Dallas City Hall's Really Not Worried About Taxi Drivers' Threat to Boycott the Super Bowl

Dallas City Hall's Really Not Worried About Taxi Drivers' Threat to Boycott the Super Bowl

By Robert Wilonsky Thu., Jan. 27 2011 at 8:36 AM

Patrick Michels

From the cabbie protest at Dallas City Hall last September

A couple of days back, a Friend of Unfair Park asked, via e-mail: "Have you noticed the number of cabs in Dallas recently? We drove home last night from Cole and Armstrong to the Lakewood area and counted 20 cabs. It looked like NYC. Super Bowl-related influx?" Not sure about that. But Chris Heinbaugh, Mayor Tom's chief of staff, says in The Wall Street Journal this morning that Dallas has "an excess capacity" of drivers, which is why he and City Hall aren't concerned one bit about some cabbies' call for a boycott of the Super Bowl -- which they threatened back in September, after the city voted to allow compressed natural gas-powered taxis hop to the front of the line at Love Field.

Of course, the cabbies also stayed home New Year's Eve. Which didn't seem to bother too many folks. There are some other items of note in the WSJ piece. Let's skip ahead:

The natural-gas program was created to help Dallas meet federal air-quality standards it had violated for years and displace foreign oil at the same time, all without the city spending a dime, Mr. Leppert said in a recent interview. "It is almost a renewable source of energy," he said of the nation's abundant supply of natural gas, some of it trapped right under the Dallas metropolitan area.

Mr. Leppert admits that the 87 natural-gas cabs registered so far -- out of the 1,840 taxis permitted by the city and the 1.9 million vehicles registered in Dallas County -- won't make much of a difference at first. But he hopes to start a trend.

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Darren

Um, dear taxi drivers: instead of boycotting the people WHO PAY YOU MONEY, why don't you just boycott Love Field? Hang out somewhere else where this isn't a problem?

G_David

If you want to see an armada of taxis, go sit on the patio of the Capitol Pub on a weekend night. There seem to be 2 cabs for every car on Henderson.

NewsDog

Robert,Are you on top of the cab protest going on as I type this? It appears a caravan of cabs is headed towards downtown (city hall maybe?) as part two of some protest and they are making a small mess of traffic.

Robert Wilonsky

Yeah, as a matter of fact, Patrick Michels is heading that way now on his way into the office. Just to check it out. He loves protests.

You know what I don't love? That stupid ad to the right of every single page for "Chris" the personal trainer with the "noH8" painted on his/her cheek.....

Rooster

That dude is scary....or at least I think it's a dude....

TheRealDirtyP1

These people would be idiots to boycott the super bowl. That being said, I'm sure it is frustrating for them to lose fares because of their cabs. These guys aren't making a ton of money and can't afford to upgrade their rig probably. Is there a way for them to apply for assistance to do it?

Caamsaa

If corrupted government officials interfere in the market place in favor of there donors, the result is bad for small business owners and consumers. I know most of these drivers are minorities without any political influence in the City government. They have kids in schools, mortgage payment and all kinds of bills to pay like any other citizens during this economy recession. If city want to be roll model of other cities in the nation to be independent of foreign oil, they should subsidies it stimulus money. Not on the expense of the poor and underrepresented part of our societies

Rooster

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