LEWISTON – Typically on the night of a snowstorm, three types of vehicles are prowling the roads. City plows, police cruisers and taxicabs.
On Friday, however, the plows were no longer needed by nightfall, and few taxis were to be seen. The explanation from one cab company: the roads were too bad for travel.
“It’s no mystery. The streets are real bad,” said Daniel Leonas, owner of Lewiston-based City Cab. “It was a lot safer to take them off the road than it was leaving them out there.”
Not everyone was buying it. Police said they fielded calls from people looking for rides Friday night because of a “snow strike.” Such an event occurs when cab drivers collectively refuse to go into work on a particular day.
In Auburn, police said they received a call from one man who had heard about the strike but needed to go out. In Lewiston, more calls had come in from people angry because without cabs running, they were snowbound.
Lewiston police Sgt. David St. Pierre said he did not know the official reason why the cabs were not out in force on Friday night. But he also could not recall a time when bad weather stopped taxi owners stopped from running their cabs, particularly at the end of the week, when people are itching to get out of the house.
By 7 p.m. Friday, all but the side roads had been cleared of snow. Major streets had been plowed down to the pavement, and driving conditions were no longer treacherous.
Police answering calls from the snowbound Friday were advising people to give other taxi companies a call. A quick glance in a telephone book uncovered four taxi companies in the Lewiston area. At three of them, no one answered.
At about 9:45 p.m., a harried dispatcher answered the telephone at Tri-Town Taxi, based in Lisbon. The company was open, and business was good.
“We’re running like crazy,” the dispatcher said. “We’re running our heads off.”
By late Friday night, the skies over the Twin Cities were clear. There was no snow in the weather forecast for today. Leonas, of City Cab, said he expects his company to be open for business.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.