Salt Lake City Airport officials are going to start limiting the number of taxicabs that can wait in line to provide on demand service.
Starting June 15, the number of ground transportation vehicles that can be waiting at the airport will be limited to 25. Bianca Shreeve is a public relations manger for the Salt Lake City Department of Airports. She says the decision is meant to push more taxis into downtown.
“Recently we’ve been hearing feedback from the Salt Lake Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, members of the tourism industry, that the ground transportation access is not currently adequate," she says. "We don’t have enough taxis downtown getting people to where they need to be.”
Nedim Alajbegovc has been a cab driver for 8 years. He and several other drivers I spoke to said the idea that there aren’t enough taxi’s downtown couldn’t be further from the truth.
“How is city need cab? City is full of Uber and Lyft," he says. "Uber, Lyft, City Cab, Yellow Cab, Ute Cab, plus private transportation, plus hotel shuttle. We go downtown and check it, how many cabs has it downtown. Enough. More than enough.”
Alajbegovc says he attributes most of the problem to the city council’s decision to open up the airport to any transportation service. He also says he expects the new limit will increase wait times for customers at the airport, but airport officials insisted that customers won’t even notice the difference.
