Survey on residential cab service a waste

I had to restrain myself from laughing when I read the Road Warrior’s Monday column on the survey for residential taxi riders and their satisfaction with taxi service.

I drove a taxi for 12 years. During that time there were “restricted medallions” for cabs that were supposed to service the residential areas. The special medallions never served their purpose as those who had them were allowed to park at several off-Strip casinos.

The lack of service for locals has never been fixed and will never be fixed as taxi drivers typically stay close to the Strip where they can make the most money.

When Uber came to town, members of the Taxicab Authority, in all their wisdom, did away with the restricted medallions and all cabs were allowed to go on the Strip. Even during my tenure as a taxi driver, locals in the more outlying areas would wait up to an hour to get service. I heard this over and over again from locals I picked up.

It is almost beyond belief that the powers that be now want to do a survey. Just what rock have these people been hiding under?

Enter Uber and Lyft. Locals now have great resources for their ride requests. Locals seldom have to wait very long for their Uber or Lyft driver to show up. On top of that, locals, in almost all cases, are taken the shortest route to their destination, not “long hauled” like they might possibly be in a taxi. I am now an Uber and Lyft driver and whenever I am servicing the Strip hotels and taking my rides back to the airport, it is a constant complaint that they were long-hauled from the airport to their destination.

So, in the end, what good is some survey going to do other than waste taxpayer money? Albin Raety Las Vegas

Own goal

In Chris Giunchigliani’s Wednesday commentary urging the Nevada Supreme Court to protect public schools from competition, she inadvertently scored an “own-goal” and made an argument for school choice: If parents had the freedom to choose, many would leave the public schools.

That’s an argument for allowing choice, not against it.

Ms. Giunchigliani then employs the monopolist’s Hail Mary, arguing that competition would harm consumer safety. This is what Nevadans heard recently from those in the taxicab industry in their final attempts to keep Uber illegal.

Ms. Giunchigliani is worried because “private schools are not held to the same … standards” as public schools. This is actually correct. Private schools are held to vastly higher standards than any monopoly provider ever could be. Precisely because private schools do not enjoy the guaranteed revenue stream that public schools receive, they must work that much harder to make their customers (parents) happy, lest they take their children, and accompanying tuition, elsewhere.

Nevada public schooling has enjoyed a monopoly for nearly 150 years. The fact that its defenders are so fearful of parents exercising choice in the schooling of their children only confirms how desperately it is needed. Robert Fellner Las Vegas

One man’s opinion

As an Review-Journal subscriber, I was miffed to see an opinion columnist, Steve Sebelius, on the front page. Mr. Sebelius would not recognize hard, unbiased news if it was a drone hovering over his desk.

I expect we will see him on the front page when the Democrats convene in Philadelphia. Except he will be wearing his “Hillary” T-shirt.

But that is my opinion, and if published, it will be where it belongs — on the opinion page. And that’s exactly where Mr. Sebelius’s opinions belong. Jim Olson Bunkerville