Taxicab drivers are worried about getting edged out by the new parking garage at the Franconia-Springfield Metro station. When construction starts in July, the temporary parking lot where the official cab line is now, will be a flurry of construction machinery and the cabs will have four parking spots on the other side of the island which is now reserved for picking up and dropping off only.
Spaces are limited and at rush hour, cars are double and triple parked. Take away four spaces for the new cab stand, it could be "congestion city."
"At rush hour, people are going to suffer. Cab drivers are going to stop coming," said Ben Mellish who drives a Springfield Yellow Cab.
White Top driver Suka Singh looks at it realistically.
"One train comes, 10 customers sometimes. Another train comes in two or three minutes," he said.
Saratoga resident Patrick Miller rides cabs on a regular basis from the station. He's worried about the number of cabs as well.
"During rush hour, I generally have to wait for a cab and there's others waiting too. If they have to circle, they're just going to say the heck with it," he said.
Former Springfield resident Ray Perry recently moved to Springfield, Ill. He was in from National Airport, waiting to be picked up, and pointed at the cars piling up in the pickup/drop off lane.
"Look at it now, it's not even rush hour," he said.
Springfield Yellow Cab driver Michael Gyamfi knows what circling is like, referring to the maneuvering game where the cabs drive by in the pickup/drop-off lane, slow to a crawl while scanning the crowd and then circling around the parking garage for another try. He's been to a similar situation in Arlington.
"Terrible, we're going to get no space. There will be limited cabs. It's going to be like Arlington, we're going to have to keep going around and the police will keep chasing us," he said.
Fellow driver William Gyekye did talk to a Metro representative about the new cab situation. He sits in the line at that metro station between other fares, including shuttling high school students to Tyson's and Rockville.
"Coming here is like killing two birds with one stone," he said, referring to fares from the cab line and his on-board computer. But what he's heard is good, "since they're not going to run us out of here," he said.
THE MULTI-LEVELED garage will be similar to the one that is currently at the station. A fence is currently around the short term lot where it will be and construction is due to start soon and be completed by the summer of 2003 according to a sign in front of the current lot.
According to Metro information, the new garage will add approximately 1,000 spaces and connect with the existing structure at each level. For approximately one year, the Kiss and Ride and taxi passenger discharge will be located along the access road. During this period, the existing short-term parking will be relocated to Macy's parking lot at Springfield Mall. Existing shuttle bus service will be provided from there to the station between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays for the duration of the construction period.
The TAGS bus will also provide service to the metro station.
Ann Harp uses the temporary lot, which has meters, instead of the garage. She lives in Woodbridge and attends the University of the District of Columbia (UDC).
"It's easier for me just to park outside, sometimes I have to park down the street. I guess when they get it all finished, there will be more space," she said.
SUPERVISOR Dana Kauffman (D-Lee) is following the developments surrounding the garage. It's been planned for a couple of years and looked at the popularity of the station.
"Our ridership figures are over 18,000 and 50 percent over what we're projecting in 2010," he said.
There are new train cars in the works to meet the increasing demand, one model with eight cars vs the four and six car trains they're using now but the eight train cars require more electrical capacity.
"We're in the process of getting more car trains, six-car trains on a regular basis," he said.