Originally Posted by
TominLazybrook
Again, the strike was on FRIDAY. The bad taxi behavior was on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday....BEFORE the strike happened. This had nothing to do with the bus strike. We used the bus to get around because the cabs weren't. There was no statement of solidarity sent out.
The cabs were all in their cab ranks, parked with no driver inside, where they would wait, empty, until someone from the Pitti called them. The Pitti ended on Thursday...and guess what....you could get a cab on Friday with some difficulty during the strike.
Basically, the two cab companies just rented out all of their cabs to the fashion show. So that they could make more money. And strand thousands of people in Florence that week.
If Uber was operating in Florence that week, they'd be surging the hell out of fares. And guess what? That would have been better because at least someone could actually get a cab.
People waited three hours for a cab in the 100 degree heat at Florence's train station during the fashion show, while 200 cabs stood empty in taxi ranks within a mile radius. They weren't protesting anything. Don't kid yourself. They were waiting on non-metered fares coming from the Pitti.
Its pretty clear, Uber may be a jerk, but so are the cab companies. At least if Uber is operating....people can actually get around. If the cab drivers were trying to protest Uber, a company that doesn't even operate in Florence by the way, by doing what they did, its incredibly counterproductive.
I really don't think this is the case. Disgruntled people may blame the taxis, but the taxis of the city did not all abandon their vehicle to wait to take people from the Fashion show off the meter at a higher price.
Yes, there was a transportation disaster covered by the news media, but nobody said that was the cause. Two months ago I arrived to NYC Penn Station, 1.5 hours early for a meeting on 96th and 5th. Maybe three miles. One would think that as in Rome Termini, there would be lines and lines of taxis. There were none. I walked 8 blocks to Times Square and waited 20 minutes trying to hail a taxi along with seemingly 50 other people. No taxis. Walked 12 blocks to the next major area, 59th street and Central Park South. No taxis. Offered a bellman $10 to get me one. He couldn't.
Showed up 45 minutes late after walking about 40 blocks before I could find a taxi. This was not a special occasion. It was just average. Try getting a tax in NYC when it's raining.
Uber is not going to be the solution in Italy because now that position of the EU is that they must have a license, insurance, a professionally inspected car, and must operate according to the same rules as every other person entrusted to drive a stranger. They are no longer considered a website. They are considered a transportation company.
By law they can no longer say, "whether the driver is a criminal, has a safe car, and insurance, is not our business. We are just a website the links people together, like Match.com. We have nothing to do with what happens to you on your date or travel. Uber is now regulated, so they are dropping out, and that's why they are not active in Florence. .
The real reason why there were no taxis was well covered by the news.
http://www.firenzetoday.it/cronaca/t...-traffico.html I can't translate it all because of copyright, but I can provide a few excerpts.
"We told them months ago, we are not London, we don't have a Metro, there was a Radiohead concert, the Pitti International Fasion Show, and the semi-final soccer play-offs. We deployed many extra cabs, but 83% of our drivers reported themselves as stuck in immovable traffic because of all of the events, plus the massive influx of June tourists. We warned them months ago. We put one hundred extra taxi drivers out there, and all that happened was that they were stuck in traffic and couldn't get to their car. And don't propose Uber as a solution. They only have 30 drivers in all of Florence who have a license, a car that passes inspection, and insurance."
That's a quick and admittedly rushed translation of the news, but Florence was just so darn crowded that it hit its usual summer gridlock. Taxi drivers couldn't even get to the city center where they parked 100 extra cars, and asked drivers from the suburbs, who can't afford to live in the city center, to drive the extra cars, but none of the drivers could get to them. Florence was in its usual Summer gridlock state.
Florence and Venice are gridlocked in the summer. There are plenty of ways around it in Venice.