Rundle: Robert Doyle’s taxi of fools
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Sample conversations you would hear at one of Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle’s proposed four CBD taxi superstops: One:
Two:
Three:
Oh yeah, four taxi superstops and fixed fares will really cut down the frustrations of getting home. I know that there are dangers in writing about Australian life from aways away, but has Melbourne really become Mogadishu on the Yarra? Is it more violent or dangerous than London or New York or any of the other cities where taxis circulate freely? Or is it simply that Bleak City has fallen into the hands of an ex-private school teacher, determined to treat the whole city as a school “house”, with detentions and compulsory games? Surely not. What’s that he said? “Drinking and drug-taking louts who are ruining it for the rest of us…” Oh, okay then. For all the reasons suggested above, and dozens more that will no doubt be suggested in the next few days, Doyle’s taxi scheme is a mad idea, an expression of the fear the boring suburbanite has of the city. If a city is to have anything worthwhile in terms of intensity, speed, fluidity, etc, it has to have a bit of flexibility to it, and being able to flag down a taxi is part of that. Is it possible that punters and drivers could be treated as adults, capable of making their own arrangements, without lining up crocodile-fashion under the watchful eye of Doyle’s prefects? And if the superstops idea is dumb, the fixed-fares thing is at juliebishop level. Every city that’s tried these — Washington DC being the most recent — has abandoned them, for the simple reason that anything more complex than a ride that could be run by a tram throws everyone into arbitrary confusion. Eventually, people just give up and the whole trip record becomes falsified, with tips making up the slack. What Melbourne needs is what all cities need on Fridays and Saturdays — all-night public transport systems, which drain people away, and make the taxi/public transport choice a price one, not a fierce Darwinian struggle for the occasional free cab. Superstops with 200 tired, drunk, cold, shagless people — yeah, that’ll keep the peace. Hopefully, the state government will knock this one on the head. In the meantime, could someone from Doyle’s own party explain the meaning of the word “liberal” to him? |
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5 Comments
I caught a taxi in Melbourne once. I had a girl in the backseat and the driver didn’t charge us. I liked that taxi driver.
Yeah, what he said.
Crazy idea, Rundle should run for Lord Mayor.
Drove taxis for 8 years. Rule of thumb: the further the potential passenger walks to get the taxi, the more sober they are likely to be. So DON’T go to taxi ranks (they are people ranks, not taxi ranks); rather, approach and circle. The most sober (and low-maintenance) passengers will find you.
Will no one rid us of this meddlesome schoolboy.
Come home Guy, we need you.
Did The Taxi Wait at Flinders Street two nights in a row a couple of years ago. Stood there both nights for at least two hours. Never. Ever. Ever. Again. (Of course we could have walked back to bloody Clifton Hill, but after an exhausting night of drinking, a man is just not up for it.)