuing tickets for.  A further factor to all this are the many bicycle lanes added throughout the city, taking over lanes that were previously car only.  While it seems that wishful thinking is operational here, geographic and population density reality says otherwise, that all along, this focus upon lane reduction was, and remains, a very bad idea.  

And when did all of this kind of thinking begin, this campaign to slow and stop Seattle's drivers?  Back in the 1970s is when the placing of traffic circles on residential streets began, and to this day, at $30,000 each, traffic circles continue popping up everywhere like mushrooms upon a rainy Autumn day.   By 2017 Seattle had built 1,200 of them throughout the city, and how many more since I don't want to know.  

Where else can you find a huge tree growing in the middle of a street?  Nowhere I hope but a few other American cities are also following Seattle's lead in constructing these confounding and unnecessary monuments to municipal stupidity.  Anyway, please note that beginning January 1, 2022, enforcement begins with, first, a warning ticket, and then thereafter for eternity, a $75.00 ticket.  And please remember, when trying to dodge these tickets, GOD is waiting for you, pen in hand, waiting to cite you one more time. 

Where the new cameras are:   Aurora N & Galer---Westlake N & Valley/Roy---4th & Battery---

5th Ave & Olive Way---3rd & Stewart---1st & Columbia---3rd & James---4th & S Jackson

Happy driving but don't honk that horn.  In Seattle, it's illegal.  Ha ha the joke's on you!

The $102.00 Hopelink Ride

My last ride Monday was a good one, a $102.00 Hopelink ride from Seattle to Kent, taking a gentleman home from kidney dialysis.  This happens round-trip three times a week.  Add it all up for a year and Hopelink spends more-or-less $25,000 per year despite there being many kidney centers within 15 minutes of his house.  The ride one way takes from 60 to 90 minutes depending on traffic.  He has been doing this for 7 years.  Add in the fact of potential car accidents and exposure to COVID-19, one might think all this is a bad idea.  Hoeplink, how does this make any sense?

And oh, another example, Hopelink transporting a fellow to his methadone clinic at least 3 days a week, if not more, RT from Vashon Island to 1700 Airport Way South and back.  The cost?  $187.00 one way.  The ferry ride is fun but Hopelink, what the hell are you doing?  But Vashon is a fun place to visit.

And another aside.  Given he lives on the south side of the island, and near the ferry terminal to Tacoma, why isn't he going to a Tacoma clinic?   Strange to me.

All this Rain is making me Insane

19 inches recorded for Sept-Nov. The November reporting is just short of 11 inches of rain for the month.  Bring an umbrella!  Or turn into a duck.  Or fish.  Or otter. 

Nice to Tell Me That

While at my favorite shop getting 1092 worked upon, a longtime Yellow driver came and up said, "I know you.  You are a good guy.  You have a good heart," saying this while motioning with his hand to his heart. Good to know some have been following and paying attention to my many years taxi industry advocacy.  Thanks much!  Screw money, his words the very best kind of payment!  I am richer for it.

The Messy Life That Is Taxi & Seattle Is All Wet & Hopelink Clients Continue To Suffer & Best Airport Run Ever & Vaccine Mandates Squeeze Non-Vaccinated Cab Drivers & Fruit, No Vegetable Streets

 Too Many Hours, Not Enough Time

Taxi driving, as any cabbie will attest, is a stern master, demanding every second of your time and concentration.  Step away from your cab for a minute, and boom! you have missed a call and how much money you will never know, or truthfully, never wanting to know you missed a $600.00 plus trip across the Cascades by 25 seconds.  Given that reality, the cabbie sticks to it, because you never can tell what your next fare will be, or where that elusive bird, the Taxi Golden Goose, is laying its next jewel-encrusted egg.  

And the results from that crazed money chase is a room, house or apartment strewn with the remnants of a pressured life---you are a slob---certainly the verdict rendered by a social, nose-in-the-air snob, never caring to understand the impossibility of maintaining an orderly life impacted by ceaseless stress and worrisome discord.  As I will always say, welcome to taxi, or as Bob Dylan sang, welcome to "Desolation Row," and in this taxi chant---our own special version of a modern Hades flying down Eisenhower's freeways, gibberish sung at seventy miles per hour.  

