Since last week's planned launch of the taxi share experiment was marred by the snow, the Taxi and Limousine Commission said that pilot would begin today. But when we stopped by the stand on the Upper West Side, we only saw a tiny sign indicating that there was a taxi share stand, a TLC vehicle, three members of the press, and van parked where taxis would presumably pull up—no taxis, no would-be passengers. Sad trombone.
Cityroom was even moved to compose poetry about the debut: "Not a person showed, not a taxi arrived / The grand cab-share experiment had gone awry! / The signs, cabbies said, were small and ill marked; / Drivers couldn’t tell where to park"...and so forth.
We asked TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus about his department's expectations, and he said in an e-mail, “I would hesitate to characterize the project’s very first day in terms of expectations. We have, and will continue to aggressively reach out to both potential passengers and taxicab drivers, and now that the stand is off the ground, word of mouth will bolster our efforts and help the participation to grow over the coming weeks and months. Considering what we wanted to accomplish, today was a good day, and not at all about numbers.”
There are two other taxi share stand locations—East 72nd Street and Third Avenue and West 57th and Eighth Avenue—that operate during the morning rush hour and all the taxis have the same destination, Grand Central Terminal. It does seem to be a steal, since each person would pay $3 (from 57th) or $4 (from East and West 72nd Streets)—the regular base fare is already $2.50 plus the 50 cent NY State surcharge.
