Taxi!

Interesting L.A. transportation update: It is held by many Angelenos that hailing a cab in L.A. is illegal. The actual illegality at play here is the prohibition against stopping in red zones, something that a cab picking up or dropping off passengers must of necessity do. Cabbies in fact have gotten citations for this in the past (not because of draconian cops, but rather out of concern for keeping traffic moving), and as a result, don't rove around looking for fares.

No longer - at least in downtown and Hollywood. Starting today, in an attempt to foster a "street hail" culture, the city is relaunching a "Hail a Taxi" program in those neighborhoods. The program essentially is a suspension of no stoppage rules (with regard to taxis).

Will it work? When the program was initially launched in July 2008, not enough drivers and passengers knew that it was now okay to hail a cab. Customers didn't have the expectation that they could just go out on the street and get one, and cabs didn't want to waste gas patrolling the streets for customers that weren't out there. Now the city is educating drivers about the program (including giving them lunch boxes promoting it), and is starting a limited public outreach program to educate customers. Ultimately, success will come down to demand, of which I see two sources: small errand-like trips confined to those neighborhoods (say, for shopping), and drunk people. The advantage of a cab to a drunk person is clear, unclear though it may be to the actual drunk person. As for errand runners, I don't know. Maybe I'd like to avoid the headache of parking my own car, but I'd be paying more per mile traveled. And that's sort of the issue here - it's not like cabs are going to become a commuting strategy, so no one's going to give up their car. When you're comparing them with public transportation, cabs offer more convenience that justifies the premium, but they don't have much of a convenience edge over driving your personal car besides avoiding parking fees and being able to talk on your phone without using a hands-free device.

Economically, this could be a boon, I suppose, especially if there really is some added convenience I'm not thinking of and local transportation becomes somehow less of a headache. Carbonically, it seems like kind of a wash, although if there are new shopping trips generated by this, then it's probably not a step forward. And finally, traffically - traffic considerations, after all, are what gave us our status quo. On the upside, there were no reports of added congestion stemming from the program in July. On the downside, the program was so small then that it didn't have any sort of impact on anything.

Thanks Pickle Reader SPM for the tip.