36.89 inches of rain through yesterday 6:00 PM

That means the Seattle area has reached its annual rainfall nearly 40 days early, flooding down here every minor but up north of here, very major.  Hey, can we have some of this moisture in July, thank you very much!

quick PS 11/24/2021, 9:50 AM: rainfall now 37.39.  It keeps coming!

No Hopelink Rides for Dialysis Patients

Both late Saturday and Sunday nights I was belled in to kidney dialysis centers paying for their clients to get home, Hopelink failing again and again to provide the promised transportation.  This is no way to treat the vulnerable but there it is, and there it goes, in these examples---no where at all---the patients marooned in a Hopelink service provider swoon. A nurse issued an impassioned plea: where is Hopelink? 

Ya Never Know!

Yesterday early evening, belled into the Olympic Hotel, the guy jumps in and is going to Sea-Tac but first we have to go to Kent, Washington and the Kent-Kangley Road Safeway store.  Okay I say, guessing he is heading there for a coronavirus vaccination, and I was right, sitting there waiting with a near $100.00 on the meter upon his reentry back into the cab.  Off to Sea-Tac we go , ending with $135.00 on the meter, and $25.00 tip---$160.00 cash in my pocket.   Best, biggest cash value airport run I've had.  God! ya never know!

Most of the Yellow Accounts are now saying: Get Vaccinated

Pretty soon it will be all of them: no vaccination, no account fare.  It is going hurt all those drivers not getting the jab, as they call it, in the UK, another kind of death for the ever suffering cabbie. 

Orange Place North, East Cherry Street, South Plum Street

I looked it up.  No vegetable-named streets, and certainly no Kiwi, in Seattle.  Along with Peach Court, Orange, Cherry and Plum are the fruits you can drive upon.  Given this is Washington State, where do you find Apple Street?  In Puyallup and Bremerton, that's where.

An Important Book

"Dark Persuasion, A History of Brainwashing from Pavlov to Social Media" by Joel Dimsdale, Yale University Press, 2021.  I am reading it.  Important info and history.  I recommend it highly.  Do you remember the Hale-Bopp comet mass suicides? 

Another Local Area Cabbie Dead From COVID-19: "No One Will Tell Me What To Do!" & No Late Night Hopelink Coverage

He Doesn't Have to Worry About that Now

Doug was a Tacoma/Pierce County Yellow cabbie who, like all cabbies, was a natural iconoclast, resenting being told he needed to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.  Not him, Doug said, I'm not going to do it.  Well, about three weeks ago, Doug told a regular customer he wasn't feeling well, "just coming down with a cold," he said.  Two weeks later Doug was dead, having succumbed to COVID-19.  Where ever Doug is now or not, I can only hope there is no one up above or down below ordering him around because he won't like it, instead preferring to rest in peace, which I hope is Doug's fate---Taxi-Heaven minus any and all pushy customers and bossy people in general. 

No Hopelink Service for their Passengers late Night, early Morning

Late Sunday night, early Monday morning, I was in and out of the Northwest Hospital Emergency Room, trying to to serve passengers who were there or not, some disappearing into the night.  With each arrival, I noticed a young guy sitting next to the window, clearing waiting for a ride.  After being belled in for Bill, and no Bill to be found, the guy asked if I was "Hopelink."  No, I said, but since I was essentially done for the night, I said, "Com' on, I'll take you home for free," understanding there was no one coming for him.  How did I know that?

The simple answer is that, late night, early morning, there are no cabs whatsoever serving the Hopelink account.  Farwest, the only remaining somewhat functional cab association, shuts off its dispatch and goes to sleep, while Yellow isn't serving Hopelink rides between 6:00 PM and 6:00 AM, and all day Sunday due to Hopelink's refusal to work with Yellow/PSD's Philippine-based callcenter.  The result is no service for perhaps hundreds of passengers during the late hours.  The passenger I rescued said he had perviously waited up to five hours for a Hopelink ride home.  

