taxis as public transport

magicbastarder

AlekSmart wrote: »

This is a situation which will eventually get a thread of it's own I feel.

As I posted earlier in thread,the persistent attempts to portray Taxi's as mainstream Public Transport has brought us to this woebegone scenario.

lifted from the luas thread.

may as well nail my colours to the mast - yes, taxis may provide an option to people who don't have/cant afford cars, some of the benefits of car ownership - but why should we assume those benefits should be afforded greater rights than normal private transport?

e.g. i have a car sitting in the driveway. i could choose to drive through the city centre, or get a taxi. there's no considerable benefit that a taxi provides over me driving - it's still one car ferrying one person across the city - but somehow one person being brought across the city in a car is now considered 'public transport'.

i was only once in the city in the evening since the cross-city luas started, but the experience consistently prior to that, when getting a dublin bus after 10pm, has been that the streets are choked with taxis plying for trade.

ELM327

magicbastarder wrote: »

lifted from the luas thread.

may as well nail my colours to the mast - yes, taxis may provide an option to people who don't have/cant afford cars, some of the benefits of car ownership - but why should we assume those benefits should be afforded greater rights than normal private transport?

e.g. i have a car sitting in the driveway. i could choose to drive through the city centre, or get a taxi. there's no considerable benefit that a taxi provides over me driving - it's still one car ferrying one person across the city - but somehow one person being brought across the city in a car is now considered 'public transport'.

i was only once in the city in the evening since the cross-city luas started, but the experience consistently when getting a dublin bus after 10pm has been that the streets are choked with taxis plying for trade.

But that one taxi can replace 10 journeys by indiviuals.
That's 10 private cars that need to be driven and parked somewhere, then driven home again.

magicbastarder

granted - so if i'm heading to a friend's house, or anywhere else that has private parking, that's not creating any extra burden on public parking. you still have the same number of car journeys being made.

listermint

magicbastarder wrote: »

granted - so if i'm heading to a friend's house, or anywhere else that has private parking, that's not creating any extra burden on public parking. you still have the same number of car journeys being made.

Seems you are looking for scenarios where they dont have the same number of car journeys, but the same can be shown that they do.

i.e impasse.

Long and short of it they provide a necessary public service where out joint up transport thinking is not.

Its gas now that we've 1 single joint up cross city luas line and suddenly taxis are not required.


Long way to go my friend.

magicbastarder

'suddenly'?
there's nothing new about my argument, and i'm clearly not calling for all taxis to be piled up and burned.

i just don't see why they should be allowed use bus lanes.

listermint

magicbastarder wrote: »

'suddenly'?
there's nothing new about my argument, and i'm clearly not calling for all taxis to be piled up and burned.

i just don't see why they should be allowed use bus lanes.

Because they can carry more people more efficiently than you can in your car.

Thats why. The argument falls on its knees tbh.

magicbastarder

lets pretend i'm stupid.
last weekend i drove from my house in glasnevin to visit friends in blackrock. what is it about a taxi ride which would have made it more efficient than me driving?

Sierra Oscar

Putting the enforcement issue aside, are taxis allowed use bus lanes when they don't have any passengers?

magicbastarder

there are a couple of caveats, but the answer in practical terms is a solid yes.

listermint

magicbastarder wrote: »

lets pretend i'm stupid.
last weekend i drove from my house in glasnevin to visit friends in blackrock. what is it about a taxi ride which would have made it more efficient than me driving?

You are ignoring the valid reason from a poster above and putting your own scenario into place for what end i dont know.

Youve already acknowledged that posters example as being fair and correct.

magicbastarder

what i got from that is that taxis should be allowed use bus lanes because of pressure on parking in the city centre. i'm trying to understand the logical link leading from one to the other.

devnull

magicbastarder wrote: »

lets pretend i'm stupid.
last weekend i drove from my house in glasnevin to visit friends in blackrock. what is it about a taxi ride which would have made it more efficient than me driving?

It would create extra traffic as the taxi driver needs to drive from wherever they are to your place to pick you up, a journey that wouldn't be necessary if you drove your own car.

Sierra Oscar

magicbastarder wrote: »

there are a couple of caveats, but the answer in practical terms is a solid yes.

It's infuriating to see empty taxis blocking up the entire College Green arterial route during rush hour. Whatever about occupied taxis providing public transport, empty ones stuck in traffic aren't much use.

srsly78

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Putting the enforcement issue aside, are taxis allowed use bus lanes when they don't have any passengers?

The caveat is only when they are on a job. But in practical terms even if they are empty they will say 'on my way to a pickup'.

listermint

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

It's infuriating to see empty taxis blocking up the entire College Green arterial route during rush hour. Whatever about occupied taxis providing public transport, empty ones stuck in traffic aren't much use.

