Flag A Cab San Francisco

Taxi! The Best Cities in the World to Hail a Taxi Revealed

DALLAS – Las Vegas taxis have been again voted the best taxis in the United States, according to the annual taxi report compiled by hotels.com®, the leading provider of lodging worldwide. Almost 5,000* travelers from 23 countries around the world provided their views on various aspects of traveling by taxi. The cabs were judged on seven categories – cleanliness, value, quality of driving, knowledge of the area, friendliness, safety, and availability.

Sin City ranked number one as the best taxi destination in the U.S.to hail a cab to beat the other major U.S. destinations, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco. Las Vegas taxis were rated in four of the seven categories examined, including taxis and own the best ride quality with the best drivers of value and friendly, each received 16 percent of the vote.

In New York

Home of famous yellow taxi and The Discovery Channel "The Cash Cab," New York taxi drivers have been classified as the most competent drivers (30 percent) and more available (37 percent) in the nation. However, survey results highlighted that travelers voted those cabs as some of the worst in the nation in the other categories surveyed. Travelers found that New York taxi drivers lacked friendliness, quality driving, and the city’s cabs provided the least value and lacked cleanliness. New York taxis were overwhelmingly rated the least friendly with 42 percent of the votes and the worst drivers with 44 percent of the votes.

International

London’s iconic black cabs were rated the best (and most expensive) in the world for the fourth year running. London was placed top in five out of the seven categories including safety, friendliness, cleanliness, quality of driving and knowledge of the area. London’s taxis beat competition from other top international destinations including New York (favorite among nine percent of travelers) and Hong Kong (third with seven percent of the vote). Tokyo and Singapore completed the global top five receiving 7% and 6% of the vote respectively, displacing the German city of Berlin and capital of Thailand, Bangkok from last year’s top five.

San Francisco Sentinel » Blog Archives » Municipal Transportation ...

TaxiTownSF.com

The MTA Board of Directors gave San Francisco taxi drivers a 40 cent increase in the taxi meter flag drop rate at its Tuesday regular meeting August 2nd, 2011.

This means that passengers will pay an increased starting rate from $3.10 to $3.50, when entering a cab. The flag drop meter increase comes on top of a previous distance and time rate increase approved in May.

According to the SF Examiner, the total increases will mean that a three mile cab ride with a three minute wait time will go up from $10.75 to $12.85. And, according to The Sacramento Bee, an average trip from downtown San Francisco to SFO will go up from about $35.00 to $41.00.

The rate increase was approved by the Board unanimously. It is the first raise that taxi drivers in San Francisco have received in eight years, and will reportedly go into effect in about 30 days.

The MTA also voted overwhelmingly to issue 87 new medallions. This will will include 50 “single operator” medallions, 35 full-time regular medallions, and 2 electric taxi vehicle medallions.

Director Bruce Oka was the dissenting vote in a 6-1 majority vote, citing the new 50 “single operator” medallions as the grounds to oppose. He was in favor of more full-time cabs. Oka had also previously said in a May 17th Board meeting that a meter increase should not be granted without a gate increase to the cab companies.

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