I have more than once alerted all those folks at Seattle and King County For-hire and Taxi licensing about this, and so far, nothing has changed, passengers like this young gentleman waiting, waiting into the long night.  And then, with the morning light, still no taxi in sight.

No taxi, no taxi, no taxi anywhere!

I am so angry I could pull out my hair!

Because no taxis here, no taxis there,

what is the problem, does anybody care?

Where is that taxi I am waiting for, the one

taking me home?

like antelopes and deer and bison upon the 

urban prairie,

Where do they roam?

City Of Seattle And King County In Taxi Slumberland & More Uber Financial Quarterly Losses & Reality Of NYC Taxi Post-Hunger Strike

Wake Up, Little Susie! (and apologies to Phil and Don)

I have to admit that it has taken this "bear of little brain" too long to fully understand why all those folks from Seattle and King County Taxi Licensing haven't heeded my laments concerning the never ending, poor taxi service offered to our long suffering customers.  The reason being?  They are asleep, and like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, have been for a very long time, decades it seems, soundly asleep at the regulatory wheel.  Even when seemingly awake, as when in the 1970s they deregulated the local industry, they were instead "asleep upon their feet," sleepwalking through the taxi day, and to put it into rhyme, boy, did they make the passengers pay!  

Maybe currently it might seem to all those now occupying the regulatory offices "that it is all a bad dream," and once totally awake they will, upon rubbing their eyes, say none of this can really be true but as someone totally awake to the nightmare that is day-to-day taxi, I can vouch that this is indeed reality, and pulling the blankets over your head not the proper response to elderly ladies waiting 3 whole hours for their cab's arrival.  While "Little Nemo in Sumberland," that comic strip from America's first 20th Century decade, is entertaining, Little Nemo DID finally wake up, questioning his nighttime reality---it isn't at all helpful that the City of Seattle and King County remain curled in a sung ball, oblivious to the taxi reality blaring outside their office doors.  

So my request is simple: Guys, will you please wake up, get out of bed and do something about the daily chaos that is Seattle and King County taxi.  Brew some strong coffee and drink it down, alerting yourself to the awake responsibility you hold: to ensure that everyone who requests a cab in Seattle and King County gets one in a timely way.  That's it.  It is that basic. 

And if nothing changes, I know why.  You are asleep, and talking out loud not proving otherwise, shouts into the dark the least effective of communications, hollow verbal emanations trailing into the vacuous night. 

Uber Loses $2.4 Billion Dollars in most recent Quarterly Report

Uber has more excuses for why it continues to lose money than the average porcupine has quills, this time due to its investment in the Chinese version of Uber--Didi.  But never fear, Uber says, because it had a total quarterly revenue of $4.8 billion, a 72% increase from one year ago.  If not for the Didi financial hit, that $4.8 billion would have been Uber's first profitable quarter EVER.  An article in the London Sunday Times expressed how upset UK Uber riders have become, given ever longer waits and higher rates. The article said many have doubts that Uber will survive.  

But don't ask Uber anything like that.  They could be on verge of closing but they wouldn't tell you, instead saying everything is great and we will see you tomorrow when they won't.  A very questionable development is the talk of Uber dispatching NYC cabs.  Bad idea to join forces with the very enemy holding a knife to your jugular vein.  Unwise!

New York City Cab Owner Reality

Before you uncork the wine bottle and celebrate that the average NYC cabbie has won a huge victory from NYC government and its allied medallion financial companies, you have to have some understanding of the monthly expenses of running and owning a cab.  I know because I own one and know what it means to be under the pressure of weekly and monthly expenses that don't go away unless you quit the business or die.  

The recent settlement says that, for starters, the NYC cabbie will be paying $1,100 per month on his/her medallion mortgage.  If they drive everyday in a 30 day month, and drive a Prius, let's call it $30.00 per day for gasoline, making it $900. every month alone for the gas.  Insurance  costs varies but I will estimate $600.00 per month, adding up to $7,200 for the year.  As there are licensing fees, etc, I will throw in another $150.00 per month, which I think is lowballing it.  

