SHORTAGE OF TAXIS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 8

SHORTAGE OF TAXIS

SYDNEY AT CHRISTMAS

WANGANELLA NOT MET

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, December 30.

A shortage of taxi-cabs caused great inconvenience to 300 passengers on the Wanganella on their arrival from New Zealand late on Christmas night.

After they 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 arrived it was rushed 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 people sat on piles of luggage in,the road, prepared to wait hours if necessary. Others, eager to find accommodation, carried their own luggage half a mile to the city. At midnight, an hour after the passengers came ashore, a numberof taxi-cabs arrived and passengers and luggage disappeared.

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 with a large trunk balanced precariously on his head. His wife, also in evening dress, carried a large hat box and two small suitcases. 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 frqm 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 pass 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/*