Dear Old City Taxi,

When I first began taking you in the year 1990, Philadelphia was an entirely different city. Fishtown was completely un-Death Cab For Cutie’d, and you’d often take 45 minutes to get there, if the driver didn’t just give up altogether. But that was OK with me. As a non-driver, and someone who was (and still is) completely taken with the romance of a great taxi ride, you made things possible that wouldn’t have been otherwise. Back then, and all through the 1990s, you made a reputation on being a safe, sane cab company; your drivers knew the streets, were polite and helpful, and there was a sense that we were all in this together. In essence, you had that thing that makes local businesses great.

Since then, a lot of things have changed: Whole swatches of the city have been gentrified where there was once nothing but Weird and Blight. An entire new populace of transplants have come in and vastly improved your revenue stream of Drunk And/Or Non-Driving People Who Need To Get To Places. And, I’m happy to report, there are literally hundreds of new places for you guys to take those people to and from. But instead of all of this vastly improving the Old City Taxi experience, it’s actually proved to be disastrous to you for reasons I have never been able to quite fathom (other than just the fact that you’re swamped and always playing catch up, in which case, it’s like, take a fucking number, pal.).

At this point, it almost feels gratuitous to detail the various gripes you’ve inspired in these last bunch of years, as it has seemingly felt like everyone in this city except for you guys has been trying to get their shit together. But briefly: I’ve suffered rude dispatchers. I’ve stayed on hold for 25 minutes at peak times, only to be disconnected. I’ve had drivers that had no fucking clue where they were going, when we were going to pretty obvious and well-known places. I’ve had drivers with a language barrier so massive that you guys should have been paying me for ESL lessons. There’s been cabs that have smelled like fucking nuclear fart zones. I’ve had cabs that have featured loud fundamentalist radio programming of every stripe of Shit I Do Not And Can Not Believe In. I’ve listened to no end of Bluetooth phone conversations from drivers so engrossed that I had to be like “YO!” just make sure we didn’t veer off the path of, you know, where I was paying to go. You get the idea.

All of this has happened on your watch, Old City Taxi. Old City Taxi, whose number I gladly gave to friends and visitors for decades now. Old City Taxi, whose deep hunter green logo for years symbolized to me comfort and assurance that I’d get home safe. I know you still have some great drivers, OCT. I know it for a fact. But for too long, you’ve been selling them out, too, with this shitshow of subpar drivers and shitty service. A handful of years ago, a little service called Avant Garde Taxi sprouted up which, if memory serves, featured some of your ex- best and brightest. They were quickly squeezed out of business. Since then, OCT has been consistently, if nothing else, a total roll of the dice. Well, I’m tired of rolling the dice. I’ve been loyal for so long; I just shouldn’t have to. I’m now on the hunt for a new taxi number to program into my phone; one I feel I can safely put my girlfriend or a visiting out-of-towner into; one where I feel like it’s not all part of some big, uncaring racket; one where I feel like we’re all on the same page.

I’ll miss you, Old City Taxi. But the fact is, we’ve just grown apart. Maybe I’ll hail you on the street sometime soon, but don’t get it twisted: I ain’t your regular anymore. I’m just someone that used to know you.

Love,

Philebrity

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 at 10:27 am.