Transit

During the first wave, Greyhound closed it's services in Canada. They pretty clearly couldn't take the financial hit from the reduction of passengers due to so many people staying at home. They claimed that this was a temporary measure, but recently they announced their permanent closure across the nation.

This sucks for me, because as you probably know, my mother and brother live in Guelph, and Greyhound was the only real transit option between Guelph and Kitchener. Despite the fact that it's not a great distance between the two cities, and there is a demand, it's far more difficult to make the trip possible than it should be.

Greyhound's competitor is Go Transit, which has buses and trains. The only option Go provides between Guelph and Kitchener is an incredibly minimal train service for people who commute for work. This means it runs only from Kitchener to Guelph in the morning on weekdays, and from Guelph to Kitchener in the evenings on weekdays. This sounds like it's for people in Kitchener who need to work or go to school in Guelph. I would've thought it would be the other way around.

There are Go bus stops in both Guelph and Kitchener, but they don't connect. If you want to take a bus between the cities, you need to go all the way to Brampton, which is an absurd detour.

I'm gonna miss those Greyhound ticket sellers. The one guy who was always talking about how much younger he looked than he was, the woman who always made a big deal about remembering how to spell my name, and the woman who kept trying to pitch payment plans specifically for Guelph-Kitchener. There was the guy with the forearm tattoos on the Guelph side but I think he got to keep his job, since the station he works at deals with Via Rails and Go as well. Never going to see him though, because I've got a Presto card that I can put money on anywhere. Even though I could buy Greyhound tickets online, I often seemed to wind up buying them over the counter.

I mean, I know it's a little premature to be making home visits anyway, but I don't like feeling trapped.

There's always the option of dropping like $50 on an Uber, but that's not fiscally responsible, and then you're stuck making awkward conversation for half an hour.

Since we're on the topic of transportation, let's talk about Uber vs. taxi. When I worked factories, I used to take a taxi into work on Sundays because the buses didn't run that late. I used to joke that on Sundays, I worked my first two hours for free, because what I made in that time was about what I paid in cab fare.

When I came to Kitchener, Uber didn't yet exist, and I occasionally used taxis. Somewhere down the line, Uber got big and I eventually transitioned to mostly using that service. Not going to lie, every once in a while I see a taxi and I'm surprised that they still exist. I'm still aware of the pros and cons of each system, so let's go over them.

One thing I like about taxis is that they're clearly marked. Uber vehicles often have the little sticker on the windshield but it's less distinct. You can hail a taxi if you're in a hurry (and this is the only reason I've taken taxis occasionally since Uber rolled in), but you have to order Uber through the app, so you can't really hail them. Taxis tended to congregate in certain areas, like Fairview Mall and Charles St Terminal, so if you were near one of those places, you could make a pretty reliable gamble that you could get a cab quick.

You can pay cash in a cab, unlike Uber. I know that it's an assumption nowadays that everyone has a smart phone and credit card, but that's not always true and in this way the taxi system is more inclusive.

Taxi companies have a certain number of wheelchair accessible vehicles on standby. Since Uber uses the personal vehicles of their employees, it's very unlikely that you will be able to get one of these through that system.

Taxi companies are more forgiving. In an Uber, the end of each trip, the passenger and the driver get to rate each other. If your overall rating dips beneath a certain level, the drivers can reject you, and if the driver's score dips low enough, they might lose their job. There is no such system for taxis.

Some cab companies are small enough that you can make deals with them. For example, our accessible public transit system hasn't always reached everyone that's needed it (although it's improved!) and Waterloo Region's local cab company stepped in to fill the void, giving discounted services to specific people and locations. That level of communication is difficult to have with a company as large as Uber.

So those are the benefits of taxis. You can hail them, you don't need a credit card or smart phone, you can get a wheelchair accessible vehicle, you're less likely to get banned from the service, and it's easier to communicate with the people who run the organization.

As far as Uber goes, it used to cost a third of the price of cab fare. That's mostly why I originally switched over, but it's not true anymore. Both services cost roughly the same now.

It's still more convenient. With taxis, you have to pay after finishing the trip. With Uber you just hop out and go on your way. You also don't have to call anyone, you just plug your info into the app. This is very appealing for an introvert like myself.

But... and I feel bad for saying this, the biggest difference for me concerning my average experience between the two is that Uber has a better customer service. When I was talking taxis, I said that their system is more forgiving and phrased it as a positive, but there's a clear benefit to having the rating system. When passenger and driver have the opportunity to wreck each other, they're incentivized to get along. I've met a number of creepy or erratic cab drivers in the past, but I've never had trouble with an Uber driver. 

They don't carry cash, which is less accessible, but this way there isn't the danger of passengers trying to rob them, or passengers running away without paying fare since it's already been automatically charged.

I've had taxi drivers try to scam me by intentionally taking longer routes. Uber has an electronic system that indicates how the driver should reach their destination. Apparently whenever cab drivers said their debit machine was broken and you needed to pay cash, sometimes offering to drive you to the nearest ATM, that was a scam too, because if they get cash they're paid immediately, while card had a delay.

So in the end, I kind of like taxi companies, especially smaller businesses, because they're overall more accessible, but Uber feels safer and has better customer service.