Before I lived in Sydney, I used to travel here frequently for work. I have never liked traveling by taxi and I have always though sydney taxi drivers are the worst in Australia. The reason is that they would try and determine if you were from Sydney. If you were not they would take you the long way. But I knew enough from all my times here to know that I was going the long way. I did not know enough to say which was the short one. So they would sometimes ask, which way do you want to go. Eventually I learned to say, via canal road. They would be upset. What upsets them even more is to say that I wanted to go the shortest way.
Here is the typical drive from Sydeny Airport, to Burwood, which is where I used to work. There are three paths:
- Path one is the google maps path. In peak hour it is the worst because it takes at least an hour and a half. Only once did a cab driver try to take me this way. Cost using todays cab fares: $3 + $28.28 (15.8km) + $44.66 (58 minutes stuck in traffic) = 75.49. Note that in the wee hours this is the best route.
- Path two is the way the cab drivers would want to go. It is a fast and easy path. There is rarely traffic. But it is also the longest. Cost using todays cab fares: $3 + $32.76 (18.3 km) = $35.76.
- Path three is the short path. It is the way the person who drove every day form Mascot and sometimes gave me a lift would drive. Generally it did not suffer traffic problems: Cost using todays cab fares: $3 + $22.55 (12.6 km) = $25.55.