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By El Ravenswood Staff
ide sharing is probably one of the best things that has happened to East Palo Alto and the neighboring Belle Haven community in Menlo Park. For a long time taxi drivers, as well as other service businesses, regardless of time of day were reluctant to drop off or pick up passengers or deliver items or provide plumbing or other services, to the two areas under the guise that the areas were dangerous. A City Manager candidate for instance, admitted to El Ravenswood that once when he flew in from Southern California for a job interview in East Palo Alto, he found it hard to get a taxi driver at the airport who was willing to drive him to East Palo Alto. He literally had to show them the letter inviting him for the interview before he could get a ride.
24 JANUARY 2018 EL RAVENSWOOD
Ride sharing services however have taken control from drivers in terms of where they pick up or drop riders. Drivers can still decline rides from or to the two communities but they risk reprimand or discontinuation if their ride acceptance rate falls below a certain percentage. Ridesharing to the extent that it has opened up previously non affordable or accessible ‘taxi’ experiences provides numerous and interesting stories about interactions between drivers and riders that El Ravenswood would like to share with its readership. This is a call to all rideshare users to share whatever interesting experiences they have had with who has had an experience with ride sharing that you consider interesting please share it with El Ravenswood and we just might share it with our readers. We are calling the section Ride Share Tales and while we would like
those experiences to be East Palo Alto or Menlo Park ones, we are willing to print any stories that we may consider interesting. You can send them to: info@ eastpaloaltoinformation.com.