Quickly adding it all up, the NYC cabbie must first make $2,750. before he/she starts to see a penny of profit in any given month.  Yes, I see the NYC cabbie making that in a hard working one week, or 1 1/2 weeks but that might be overly optimistic, meaning it might take the cabbie a full two weeks to earn that $2,750., and that's working more or less day and night, 12-16 hours week after week.  And what about the cost of living in NYC?  The rents, etc.  Lord, you don't have mercy!

Pretty horrible, you say?  Modern slavery, you say?  Ya got that right, Bub!, ya got it right!  Welcome to taxi-land, home to the woebegone and depressed, their reality my reality. 

No fun, I'm on the run!  And tired as hell!

Sorry to Report

Peter Steinbrueck, the taxi driver friendly candidate for Port of Seattle Commission, Position 4, lost.  Not by much but he lost.  The one thing that certainly needs to happen at Sea-Tac is a reduction in the per-trip fee the driver pays with each outgoing fare.  If I remember correctly, the gate fee is $7.00.  And if the cabbie waits two hours and only gets a $10.00 fare, it is a wasted two hours.  Something must change if fairness and wage equity is the goal.  The current system is pure punishment, plain and simple.  There is no other way to see it, the BIG Port of Seattle taking advantage of the small business operator. 

Some Local Election Results & The Saga of Non-Existent Kiwi Avenue & Crazed Passengers Tumbling Out Of The Cab & NYC Cabbies Still On Their Hunger Strike

 Bruce Harrell will be Seattle's Next Fill-in-the-Blank Chief (Excuse me, I meant Mayor)

I expected Harrell to win big against M. Lorena Gonzalez, with early results showing just that, trouncing her by a 65% to 35% margin, meaning it is now preordained that Harrell wins out, taking over for the embattled incumbent mayor, Jenny Durkan clearly deciding four years of slander and abuse more than enough, departing while preparing for the future legal battles awaiting her post-administration.  Would Durkan categorize, you think, her past four years as a "new Summer of Love" as she famously surmised when part of Seattle's Capital Hill was occupied by "George Floyd" protesters?   

I doubt it but with Seattle legion of of poor and ineffectual politicians, you never know.  Gonzalez, in an election night comment, said she wanted "every vote to be counted," as if that was ever an issue, which of course it isn't, sounding more like a Trump-style Republican that the liberal Democrat she claims to be.  Watch out for the "shape-changing" politician, instantly becoming something new and altered, a new color or shade of political chameleon, their old beliefs suddenly invisible to the inquiring public. 

As for the Port of Seattle Commission race, Position Number 4, early results had Peter Steinbrueck leading Hasegawa with less than 25% of the tabulated vote, the race at this point too close to call, with the final result probably not known until tomorrow or later.  He was leading by one percentage point but as of 5:31 PM Wednesday night, Hasegawa had taken a 275 vote lead.  When people say that your vote doesn't count or mean anything, they not only don't know what they are talking about, they are completely wrong.

In terms of Harrell, I will be reminding him of how he shafted the taxi industry back in 2014, and whether he will be making quick amends for his past evil deeds?   I will keep you posted as to his response, if any, comes my way.  Maybe I am being too hard upon the fellow but I will never forget how he stood next to Sally Bagwell, and smiled, saying he was voting to toss out the Seattle City Council's bill regulating and capping Uber and Lyft, there being no forgiving nor forgetting for his political crime, executing the local taxi industry with a big grin.  How amusing he wasn't that day nor this day, for that matter. 

