Taxi Cartel
I had this totally solid plan for getting to BWI airport. Get on the Green Line at U Street / Cardozo and take it out to Greenbelt. The train is scheduleed to arrive at 4:35 PM, just in time for the $3 bus leaving at 4:40 and taking me right ot my terminal. Except I didn't have enough money on my card to cover the exit fee for the trip to Greenbelt, so I had to put more cash on while in the station, and wound up missing the bus by about ninety seconds. Next bus not until 5:20. Bad news. Fortunately, there were about a dozen idle taxi drivers in the parking lot and absolutely no one getting in any cabs. Under the circumstances, I figured someone would crack and give me a break on the fare. But no. I was able to take the first guy I approached down from "about $45" to "$40 flat fare" but nobody would go any lower. I make no grand claims for my skill as a negotiator, but since I actually wound up walking away and waiting for the bus it wasn't my ineptitude that stopped the deal from going through.
In the whole time I was waiting for the bus to arrive, two people got in cabs and four other cabs drove away (perhaps on calls) so it was more or less a lose-lose proposition all around. One assumes, however, that the cabbies derive some benefit over the long term from not bargaining against one another. It's interesting that the cartel doesn't operate by simply observing the regulatory floor set by the meter of $40 since setting a price floor would seem to be the purpose of taxi fare regulations. Waiting for the bus, all I could think was "what would Tyler Cowen say about this?" I note that about ten minutes in, the only thing stopping me from cracking was pride. If someone had said "okay, you win, $38.50" I totally would have taken the deal.
Comments
Can't you just take the Columbia Heights stop to Silver Spring, then take MARC straight to the airport? Or is that much more expensive?
If the flat fare is fixed by law (as it is in Chicago), the fact that you look as if you might well be a taxi commission inspector might have something to do with it.
Cranky
Or why not take the Green Line to Gallery Place; transfer there to the Red Line to Union Station; and then take the MARC train directly to BWI? I would never put my fate in the hands of a Metrobus.
There used to be any number of gypsy cabs in DC. This law and order thing has gone way too far if they've all disappeared.
after stubbornly sticking with dulles for a while, and then going to bwi a few times, i've become a national convert. with the yellow line extension i can take the metro direct to the airport off-peak, which is totally sweet. was this like a southwest ding fare or something?
there isn't any enforced flat fare, is there? it's not like greenbelt to bwi is by any means a well-used taxi route.
I would say that in that position pay the extra, years from now you won't notice it. In 1985 I paid a cabbie $100 for an emergency trip from one Milan airport to another, to meet an incoming friend. I worked harder in the meantime to make it up and I am glad I avoided the stress at the time. Also, congratulations on the new job!
Or why not take the Green Line to Gallery Place; transfer there to the Red Line to Union Station; and then take the MARC train directly to BWI?
Because this (a) involves more steps than Metro-to-bus, (b) takes longer, and (c) costs more money. The only flaw in my plan is that I failed to execute it on schedule.
One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that if you are tightly scheduled, something will go wrong.
Next time you're planning to go somewhere and you see that 5-minute connection--forget it.
Jeezus Matt, I would never put my fate in the hands of metrobus either. Hey, now that you're in the big leagues why not grab a cab to BWI and pass the fee along to the expense dept. at the Atlantic?
ok then, 96 bus at 14&U to Union Sta/MARC to BWI. $7.25.
OK, I don't understand the problem. I didn't read anything about missing the flight. (Of course, I'm not sure I understand the timing of the whole thing - he posted this 28 minutes after the next bus to the BWI terminal was scheduled to depart - was he posting on the bus? If so, was that just to impress the folks at the Atlantic about his diligence in posting?)
If no flight was missed, is there a major difference between waiting in the terminal and waiting for the next bus? Did he incur a great deal of extra stress in fear of missing the flight? Why would he consider paying the extra $40?
I've always said that if a bus line doesn't run at least once every 15 minutes, it's a sign that the transportation authority in question doesn't really care about it.
Unfortunately, that MARC line doesn't run on Sundays.
Next time you're planning to go somewhere and you see that 5-minute connection--forget it.
