Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Commuting Woes, Taxis and Uber

Yesterday when I was returning to the hotel there was a serious accident on the train system (RER B). They dumped everyone out in a small suburb and left us to fend for ourselves. The problem was that many passengers were on their way to CDG and were under a time crunch. It quickly became chaos. I checked my metro map and saw that if I could get a few miles up the road, I could connect to a metro station. I couldn't figure out the bus routes and there were long lines waiting for them anyway. So, I decided to get a taxi. Of course, there were none but I thought if I walked counter to the traffic and got out of the scrum, I would have a better chance. (Thank you Google Maps on my Android phone for directing me to a taxi stand) I finally got a taxi and, sharing it with two older ladies, was able to get to my metro stop and back to the hotel.

But here's the thing......it was common information that there was a problem and taxis should have been flocking to the area to get fares (These could have been airport trips, after all) but there seemed to be no sense of urgency. These guy,s who were protesting against Uber a few weeks ago, couldn't, or wouldn't, provide the response necessary.

Today I signed up for Uber.

1 comment:

Old NFO said...

Can't say I blame you... Market driven and all that...