Across the street from the downtown Minneapolis Target at 9th and Nicollet, a squadron of taxicabs wait for people to hire them to go somewhere.
Sometimes that wait can be a long one. By the time I wrapped up my half-hour interview with longtime taxi driver José Illisaca last Thursday, nobody hailed one of four other taxicabs waiting in line. He told me he had transported two passengers since he started work at 7:30 a.m., earning him $20.
That’s as much as he made during his entire shift the previous day. He doesn’t break even, considering he has to pay to own and insure his cab. But the prospect of Uber and Lyft leaving excites him. “I’m so happy about this for every taxi driver. I hope business [for] taxis come up again,” Illisaca said.
Illisaca immigrated to the United States from Ecuador in 1997. First settling in New York City, he moved to Minneapolis because housing was much cheaper compared to New York. “Many years ago, I rented one single-family [home] for $450 with three bedrooms. What I paid in New York … was $500 per month. And I lived with four people in one room,” he said.
Illisaca started driving taxis in 2002 after working two jobs in the restaurant industry to make ends meet. But he’s been behind the wheel since he was 10 years old. “My daddy said, ‘Hey, can you move the car over there?’ I moved it a little bit,” Illisaca recounted his first time behind the wheel.
He says he likes the job because it’s familiar to him. “Starting at 16 years old, I drove a taxi and a bus. All my life, driving taxi all my life,” said Illisaca, adding that his father also drove buses and taxis. He’s driven for different cab companies over the years and at one point started his own cab company in town, called La Mexicana Express.
When Uber and Lyft came to town about a decade ago, the taxi industry began its decline. As business shifted to Uber and Lyft, so did its drivers. Axios first reported Minneapolis has 39 cabs remaining. This is down from 831 cabs in 2012, according to the city. The airport, on the other hand, has 244 licensed cabs remaining, down from 795 in 2014.
Illisaca, who started La Mexicana Express about a decade ago, closed several years later. “All my drivers say, ‘Hey, we’re not make any money here,’” Illisaca said.
Illisaca contemplated driving rideshare, in part because he has friends who drive on the platform. But he is concerned that the lower fares would result in a lower payout and higher expense. “When you take here to airport in a taxi, it’s $45. Maybe the customer gives you a $5 tip, that’s $50. Uber take a fare here to airport is $17. If working Uber pay $17 is no good because you put in your car a lot of miles.”
In the meantime, Illisaca barely gets by. He made $20 in fares for all of Wednesday and $20 just before 1 p.m. on Thursday. On Friday, he made $80 by late afternoon.
The trips he drives are generally the same: He usually stays in the downtown Minneapolis area. “Maybe five blocks, six blocks, and come back here [to 9th and Nicollet]. Sometimes hospitals and sometimes grocery [stores],” said Illisaca. He can take passengers to the airport, but he said he hasn’t seen airport fares in awhile: “No airport fares for almost, like, four years.”
He doesn’t bother to stay out late, ending the day at 6 p.m. Even though downtown Minneapolis is teeming some evenings — data from Lyft showed 16 of their top 19 destinations in Minneapolis are in downtown Minneapolis — no one bothers to ride a taxi. “I stay here to 9 p.m., 10 p.m., [I] don’t make any money,” Illisaca said.
Cruising neighborhoods for fares doesn’t seem to help either. “Nobody says ‘Hey, I need a ride.’ People stay on the corners watching their cellphones, you know, is waiting Uber or Lyft. Taxis pass, taxis in the front, people don’t take taxi,” Illisaca said.
Ordinarily, one pays $300 per week to rent a cab from a cab company to drive. Illisaca leases his cab and is almost finished with making his monthly payments to finance it. “My payment is $230 a month. I have my three last payments,” said Illisaca. He also spends money on gas, maintenance and insurance. And his taxi driver and vehicle licenses cost $534 annually.
It’s hard to live on earnings from a taxi. “My credit cards is full. I sold my properties in my country and my family sent the money for me here. That’s ridiculous. I’m working in United States, I need to send money to my country, not my family in Ecuador to send money to me,” Illisaca said.
He would quit to find other, better paying work, but as he approaches 60 years old, he sees his age as a liability. “I’m trying to apply everywhere. Nobody called,” Illisaca said. He may consider driving a bus, which has different requirements here compared to back home in Ecuador. “You have one license for any cars. Right here, you need to pass the commercial license. I want to try to go there, I don’t know.”
In the meantime, Illisaca wishes the city would waive the registration fees associated with driving a taxi. “The city of Minneapolis needs to help the taxi drivers too, because all taxi drivers, we don’t have a lot of money to pay for the city. Maybe you need to help for free license, don’t charge nothing for it. I need to help a little bit,” Illisaca said.
