As a fan of NotJustBikes I donate of course. So should you, then you don’t have to use YouTube to watch the videos.
A topic I hope to see a video about is the taxi and the city. Because the taxi:
- cannibalises on public transport (night services are the first to suffer)
- shows up where (drunk) masses gather (events, public transport hubs)
- gets competition from the street rental car
- is not as easy to discipline like public transport is (even criminal) with regard to skills, service, accountability etc
- drives around idle in the city as car kilometers
- is becoming a commodity in the market and losing the luxury product position
- is too often designed for the Autobahn and not the city (like the London cab), let alone accessible for everyone
- usually drives fast/inpolite instead of safe/polite if you don’t explicitly instruct the driver
- licensed in different locales with negative effects elsewhere (coming to the city with a rural license)
- can immobilise the city with a strike for their own interests
- seems to be the only safe refuge for women to return home alone without a car on their own
while on the other hand you need the taxi sooner or later if you don’t own a car. Going to the hospital, stranded at a provincial train station on a Sunday morning (all taxi drivers were working the whole Saturday night to bring the drunk home).
All this came to mind because this morning the City of Amsterdam published their renewed approach to the taxi. With this nice illustration on what the market looks like:
