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City councilors: Cabbies, livery drivers causing problems in residential areas

In Jamaica Plain, livery drivers are parking in resident-only spots. In Hyde Park, cab drivers are running their businesses out of their homes. And in Allston/Brighton, cabbies are leaving their personal cars in parking lots, running their businesses 24/7 in residential areas.

City Councilors John Tobin (Jamaica Plain), Rob Consalvo (Hyde Park) and Mark Ciommo (Allston/Brighton) said the city needs to come up with regulations to keep residential areas from being overrun by businesses.

Consalvo, who said "I love tax drivers," said he knows of at least five drivers in Hyde Park who run their operations out of their houses - and is dreading the first "violent act involving a money transfer at 3 in the morning."

Tobin said that while the city has regulations barring commercial vehicles from resident-only spots, they do not apply to livery vehicles. He said the city doesn't even know how many livery licenses there are in the city.


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Comments

Don't most taxi businesses, by default, operate in residential neighborhoods? I mean, they operate where ever you need a pick off and/or drop off. That often includes neighborhoods. Am I gonna ask a cabbie to drive me home and he has to stop at the corner?

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Consalvo wasn't talking about cabs picking up and dropping off people. He was talking about owners of individual medallions who essentially run their businesses out of their homes - parking their cabs there, getting payments from people who drive for them, taking dispatch calls, etc. If you have six or fewer medallions, you don't currently need to garage your cars in a commercial building.

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The city and state can't even stop livery vehicles from illegally parking in residential spaces during RedSox games with dozens of officers around. Somehow doubt anything is going to be done.

With the city hurting for cash, I can not fathom why fines for illegal parking and enforcement of those fines haven't been dramatically increased.

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In Hyde Park, cab drivers are running their businesses out of their homes.

Someone's never heard of the term "home business" or "home office." Also: parking one's cab in front of one's house, or in the driveway, does not constitute "running a cab business out of your home."

Drive around JP in the evening and you'll see plumbers, contractors/woodworkers, real estate agents, shop owners, etc all have their vehicles parked (gasp!) in front of or near their home. I don't see Tobin or Consalvo or Ciommo getting all bent out of shape about that.

Honestly, this just sounds like classism or racism.

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Wow. Dead on.

What next, the Larouchies and their bullhornmobile start sounding sane?

Keep this in mind too: if the drop off at the local Catholic elementary is any indication, the cab is often the family's only vehicle as well. Either that, or many kids are on unusually affectionate terms with their drivers!

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Plumbers and real-estate agents (and, um, people who run Web sites) are not running their business outside in the street at 3 a.m. Cabbies essentially are.

I don't know about where you live, but as somebody who lives awfully close to the Hyde Park line (like six doors down), let me tell you, it gets way quiet here late at night - a car revving up at 3 a.m. right outside your window will wake you up. I know, I know, if you live in a city, yada, yada, but we don't all live in Brighton or the Leather District.

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Our previous residence was owned by and shared with a plumber. He was typically out at 4:30 to 5:00 am. Other tradespeople lived in the area - same thing. This was in leafy suburban Arlington, near the Lexington line. Not a big deal.

I suppose we live in an upscale neighborhood now - that 3am revving is from a Saab belonging to our physician neighbor on call.

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I've heard about this from a few people. A block or two from Consalvo's house there is a house that typically has 5 or 6 cabs in front of it all the time. This is a residential area- all 1,2, and 3 family homes, not obvious businesses. This is a basically cab company being run from the house. And I believe they use the house for maintenance, too.

I've got nothing wrong with cabbies keeping their cabs by the house- the guy 2 doors down from me does, but it is one cab so it is not a big deal.

That's my 2 cents.

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I agree, multiple cabs and doing repairs in the driveway is not cool.

If that's the case, that's what they should have said, though. Based off the information given, this sounded like a bunch of racist NIMBY BS!

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I used to run my 2 livery vehicles out of an office park in Woburn. When the recession crushed business travel, I closed my office and moved my two cars to Belmont, where I live. I used to keep my SUV on the street and my Town Car in the driveway. Then one of the scumbag commuters that park on my street to avoid paying T parking lot fees for the Purple Line keyed my SUV because it took two spaces on my own street. Now I pay $30.00 a month to a neighbor to park in a spare spot in their driveway. Solution,I ask?

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The neighbors get together and get the streets immediately around the commuter-rail stop (yep, we have several - West Roxbury has three in the span of about 1 1/2 miles, which I've never understood) declared "resident only." Dunno if Woburn does anything like that.

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The companies do and the cabdrivers take the cabs and kind of make their own hours.

Most of the complaints I always heard of were the actual cab company lots themselves which operate at all hours of the day. Even though they are commercially zoned, many of them effect the neighbors in some neighborhoods. Allston/Brighton has always had a problem with this. In fact, some out of town cab companies (Cambridge or Brookline?) have taxi lots in Brighton that operate 24/7.

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In Charlestown, is the Sovereign Bank. Taxi drivers swap out peronal vehicles (no residential stickers) and go the bathroom outside at all hours. Complaints to bank have gone unanswered.

Adam: Boston.com has the bruins on at 7pm. The game starts at 8:05 took me 15 minutes to figure this out...WTF

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