Very Fair point, but how do you mitigate that from someone who is en route to pick up a fair.

Not easily, if at all.

DesperateDan

But you are not driving around the city collecting people on the streets and depositing them elsewhere en masse.

You can't honestly think 10 single journeys in 10 cars is completely comparable to 1 taxi doing 10 staggered journeys?

Sierra Oscar

listermint wrote: »

Very Fair point, but how do you mitigate that from someone who is en route to pick up a fair.

Not easily, if at all.

I'm not sure what law / regulation covers this specific issue, but it could be changed to specifically say that the passenger has to be in the taxi to allow it use College Green. Let taxi drivers find an alternative route when going to pickup a fare. They can advise passengers how long it will take them to arrive and behaviour will just have to change all round with people realising they need to allow more time between booking and pickup.

Of course the easier option is to just ban taxis from College Green entirely, at least during rush hour.

marno21

Let it be that taxis can use College Green if they have a fare to drop off or pick up within that area.

Empty taxis routing through there is of no benefit to anyone except the drivers. There are plenty of alternative routes

Sierra Oscar

So it begins ...

Top-end hotels object to taxi ban in College Green plaza plan

Six of Dublin’s best-known luxury hotels, including the Merrion, Shelbourne and Westbury, have appealed to An Bord Pleanála against plans to ban taxis from the proposed new civic plaza at College Green.

Constant Curiosity

ELM327 wrote: »

But that one taxi can replace 10 journeys by indiviuals.
That's 10 private cars that need to be driven and parked somewhere, then driven home again.

WHAT?!
why can't you do same as one taxi with 10 journeys, and you in your car with 10 stops? am i missing something

magicbastarder

DesperateDan wrote: »

But you are not driving around the city collecting people on the streets and depositing them elsewhere en masse.

You can't honestly think 10 single journeys in 10 cars is completely comparable to 1 taxi doing 10 staggered journeys?

in terms of road miles travelled? well, it's trivial. in the example above, me getting from my house to my friend's house involves an 18km drive. it would be either the same length or longer than that in a taxi. except the taxi driver - unless s/he gets lucky and is picking other passengers up where they are doing dropoffs - will be driving around on their own between fares.

mdebets

You can read a good explanation as to why taxis are important here with some studies done in the US.

AlekSmart

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Putting the enforcement issue aside, are taxis allowed use bus lanes when they don't have any passengers?

The relevant wording is "In the course of business".....many Taxidrivers will tell you that they are like Gardai...never off duty

The core of the issue is not the banning of Taxis,but imposing,an obviously badly needed,element of regulation upon their free access to area's of the City Centre where their presence is NOW acting against the interests of the Greater Public Transport Using Public.

Most late-night users of both Bus and Luas in the City Centre area,will be well versed in the anarchy the Taxi Driving fraternity impose upon their non-customers,due in the main to what appears to be an orchestrated campaign to ignore large segments of both the Road Traffic Acts,and the SPSV regulations.

It should NOT be about having to beg an Asst Garda Commissioner for some resources to impose order on the sector,it should be about having a sector whose members had a degree of respect for those regulations in the first place.

ELM327

antongavrikov wrote: »

WHAT?!
why can't you do same as one taxi with 10 journeys, and you in your car with 10 stops? am i missing something

Where do you park the other 9 cars?
And if you repeat this on a larger scale of 1000 taxis to 10000 private journeys, where do you store the 10000 private vehicles? You see why taxis work?

magicbastarder

is that it so? taxis work because of parking?

ELM327

magicbastarder wrote: »

is that it so? taxis work because of parking?

If that's what you want to believe, I guess?
In the real world however of course not.

ThisRegard

ELM327 wrote: »

Where do you park the other 9 cars?
And if you repeat this on a larger scale of 1000 taxis to 10000 private journeys, where do you store the 10000 private vehicles? You see why taxis work?

Carparks. They're off the roads then instead of taking up road space, either by parking (you know the state of the ranks around the city, both official and unofficial) or driving around aimlessly.

The claim that taxis are more efficient is baseless.

ELM327

ThisRegard wrote: »

Carparks. They're off the roads then instead of taking up road space, either by parking (you know the state of the ranks around the city, both official and unofficial) or driving around aimlessly.

The claim that taxis are more efficient is baseless.

Lets get rid of them for 1 week so as a test.

ThisRegard

Nobody, apart from you, has mentioned anything about getting rid of them.

bigar

The concept of Taxis as Public Transport I will never understand. To me it is private car hire and they should be treated as such. So no use of bus lanes and no taxi stands, call out only. A lot taxi journeys are not even that far so they can be easily walked or cycled.

ELM327

ThisRegard wrote: »

Nobody, apart from you, has mentioned anything about getting rid of them.

But they are obviously so inefficient going by the detractors on this thread.
Why not get rid altogether?