Taxi for a price in Moscow

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 32

Taxi for a price in Moscow

By

PHILIP TAUBMAN

of the “New York Times” News Service Moscow Anyone who has tried to hail a taxi in Manhattan on a wintry night would appreciate the frustration of Muscovites stranded downtown in Arctic conditions this time of year. Although the Moscow subway is justifiably renowned for its grand stations and fast trains, the stops are spread out — particularly in new residential neighbourhoods — and service is suspended in the early morning hours. Bus services also stop. Every night there are clusters of people along Moscow’s broad thoroughfares waving, pointing, sometimes lunging into the street, imploring taxis to stop. Like New York, Moscow has" far fewer taxis than riders. As a result, a flourishing gipsy-cab business has developed that makes the non-medallion taxi trade in New York seem tame. In Moscow, the driver of any vehicle, including a private car, a truck and even an empty ambulance, is likely to stop and

offer a ride for the right price. The business is strictly illegal, but no-one seems to mind the free enterprise. Foreigners as well as Russians use the gipsy cabs.

An American who has lived in Moscow for several years described the time the driver of a trac-tor-trailer gave him a lift, delivering him somewhat incongruously to the door of his apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow.

A Muscovite recalled the time he was picked up by the driver of a street cleaning vehicle who, finished with his day’s work, did not mind taking a detour on the way back to the garage for five rubles. The only vehicles shunned are those that belong to foreigners. The vehicles carry special licence plates — red and white for diplomats, yellow and black for journalists and businessmen — that clearly mark them as offlimits.

Regular Soviet plates are black and white.

Muscovites desperately trying to get a taxi at night often retreat to the

sidewalk and lower their arms if they see that an approaching car belongs to a foreigner.

Private cars have also been turned into floating liquor stores.

With the Government crackdown on drinking making it more difficult to obtain vodka, enterprising car owners have taken to stashing a dozen or so bottles under the front seat and selling them on the move.

The practice has become extremely common, and at night after liquor stores close, people flag down taxis and cars to see if vodka is for sale. Automobiles still seem to be held in a certain amount of awe by many Russians, probably because the mass production of cars is a more recent phenomenon than in the West and private ownership of cars is relatively new for many people.

One result is that once a Russian gets, behind the wheel of even the smallest sedan, he seems to feel he owns the road. Several Muscovites said they were told in driving courses they should never yield to pedestrians. There seems little danger

of that. At any intersection in Moscow when the light turns green, traffic bolts ahead, regardless of pedestrians. Soviet law stipulates that pedestrians have the right of way but several newspaper articles earlier this year reported that when dozens of Muscovites were questioned at crosswalks, none knew about the law.

When a foreigner stops to let pedestrians pass, people at first stop and stare in disbelief. Traffic control is the responsibility of special traffic police from the Gosudarstvennaya Avtomobilnaya Inspecksia, the State automobile inspection bureau.

They are far more numerous and active than their counterparts in New York.

Stationed at every main intersection in Moscow, often in a small observation booth elevated above the road, these militiamen run their turf like small duchies, dispensing justice with a flick of a white baton that signals drivers to stop. They aire equipped with the latest in Western and

Soviet technology, including two-way radios made in the United States, Soviet radar, and breathtesting equipment.' They collect fines on the spot.

A seat-belt w violation costs three rubles ($8.22). In some cases, according to Russians, the police demand to be paid for violations that do not exist, telling drivers, particularly those from out of town, that it will cost five rubles ($11.37) or 10 rubles ($27.40) to continue on their way. Although there are 11 million cars on the road in the Soviet Union, few are used for travel between cities.

There is nothing remotely comparable to hopping in the family car and driving from New York to Philadelphia or Washington.*

One reason is a reliable, low cost train service. Another is the roads, or lack of them.

The main highway between Leningrad and C? Moscow, equivalent to travelling from Boston to ' Washington or San Fran- , cisco to Los Angeles, is two lanes most of the •- > way. '