There is No Kiwi Avenue in Seattle, Washington, I Swear it Upon a Stack of Thomas Guides 

On the night the King County Licensing official rode with me, we picked up a passenger in lower Queen Anne on his way to a Capital Hill address at the intersection, he said, of Pike and Kiwi, his destination turning out to be one of the few remaining gay bathhouses in Seattle, Club Z.  When I questioned the existence of a Kiwi street or avenue, the now superior passenger said, "I will bet the cost of the fare that Kiwi does exist."  Normally I would take up such a bet but there was something odd about his confidence, laying claim to an area I have known since 1973.  Describing it, I realized he was talking about an angle, block-long street running northwest from Pike to Pine, a street I have been on countless times.  And besides, I found the guy supercilious and insulting, and rather glad to have the irritant out of the cab.  But what was he talking about, because that angle street turned out to be Minor Avenue, and there were no signs anywhere naming or indicating Kiwi as an addressed street. 

If you google Kiwi in Seattle, you get a map showing the neighborhood but nothing that labelled the real and actual location.  My suspicion is that Kiwi is an unnamed alleyway running northwest from Union to Pike adjacent to Club Z.  Is Kiwi a local nickname sanctioned by the local Gay Community, a kind of "inside joke" given all the "fruits" (derogatory slang for homosexual men) entering Club Z?   

I don't know but there is a Kiwi Street in San Diego, California.  Kiwi Acres Lanes exists near Coupeville, Washington.  There is a listing for a "Kiwi" at 1102 24th Avenue South near Judkins Skate Park.  There is the "Kangaroo & Kiwi" Pub is Ballard. But for the "Kiwi" mentioned so boldly by the customer, it remains a mystery to me.  The only fruit-named street I know of in Seattle for sure is "Peach Court (East)" on the north side of Capital Hill, parallel to 22nd Avenue East.  And the old reliable "Thomas Guide" map book does not list Kiwi in its King County index,  and if Thomas says it doesn't exist, it damn well doesn't.  I really disliked that customer's attitude.  A true ass but isn't that insulting the noble donkey? 

Sarah and Peter

They were only going a few blocks, to City Market but memorable they were as Sarah instantly began sobbing "I lost my cellphone, all my numbers!" through the tears, which suddenly became "You stole my cellphone!" with Sarah now pushing and pulling on Peter, "Sarah! Stop!" but there was no stopping her, Peter now pressed against the right side passenger door, Sarah banging on him.

Having parked, I opened their door and there went Sarah and Peter tumbling to the asphalt, along with multiple cell phones flying out of their pockets, Sarah screaming at Peter "You have my cell phone, you have my cell phone!" all the while pulling on him, pulling his pants down as Peter shouted, "Sarah, let go of me!" Peter finally freeing himself and walking away, Sarah now sprawled on the pavement crying and screaming.  Startled by the commotion, people came to her assistance, getting her up to her feet, allowing me to pull away without running her over.  Ain't life grand in the nearly big city?  And no, I didn't get my five dollar fare.  Oh well. 

NYC Cabbie Hunger Strike Continues

The hunger strike is now nearly two weeks old and the New York mayor Bill de Blasio is letting them starve, refusing to budge from the City's original offer.  The strikers are gaining more outside support but will it be enough to prevent the death of the strikers?  During the 2020 election season Mister de Blasio said he wanted to be president of the United States.  For what reason is the question?

Important Update 11/04021 9:29 AM:  Hunger Strike Ends with New Agreement

Late yesterday, an agreement was reached, ending the 15 day-long labor action, limiting the total medallion mortgage owed to $170,000, with a monthly payment of $1,122.  More precise details next week but it's important to note that this is an initial agreement with only one of the medallion financial loan companies, Marblegate.  While assuming the other "taxi banks" will also agree to this arrangement, in the wild world that is New York City, anything might happen, the fact that this overvaluation happened in the first place says everything about NYC politics and their relationships with "big time" investors, the big fish eating the small fish.  Google photos of the late NYC "Taxi King" and you will see him elbow to elbow with Bloomberg, de Blasio and others.  Where is the political morality?  Right down the gutter is where it is. 

 A Reader asked about Seattle medallion values

They may not even be worth a thousand dollars.  I believe the City of Seattle has a number of returned medallions minus ownership.  You might ask if they would give you one.  It is in their interest to have more cabs upon the road. 