Wise words. All these people in the sitting in the terminal just got word of a delay that will cause them to miss a connecting flight to Australia.
I take the exact route Matt took all the time. It actually works really, really well. You just have to give yourself enough time to account for any Metrorail delays, just in case. Otherwise the bus is always on time at Greenbelt. This happens because the trip is shorter than the time between buses (40 minutes), so the bus always gets there early and waits for 10-15 minutes until it's exactly time to go.
Also, I would posit that the Metrobus haters in this thread probably don't ride the bus a lot.
Cain, you're right, I don't ride the bus a lot. But I do ride it sometimes and my experience has been mixed. I'll give that Greenbelt route a try on my next Southwest flight to Providence, RI.
You don't have a SmarTrip card? They let you run a negative balance when you exit, you just have to put money on it before you use it again.
All I can say is that zoned metro fares suck balls and no dencent metro system would have such a thing. It's _barely_ acceptable for inter-metro rail like BART or suburban rail like SEPTA regional rail but inside the city it's just obnoxious and crazy.
Also, one of the nice things about no longer being a grad student is that paying $8/day for parking at BWI when I take a weekend excursion just isn't that big of a deal to me.
You have to pay for there and back. BWI has a contract that limits taxi pick ups to one company. If a cab takes you out there it cannot pick up a fare to bring back.
You've got to think that the cabbies idling at greenbelt, who are apparently competing with the bus at a 15,000% markup, may not be the savviest of economic actors.
yeah, that would be 1500% . . . guess I'm that savvy either.
I'll just note the alternate option of Amtrak, which is only 25 minutes from Union Station to BWI and costs $12. I imagine this is rather more expensive than the bus option, and would involve switching lines at Gallery Place, but hardly outrageous.
"I've always said that if a bus line doesn't run at least once every 15 minutes, it's a sign that the transportation authority in question doesn't really care about it."
I've wondered about this. There is a point of diminishing returns with transportation. If you can only run the bus infrequently, it will be too inconvenient for people to use, and too few people will use it to justify the cost of the driver and maintenance. Either pay to run the thing every fifteen minutes or don't run it at all. But pulic transit authorities insist on running these forty minute schedules.
I know that Amtrak keeps trying to cut its "one train a day" lines but Congress won't let it, so I suspect a similar political dynamic operates at more local scales.
They wouldn't sell you a trip to the airport for less than the full fare. So? Do you go to empty restaurants and try to buy food at less than the posted price? Magazine stands and buy old magazines at a discount? I doubt it. Why should cabs be any different?
The BWI stop for MARC/Amtrak is a ways from the airport, so you have a medium wait + longish shuttle bus trip to the terminal. The Metrobus from Greenbelt takes you straight to the terminal.
If your only option is to get to BWI with minutes to spare, aren't you better off flying out of DCA (and holding your nose when you see all the signs that say "Reagan")? You end up paying the difference in the taxi fare when you miss your bus connection anyway, plus you don't have to run around so much.
As for BWI, I haven't spent that much time in Washington, but when I did, I used Amtrak to get to BWI and had no problems. Of course, I wasn't racing to make my flight either.
Tyler Cowen probably would have said "Piss poor planning prevents peak performance" (6 P's). Next time, be on time for your bus with a few minutes to spare. If you spent 90 seconds loading money on your card imagine your delight if you had arrived two minutes early.
No, I am not your father.
I think that Matt should see taxi drivers in a more positive light.
Did he give himself too little time to execute his plan? Perhaps not. By budgeting "surely sufficient" time in every place one changes a mode of transportation we may loose a lot of time. It can be better to risk a failure, and in such a rare event pay for a taxi.
So, if the probability of failure was 10%, the amortized cost of the ride was 4.50 rather than 45, which looks much better. Add the principle "self-insure affordable risks" and you have a decent strategy.
It used to be that the "insurance money" had an additional benefit of keeping muggers happy rather than violent. But those were bad old times.
I drove a cab for five years in Boston. cab drivers have pride too. The appearance of someone who is obviously much better off financially trying to argue over 5 dollars would be enough for me to dig in my heels. that is, unless I had been already sitting there for an hour. Then I might just tell the guy "let's just discuss this on the way"
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