SHORTAGE OF TAXIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 2

SHORTAGE OF TAXIS

TOURISTS INCONVENIENCED LUGGAGE CARRIED ON BACKS (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY. Dec. 30. A shortage of taxi-cabs caused great inconvenience to 300 passengers on the Wanganella. which arrived here from New Zealand late on Christmas night. After the passengers had left the wharf with their luggage, they found, instead of the waiting dozens of cabs that usually meet every incoming liner, not one to transport them to hotels and homes. When the first taxi-cab arrived it was rushed by a number of men. and the man with the fastest legs engaged it. Half an hour - after the liner had berthed not more than a dozen cabs had visited the wharf. Several oeople sat on piles of luggage in the road, prepared to wait hours if necessary. Others, eager to find accommodation, carried their own mggago half a mile to the city. At midnight, an hour after the passengers came ashore, a number of taxi-cabs arrived. and passengers and luggage disaopeared. In Evening Dress Before the Wanganella berthed there was a Christmas dance on board, and many passengers came ashore in evening dress. A man in a dress suit walked to the city from the wharf wdh a large trunk balanced precariously on his head. His wife, also in evening dress, carried a large hat box and two small suit cases. They “ routemarched ” all the way to a fashionable hotel, where their unconventional arrival created much amusement. The representative of one cab company stated that the demand for cab service on Christmas Day had been exceptionally heavy from early morning until late at night. "We have been unable to cope with the demand,” he said, “Right through the city people have been hailing our cabs, but more often than not we have had to pas? on.” He expressed the opinion that at this holiday time of the year the Government should relax the regulation which prevented taxi-cabs with suburban licences from picking up fares in the city. “It seems absurd,” he added, “that while cabs in the city are unable to handle a rush, many cabs in the suburbs are probably idle.”