Election Special November 2nd, 2021: Peter Steinbrueck Our Port Of Seattle Ally And Tweedle-Dee/Tweedle-Dum For Mayor? & Will Someone From Puget Sound Dispatch (Seattle Yellow Cab) Please Fly To The Philippines? & New York City's Infamous "Taxi King" Is Dead

OMG! It's Seattle Election Season Again!

Elections are important even though many pretend otherwise, and while it probably doesn't matter who is elected the new Seattle mayor, given that zero plus zero always equaling zero, Port of Seattle Commission Position Number 4 is of especial importance given Stienbrueck's vocal and written support for the downtrodden cabbies working Sea-Tac International Airport.  Oppositely, his opponent, Toshiko Grace Hasegawa's chief policy agenda and focus is instead one of blame, pointing fingers at Steinbrueck and the entire sitting Port Commission for not anticipating container traffic flow issues, somehow forgetting that it is a problem shared by every shipping port worldwide since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  A vote for Hasegawa is a vote for an Upper-Middle Class theorist who, minus any real governing experience, knows she can do better than anyone else.  

And why does she believe this?  Because, in her mind, she is an anointed, special, superior "god-yes" appointed savior of everything in the world, the Port of Seattle just one more small step toward her predestined celestial seat upon Mount Olympus, shoving Hera aside and taking her rightful throne next to Zeus Almighty.  If you don't support that, then vote for Peter Steinbrueck, negating Hasegawa's righteous thunderbolts crashing upon everyone's heads, divine punishment for the unworthy, and should I say it, the unwashed. 

Mix and Match, Harrell and Gonzalez Both the Same---Two Stumblebums Minus a Moral Brain

Lewis Carroll would like this mayoral battle, hence the Alice reference, two Pin-the Tail-Upon-the Donkey candidates hoping to poke Seattle's collective buttock into believing that "I, not you, Me" can work new miracles upon Seattle's governmental fabric, weaving new magical garments for all its citizens, everyone flying away to a new Never-Never Land where junkies will never again break your car window and Seattle drivers will eternally foreswear never to road-rage again down local avenues and byways, everyone suddenly having a snug and safe home, Bruce Harrell doing his best Xi Jinping imitation while M. Lorena Gonzalez shouts, "Look at Me, I'm Hillary Rodham Clinton!"

If I did't know already, I know why I am now registered to vote way down in southwest New Mexico's Grant County where rattlesnakes bite only when confusing right from wrong, which isn't very often. 

Would Someone Please Fly Across the Blue Pacific and Teach These Folks Their Taxi ABC's?

Look, I know the Cebu-based call-center is attempting, given their limited knowledge, to do their best dispatching a taxi fleet 8,000 miles away but it is clear they are not yet ready for graduation, prematurely issued their taxi diplomas.  Taxi is a language and they don't speak it.  Taxi is a science and they don't know how to boil water.  Taxi is a skilled profession and dispatch is still leaning how to tie its shoes.  Passengers call and ask, "how long will it be?" and Cebu guesses, "well , we really don't know, does 40 minutes sound okay to you?"  And then the cab arrives in five minutes, it's "where did you come from?'  

Twenty minutes to midnight last Sunday, three Zone 160 (Magnolia) fares suddenly popped up on the screen, no warning, no info, and what was it? it was a late docking Alaskan fishing vessel unloading a crew eager to get home.  But dispatch didn't name the boat then floating dockside at Pier 91, not knowing you need to tell security where you are going, because most often there are 4-6 ships all simultaneously disembarking their crews.  I went to Bremerton, which was wonderful, but not so wonderful is the never-ending amateur hour that is pretending to be a professional taxi dispatch call-center.  That is why someone from Puget Sound Dispatch needs to travel to the Philippines and provide the necessary instruction required.  Their lack of taxi literacy is needlessly punishing our passengers, diminishing customer service.  And all I am saying and have been saying over the past weeks and months is true and accurate.  And PSD knows it as well as I do, you can bet on it.

