Taxi rides: Do we really need it?
| DATE: 2007-09-20 | PRINT | Share
MALE, September 20, 2007 (Haveeru News Service) -- It was raining -- hard. It was unlikely that I would get a cab soon. But I had to try. I needed to go from Maafanu ward to Henveiru and I had to carry something heavy with me -- the only reason why I would get the services of a car or motorcycle to ‘carry’ me.
I started calling taxi center after center but all the lines were ‘busy’. This wasn’t surprising as many cabbies claim that they would rather not drive on the puddle-covered streets (we may have paved streets but that’s in name only) because their cars may get damaged.
Finally, when the rain thinned, I finally got through to a center whose line was not ‘engaged.’ And even that center’s operator took a while to answer my call and I suspected that it might be to discourage any callers and that the operator was only grudgingly responding because he or she knows in advance that the drivers running under his or her center would be unwilling to have their cars damaged.
I asked him whether he could give me the number of the cab that would be coming and I heard him clearly calling over for any taxis which may be available for me.
After what seemed like a long while, during which I was quite excruciatingly conscious of my credits running over my prepaid, the operator came back online and replied to me that there is no cab available near my home.
I was surprised; my home was on a major street with many taxis using it. And since taxi centers have divided each of the capital’s four wards into segmented areas, there was no apparent reason why there should be no taxis available near my home.
I thanked him and started trying other centers. This time I got hold of most centers but they had the same response: no taxis were available near my place.
I started walking down Male’s main street Majidi Magu in the hope of hailing down one. But at the same time I kept trying the centers in the hope that I will get a taxi without having to waste any extra more time than already wasted.
One of the taxis heading from west to east slowed down and I climbed into it. The driver was familiar and I struck a conversation with him regarding the difficulty of getting taxis in this two-square-kilometer island.
“There are over a 100,000 people here and 600-plus taxis ain’t just enough,” argued my taxi driver friend who I will call Mohamed.
“It would have been easier to get taxis if people called up taxis only for necessary rides,” he said.
He went on to say that as most Maldivians are “lazy”, they would rather take a taxi “to go to a place on the next street” and that if some people had their way, “they would rather have us taxis stop right in front of their rooms!”
It is true that what is fueling taxis and the congestion of Male’s streets with motorcycles is our lazy lifestyle but what Mohamed failed to point out is that even some taxi drivers, once contented with the daily required amount of income they get, would rather laze around than go on about their social duty of providing transport for the people.
“Whether we have 600 or 6,000 cabs, it won’t make much of a difference,” a reader commented to Haveeru last week.
The question then is, how can we overcome the problem of transport, specifically the difficulty in getting taxis in Male?
Should the government build sky trains like in congested Bangkok? But it will be senseless to spend such a huge investment for a small place like Male’ where you can walk to a place within 15 to 20 minutes. Such a huge expenditure deserves more to be spent on building a bridge between Male and Hulhumale so that the necessary transport infrastructure may be laid in order to make a 60-million-dollar settlement like Hulhumale successful.
Thus it underlines the importance establishing a public transport system in Male with the use of buses. The government had in fact temporarily introduced bus services when taxi drivers went on strike earlier this year to protest against the oil price hike. Transport Minister Mohamed Saeed then had said that the government will immediately put into operation all the arrangements that will be necessary to set up a bus transport system in Male. Saeed had even gone on further to say that action will be taken against those taxi drivers who had gone on strike interrupting their critical social service without any prior notice. However, like all ministerial pledges, Saeed’s promises seem to have vanished up in smoke.
After my ride was over, I called up a friend who works at a taxi center. We spoke at length and he had this advice to give me: “Calling up taxi centers, waiting for the taxi to come, and then finally reaching your destination -- it will take around 15 to 20 minutes. So why not just walk without spending that extra 15 or 20 bucks? Why go through all that inconvenience of being stuck in traffic jams when you can steadily and without getting sweaty and all that stress get to your destination by planning every appointment 20 minutes ahead? We Maldivians seem to be always in a hurry but what’s the rush in life? Just because this is such a small place doesn’t mean that we should always lead a jittery and impulsive life.”
My friend then went on to the philosophical thinking behind walking: “See, walking does not just improve your physical well-being but it’s also something that contributes to your mental well-being as walking helps to relax the brain and unleash its creative powers. As an artiste and writer, you should really think about that.”
I thought about it alright. And it all made sense. I then decided to let go of my earlier plan to buy a motorcycle for Ramadan. What the heck, I thought, why should I race to get a motorbike just because most everyone around me are brainwashed with consumerism, the capitalist evil that is deluding us by making us think that buying things, possessing things, would make us happy, in fact when money spent on unnecessary luxury, due to social and peer pressure, is subconsciously making us extremely unhappy?
| DATE: 2007-09-20 | PRINT | Share
MALE, September 20, 2007 (Haveeru News Service) -- It was raining -- hard. It was unlikely that I would get a cab soon. But I had to try. I needed to go from Maafanu ward to Henveiru and I had to carry something heavy with me -- the only reason why I would get the services of a car or motorcycle to ‘carry’ me.
