get your greedy government hands off my taxi service!!!

"I have had cabs I called refuse to pick me up with my bike, how about requiring them to take bikes?" How about not. Bikes do not fit in the trunks of taxicabs, and you have to leave part of them hanging out, and the trunk lid open. Not only is this a safety hazard since it blocks your rear view, it almost always scratches up the paint of the taxi AND the bike. A better idea is for you to take some initiative, find a taxi driver with a minivan, and ask him for his cell number. Of course that would require effort and creativity!
Which is what the root of this whole problem is, really. People see a problem, and, instead of dealing with it creatively, they ask the men with the guns to step in and MAKE everything better. And it never works quite they way it is planned.
Every time you demand that the government (We) do something, a little bit of freedom is killed. Eventually, you will make it so difficult on entrepreneurial people to make a living, that they quit, and go find work elsewhere, leaving none but the dregs behind. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the more regulations you have on taxis in a city, the surlier and rottener the cab drivers seem to be?

In answer to the chart, correlation does not imply causation. Houmes could've used the color of cabs set against the gender of the driver and it would yield the same meaningless results. As for Sightline's whole argument, it's a nifty rhetorical trick called a fallacy of many questions:

A) Taxicabs can't provide me with immediate service.
B) I need immediate taxicab service.
C) Therefore I need more taxicabs willing to provide me service.

Vince Houmes is asking a question that cannot be answered without admitting a presupposition that may be false. Houmes and Sightline both need to look closer at what can make service run more efficiently. For Portland's two largest taxi companies, Broadway and Radio Cab, the use of technology that puts the customer in direct contact with the driver is proving to be a much more effective means of streamlining dispatch and cutting down on drivers chasing orders outside their immediate vicinity. The Taximagic smart-phone application serves this purpose well and is in use at both companies.

I'm concerned that a think tank that positions itself as one tasked with exploring issues of sustainability would immediately leap to a conclusion that simply calls for more of anything over a means of access made more efficient.

Hi all. This is Vince, the fella that wrote the article for Sightline. I agree that the chart doesn't prove that more taxis/capita guarantees a lower fare. My intent with the article was to point out the oddness of the way taxis are regulated in most American cities, particularly the three large ones that Sightline is most interested in: Portland, Vancouver and Seattle. Prices and licenses are capped in these cities, and replaced with boards of (well-intentioned) people who try to divine what the market needs.

The taxi/jitney/towncar market is very complex, and perfect information is not present for either drivers or customers. Fixingp rices and capping licenses is one way to react to an imperfect market, but I believe it's a bit hubristic. If cities are concerned about the problems that may arise from an oversupply of cabs, I think there are better ways to avoid them.

The article is rather short for such a complex issue, but I hope it generates some good discussion. One thing I didn't get to mention is that Portland has a very good law on its books: Taxi licenses belong to the city, not the owner of the cab. Therefore they can't be sold at a tremendous profit, as happens in Seattle and Vancouver. This removes one factor that that can cause cab companies to oppose changes in the number of cabs on the street.

You might consider interviewing actual cab drivers and check out our investment advice. If Taxi Cabs were actually sparse in Portland, all of us drivers ought to be busy every hour of our shift. Trust me, we're not. There are certain points in the day in which demand for cabs might actually exceed supply. 2:00 to 2:30 am on Saturday and Sunday Morning, when the bars closed, is a good example. two hours before that, and it can be challenging for a cab driver to find much business. When I pass out my business card, I encourage people to consider leaving downtown at 1:30 am, or consider getting a meal at the montage or The Roxy, after the bars close--when they actually take that advice, they find I'm more or less available. otherwise, the first person who calls me at 2:00 am, gets the ride.
As for cab drivers refusing fares, either because they only want to take people to the airport, or because they can't fit a bike in the car. With one, it's a matter of having space for the bike. Most drivers that can fit a bike, will take one. (I can fit two plus 4 people) When driver's refuse you, based on where you want to go, it's imperative that you get his cab number, company he works for and date and time and report him to Frank Dufay (Private For Hire Transportation Coordinator) 503-823-5157. Do it, but don't expect instant results. Regulations and Policies seem to be going unenforced these days. The town is becoming flooded with unlicensed cabs, and the ones that are operating sometimes don't behave as ethically as they should. But, if enough people make enough noise, the lame drivers that refuse fares (for god knows what reason--there's no good reason to refuse a fare--short fares take very little time and often feel to me, like free money for doing almost nothing) will get fined and might wise up.
Otherwise, the reality for cab drivers right now, is that we're fighting tooth and nail to just get by. If anything the Portland Market is saturated with cabs for most hours of the day. Add in the high price of gas, and our profits get very pale.