And as I keep telling all those City and County licensing officials, it is really all your fault, allowing the associations to do anything they want minus real accountability.  As the silly saying goes, "when the cat is away, the mice will play," and this has been occurring for decades, long before Yellow dispatch was transferred overseas, also explaining why it was so easy for Uber to push taxi into the financial ditch back in 2014.  We should require professionalism from everyone involved----dispatch, PSD administration, owner operators, City & County taxi licensing--- getting our taxi house in order before 2022 arrives.  So don't get mad at me, your anger misplaced.  Instead, facilitate change now, everyone, now!  Let us be completely honest.  Let us be real.  Our customers deserve better.  Can there be any argument? 

 NYC "Taxi King" Dead at Age 50

Gene Freidman (Evgeny Alender Freidman) died on Sunday, October 24th, 2021, from a heart attack, a former New York City taxi baron who ruled the taxi roost until the 2014 Uber revolution toppled taxi from atop the transportation monopoly that controlled most of NYC's then for-hire industry, medallion prices (valuations) falling by 80%.  Before that, beginning in 1996, at age 26, Freidman took over his father's taxi garage handling 60 cabs, expanding that to 900 cabs, with him personally owning 250 medallions.  What got him extremely rich was his 2006 scheme to manipulate medallions value by overpaying for 54 medallions offered by the City of New York that year, paying $477,666 for each of the 54 medallions, helping create an inflationary price escalation that eventually had the over 13, 587 taxi medallions worth a startling 1.3 million dollars each.  Freidman's initial purchases was facilitated by the Progressive Credit Union, who was more than glad to assist in something that would make everyone involved extremely wealthy.  At one point, Freidman held $525 million in assets, owning a 4000 square foot Park Avenue townhouse, a country estate in Bridgehampton, New York, two villas on the French Rivera while driving around NYC in a $400,000 Ferrari, no taxi cab for him. 

A quote from the Tuesday, October 26th, 2021 NY Times obituary written by Sam Roberts says everything about about Mister Freidman, "I'd go to an auction, I'd run up the price of a medallion, then I'd run to my bankers and say, "Look how high the medallions priced!  Let me borrow against my portfolio. And they let me do that!"

But Freidman wasn't content only doing that, in 2017 finding himself charged with first degree taxi fraud for his failure to forward the 50 cents surcharge required on each taxi trip that is allocated to the MTA, bilking that New York transit agency out of $5,000,000 dollars.  He was granted probation after ratting on his famous medallion business partner, Michael Cohen, he of President Trump fame.

While saying he was a broken man, his continued privileged lifestyle said otherwise, Freidman accused of transferring over $60 million dollars in trust accounts located in Belize, Nevis and the Cook Islands. I am sure he will be buried beneath a nice tombstone, a grave perhaps to be visited by the many now impoverished cabbies who believed that a medallion was indeed worth over a million dollars,  stomping upon the taxi thief's final resting place.  At least I hope they do, pouring the brightest of bright red animal blood over his headstone, blood on his hands, blood forever now staining his head and soul.

 

A Saturday Night Ride Escorted By King County Taxi Official: Beneficial Receiving The Inside Story & New York City Cab Driver Hunger Strike Begins October 20th, 2021

 Local government indifference to the taxi industry was shattered Saturday night when a King County taxi (for-hire) licensing official came along for an over five-hour long ride-along.  Jumping in about 7:00 PM, he endured the terrible passenger-side front seat until past midnight, telling him I was just getting revenge for all the abusive years we have faced from the City of Seattle and King County, though the truth being told, 1092 has travelled over 450,000 miles, meaning nothing could be in perfect condition after that many rough and tumble miles.  My goal was to provide a completely unvarnished view of real taxi, real Seattle taxi as I know and hate it, and those five hours provided a fair representation of what I and my taxi colleagues experience and suffer through, displaying through the misery the good money made and professional customer service offered and completed.  