I started calling taxi center after center but all the lines were ‘busy’. This wasn’t surprising as many cabbies claim that they would rather not drive on the puddle-covered streets (we may have paved streets but that’s in name only) because their cars may get damaged.
Finally, when the rain thinned, I finally got through to a center whose line was not ‘engaged.’ And even that center’s operator took a while to answer my call and I suspected that it might be to discourage any callers and that the operator was only grudgingly responding because he or she knows in advance that the drivers running under his or her center would be unwilling to have their cars damaged.
I asked him whether he could give me the number of the cab that would be coming and I heard him clearly calling over for any taxis which may be available for me.
After what seemed like a long while, during which I was quite excruciatingly conscious of my credits running over my prepaid, the operator came back online and replied to me that there is no cab available near my home.
I was surprised; my home was on a major street with many taxis using it. And since taxi centers have divided each of the capital’s four wards into segmented areas, there was no apparent reason why there should be no taxis available near my home.
I thanked him and started trying other centers. This time I got hold of most centers but they had the same response: no taxis were available near my place.
I started walking down Male’s main street Majidi Magu in the hope of hailing down one. But at the same time I kept trying the centers in the hope that I will get a taxi without having to waste any extra more time than already wasted.
One of the taxis heading from west to east slowed down and I climbed into it. The driver was familiar and I struck a conversation with him regarding the difficulty of getting taxis in this two-square-kilometer island.
“There are over a 100,000 people here and 600-plus taxis ain’t just enough,” argued my taxi driver friend who I will call Mohamed.
“It would have been easier to get taxis if people called up taxis only for necessary rides,” he said.
He went on to say that as most Maldivians are “lazy”, they would rather take a taxi “to go to a place on the next street” and that if some people had their way, “they would rather have us taxis stop right in front of their rooms!”
It is true that what is fueling taxis and the congestion of Male’s streets with motorcycles is our lazy lifestyle but what Mohamed failed to point out is that even some taxi drivers, once contented with the daily required amount of income they get, would rather laze around than go on about their social duty of providing transport for the people.
“Whether we have 600 or 6,000 cabs, it won’t make much of a difference,” a reader commented to Haveeru last week.
The question then is, how can we overcome the problem of transport, specifically the difficulty in getting taxis in Male?
Should the government build sky trains like in congested Bangkok? But it will be senseless to spend such a huge investment for a small place like Male’ where you can walk to a place within 15 to 20 minutes. Such a huge expenditure deserves more to be spent on building a bridge between Male and Hulhumale so that the necessary transport infrastructure may be laid in order to make a 60-million-dollar settlement like Hulhumale successful.
Thus it underlines the importance establishing a public transport system in Male with the use of buses. The government had in fact temporarily introduced bus services when taxi drivers went on strike earlier this year to protest against the oil price hike. Transport Minister Mohamed Saeed then had said that the government will immediately put into operation all the arrangements that will be necessary to set up a bus transport system in Male. Saeed had even gone on further to say that action will be taken against those taxi drivers who had gone on strike interrupting their critical social service without any prior notice. However, like all ministerial pledges, Saeed’s promises seem to have vanished up in smoke.
After my ride was over, I called up a friend who works at a taxi center. We spoke at length and he had this advice to give me: “Calling up taxi centers, waiting for the taxi to come, and then finally reaching your destination -- it will take around 15 to 20 minutes. So why not just walk without spending that extra 15 or 20 bucks? Why go through all that inconvenience of being stuck in traffic jams when you can steadily and without getting sweaty and all that stress get to your destination by planning every appointment 20 minutes ahead? We Maldivians seem to be always in a hurry but what’s the rush in life? Just because this is such a small place doesn’t mean that we should always lead a jittery and impulsive life.”
My friend then went on to the philosophical thinking behind walking: “See, walking does not just improve your physical well-being but it’s also something that contributes to your mental well-being as walking helps to relax the brain and unleash its creative powers. As an artiste and writer, you should really think about that.”
I thought about it alright. And it all made sense. I then decided to let go of my earlier plan to buy a motorcycle for Ramadan. What the heck, I thought, why should I race to get a motorbike just because most everyone around me are brainwashed with consumerism, the capitalist evil that is deluding us by making us think that buying things, possessing things, would make us happy, in fact when money spent on unnecessary luxury, due to social and peer pressure, is subconsciously making us extremely unhappy?
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