The Taxi Cab drivers are on strike in Washington, DC

October 30, 2007

I believe that DCist.com first reported about the fact that the Washington, DC taxi cab drivers are set to go on strike for 24 hours on October 31…Halloween. What a scary thought: perhaps as many as half of the city’s estimated 7,500 taxi cab drivers will either drive around aimlessly wasting their gas protesting or park in front of hotels and piss off a lot of tourists to the city. And for what? Well they’re protesting the fact that Mayor Fenty has made an executive decision to overhaul a terrible taxi system and ordering all taxi cab drivers to install meters in their cars. This is an interesting turnaround from the current system that employs a zone fare, which I still have no idea what it means - albeit I’ve never taken a cab ride in DC before by myself, but after riding in NYC and Chicago in a taxi, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Sure, I’m not aware of any extenuating factors that may affect the livelihood of the drivers themselves, but are you sure that by having half of the city’s drivers go on strike is going to affect Fenty’s decision? Anyone that happens to come to the city probably knows that DC has a pretty good public transit system and with taxi cab drivers going on strike, there are other means to get around…say Metro, DC Circulator, or shuttle buses/limos. So you go on strike taxi cab drivers and make your protests. What would DC be without ‘em?

Popularity: 49% [?]

Posted in Sightseeing, Travel