Taxi Driver Online

One of my pet subjects, so this is utterly fascinating - I suppose people might call me a 'taxi rank-spotter'

But looks like a cul-de-sac with a huge rank running down either side, and with the drivers needing to do a three-point turn at the bottom to come up the other side and get back out.

Obviously a u-turn would be preferable for the drivers, but looking at the design I think they should be grateful for the space they're allocated here, rather than moaning and trying to make it absolutely perfect for the trade.

(The photo shows a wee indent in the pavement to the right, which looks like where the cars do the three-point turn - not ideal, but chances of the council widening the road so they can u-turn seems remote - maybe drivers should be careful what they wish for )

And the property owner with the vacant premises seems to want it totally pedestrianized, which would presumably mean bye-bye rank

So I think the trade would be better trying to simply retain the rank rather than wanting the carriageway made wider so they can u-turn rather than do a three-pointer


Taxi drivers want Ipswich council to broaden Lloyds Avenue

https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/2420 ... ds-avenue/


Image: Ipswich Star

High-res version of the photo here...
https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/resources/images/17898949

An Ipswich taxi driver has called for Lloyds Avenue to be broadened to allow the public to more easily access their vehicles.

Lloyds Avenue on Ipswich's Cornhill has been chosen as a key location for redevelopment by the Ipswich Borough Council.

This funding will come from the council's Town Fund, which was a £25million deal granted in 2021 - half of the deal have been designated redevelopment projects.

The avenue currently has a taxi rank in between the vacant Debenhams and Lloyds Bank "is not wide enough", says taxi driver Steve Becker.

"It does not allow for space to even U-turn on this road with a dead-end," he added.

Mr Becker said other drivers like him want the road to be made wider so that it is more accessible for them.

The council has previously acknowledged this and carried out a consultation on February 21 with taxi drivers to ask for their views on the concept and design of the area.

An Ipswich Borough Council spokesman said: "With funding being provided by the Towns Fund, this public realm improvement project is underway, and those businesses potentially affected by any redevelopment have been consulted by the project team about the early concept designs."

Amongst those businesses is Unex, the owner of Ipswich's former Debenhams department store which has been vacant since 2021.

Adrian Morris, Unex's managing director, had previously told the BBC the firm had seen interest in the building – but the avenue needs to be pedestrianised to secure a deal.

He said: "However due to the depth of the floor plates we do ideally need Lloyds Avenue to be pedestrianised to make it more appealing to potential tenants that will front onto Lloyds Avenue."

However, taxi driver Andrew Scott disagrees with this notion.

He said: "It's not going to help if the area is pedestrianised – how would it work if people can't get their shopping bags to us in the taxi rank?

"We drivers want to see the opposite of this, we want a larger area, more space for taxis and more space for shoppers overall."

The proposal for Lloyds Avenue will be discussed in early May.

This is the StreetView from the other end of the cul-de-sac, with the turning point for the taxis presumably at the bottom left here - looks fine to me, and chances of narrowing all these pavements to help moaning drivers turn round here seem less than zero

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0584464 ... ?entry=ttu

But the other interesting thing isn't mentioned in the article - what's actually going on here in terms of the official rules and rank etiquette?

Is it one big rank and thus one side is a feeder rank, effectively? Or are they two separate ranks, officially?

The design is very like our old bus station rank, and there it was just a free-for-all. So to that extent there might be four main pick-up points on the Ipswich rank, namely the front and back cars on either side of the street

And the lone car on one side in the Streetview is interesting in that regard - is he simply first car on the official rank on one side, or is he just trying to steal a march on the other drivers by hanging back at the front of the feeder side? My own experiences would suggest the latter, but who knows.

But what we do know, of course, is that it wouldn't happen like that in Market Harbourough

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.058953, ... ?entry=ttu

And that's the streetview from the other direction - check out the gap between the first and second cars - locally, on occasion passengers would get into car 2 rather than the car in pole, merely because of the huge gap between the two cars

And the driver of cab 2 would just grab the fare (unless, perhaps it was a half-mile card-payment student run, say ).

But, as I said, our bus station rank was very similar in design to the Ipswich rank as it's currently arranged. Not perfect, but along came the council and they actually proposed abolishing the rank altogether to make more space for the buses, and they only reconsidered once drivers had threatened a blockade or something like that (the rank wasn't really a regular haunt of mine back then about 2000, so I never really got involved).

But the redesign made such an ar$e of the whole thing that for the likes of me it's now almost totally off-limits and, for example, has caused a lot of conflict between the taxi drivers and bus drivers, which just didn't happen with the old design.

So, as regards the Ipswich drivers, maybe they should be careful what they wish for

That is quite a big rank, and they need to fight like buggery to keep it.

As for trade etiquette I suspect it's quite good. Especially as anyone taking a fare on the wrong side has got to go past the taxis on the correct side.

And a smack in the mouth is a way of reminding drivers about the rules.

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IDFIMH