Taxi drivers benefit from SEPTA strike
The continuing SEPTA strike is hurting commuters who can’t get to work and businesses who’ve seen sales drop. But one group of area entrepreneurs is making out pretty well, and many of them gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Philadelphia for prayers on Friday.
The continuing SEPTA strike is hurting commuters who can’t get to work and businesses who’ve seen sales drop. But one group of area entrepreneurs is making out pretty well, and many of them gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Philadelphia for prayers on Friday.
Caption: Taxi cab driver Mansour Musa
Listen:
[audio: 091106lftaxi.mp3]
Sounds are just starting to drift out of the speakers in the Mosque’s parking lot.
“prayer sound: Mohammed…”
The parking lot and the streets are packed with cabs. Every few seconds another cabbie pulls up, parks, and the driver walks quickly inside.
Cab driver Abdul Dhis says the SEPTA strike means there’s more traffic for cabs to deal with. But he says there’s a big upside too – business is booming.
Dhis: Maybe 30% more. Yeah we makin more, little bit more.
The strike has increased his business a little, says fellow cab driver Mansour Musa, but he says not everyone seems prepared to pay.
Musa: Two dollars or three dollars they take the bus and it takes them everywhere but when they get in a cab and it comes to $10, $11, you know they start crying, the start complaining, some of them say your meter running fast! This is the problem we face right now.
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