Only two bells (fares) in, he said he saw my values at work, first turning down two passengers at Husky Stadium to faithfully check out the bell at University Hospital, and after finding no one there, rushing back and picking up the same couple standing out on the west side of Montlake Boulevard.  After dropping them off, and back to the stadium we picked up two more guys, taking them to a downtown hotel, with one handing me a twenty and a hundred dollar bill for a $16.00 ride, but quickly making him aware of his error, as this kind of mistake commonplace in the rush to vacate the cab.  Those interactions prompted his observation of who I am, which led me to recount my CO (1-0) exemption Selective Service story and how the trust granted me by my Eastern Colorado draft board way back in November 1972 remains alive and active in my now 67 year old heart, something also explaining my lifetime activism and advocacy for those not getting a fair-shake from life's circumstances. 

The night moved quickly, fare after fare machine-gun style rat-a-tat-tat, as we went to and from the stadium and downtown again and again, 1092 the only visible cab working a 70,000 plus stadium crowd, seeing only one other cab, and that was after the game was long over.  He in turn kept my interest by relating his most recent effort toward creating a standard to mesh with a consortium of dispatch companies, including MTI, that nationally would link all local cab companies to a international, worldwide public transportation network.  It is quite an endeavor, something favored since noticing that cabs have been previously excluded, suggesting perhaps a kind of widespread bias against taxi both here in Seattle and elsewhere.  He said, that until about two years ago, the City of Seattle expressed some reticence concerning our local industry, taking some persuasion getting them to the negotiating table.  Is anyone surprised by this news?  I am not.  But given our sometimes history, minor criminality spicing our taxi stew, it isn't all surprising that we have, upon occasion, been colored black, or darker shades of grey---the demon's heart not red but Yellow.

One story getting my attention was how quickly, back in 2014, did King County have to adapt to the flood of TNC (Uber, Lyft) licensees unleashed by the Seattle City Council and Mayor Murray, Seattle not caring how prepared King County was, or not, to successfully license all these new for-hire drivers.  My ears perked-up because I have never trusted the process that poured over 28,000 new TNC operators into our work and business environment, and here I was, receiving confirmation that something "smelled bad," and I have been holding my nose ever since the debacle that was 2014.   Anyway, it certainly wasn't his fault, and over the past couple of years it has been clear to me that this official is different, someone not taking kindly to all us cabbies being stepped on.  Hurray for that.

For my part, I was able to show him how inefficient the Philippines dispatch/call center can be, those faraway folks having little clue how to dispatch during a big event like the Husky football game, further underlining my point that, too often, the passengers either wait too long, or occurring too often, receiving no cab at all.  I also repeated my mantra that the local taxi associations require more, not less, regulation.  At this point, neither Seattle nor King County hold much jurisdiction over association behavior, and as I kept telling him, I hope that change comes soon but don't your breath as you are tempting self-affixation---suffocation at the hands of bureaucratic entanglement and red tape . 

He even saw me get tried, making a simple run from downtown to White Center more complicated than it needed to be.  Our time together ended after picking up a passenger from the University Medical Center ER, an ex-Lyft driver from the State of Massachusetts going up to N. 120th & Roosevelt N.  After that, back to the Northgate Park & Ride, where I shook hands with the "gentleman and taxi scholar" and said goodbye, glad the insight travelled in both directions, east and west, up and down.

Followup to My Recent NYC Cabbie Feature

Tomorrow, upon a full moon, dozens of NYC taxi medallion owners will be going upon a hunger strike in a desperate effort to get substantial debt relief from the City of New York, that very same government entity who lied to them about the financial glories attached to medallion ownership.  This effort is led by the NYC Taxi Drivers Alliance, guided by its president, Bhairavi Desai.  

Earlier this year, New York government offered a total debt relief package worth over 65 million dollars, with individuals receiving up to $29,000 in compensation and up to $200,000 in debt forgiveness but the majority of the cabbies owe $400,00 to 800,000 or more to the medallion banks.  This is why they are willing to starve themselves because they are already going hungry, facing the daily prospect of working long hours only to pay the interest on their loans.  They are already dying so why not formalize the process, is their thinking. 

Good luck!