It was a cold, clear night with just a hint of the Aurora Borealis in the sky. I was on my way back from dropping a fare off at the Portage train depot. Still a good 50 miles away from Anchorage, I knew I wouldn't be able to receive the radio stations from town. I turned the radio on anyway, just to have some noise and something to distract me so I wouldn't fall asleep on the road.
Running the tuner through the AM dial, I found, to my surprise, a clear broadcast. When the music stopped and the station did it's identification, I realised I was listening to a station all the way from Colorado. This woke me up. I lost the station about 10 miles from Anchorage. But listening to the sounds of something 3000 miles away made me realize how far away from, and yet close to the rest of the country we are.
At 938,259 square kilometres, Alaska is about 3.8 times the size of the UK. While most of the land isn't developed, there are pockets of civilisation in the forms of villages and cities scattered throughout. Anchorage is the largest city, with 260,000 people, almost 6 times the population of the second largest, Fairbanks.
The climate in Anchorage is mild, with an average temperature of about -4 degrees Celsius in the winter and about +20 degrees Celsius in the summer. The winter here is warmer than most of the northern states in the US. The summer is full of daylight, with the sun setting at 2am. and rising at 4am.
DISPATCH COMPANIES
Anchorage looks like most cities in America. It's a good sized town of
about 260,000 people. It contains almost half of the population of Alaska. A sprawling
town, most of which was built in the mid 70's with the trans-Alaskan pipeline boom, it has
only been a large town for just a couple of decades. Thus, it is just now learning how to
cope with the problems that face a large city.
Laren Eggleston
Sam Haywood despatching at Checkers Cabs
Anchorage has 158 taxicabs on its streets and
around 400 city licensed taxi drivers running the cabs day and night. There are 4 dispatch
companies; Alaska Cab, Anchorage Taxi, Checker Cab and Yellow Cab. All use about the same
type of radio dispatch system.
I started driving a cab at age 21 back in 1990. Things have changed a lot in
these last few years. I remember how fun the job really was. It was a board game, with my
cab being the piece and Anchorage being the board. To win, I had to take home at least
$100. If I lost, there was tomorrow.
This is how the taxi game works in Anchorage. The town is divided up into
areas called zones. The driver calls his cab number and what zone he is in to the
dispatcher on the radio. The dispatcher then moves a magnetic button with the cab number
on it to that zone. It is placed behind any other number that has called the zone before
it. When a call is given out, it goes to the first car in the zone that the call is in. If
that car doesn't respond or has found a fare for himself, the next car in the zone gets
the call.
There is also what are called, Open calls. These are places that generally
have a lot of taxicab traffic, like hotels, bars, etc. A call to one of these places is
put out for any car in the zone to
The great Highway in Anchorage.
Laren's daughter Whitney (standing) & friend ready for a dogsled
ride.
check. Thus it can be a race to see who can get there
first. I always loved the race. Sometimes I even won them.
The object of the game is to be in the right place at the right time. If you
get stuck fifth in line for a dispatch in a slow-moving zone, you might not get a trip for
an hour. Or you could move to a different zone, only to have the zone you just came from
get a lot of calls at once. Obviously, luck plays a large part of whether you win or lose
the game.
CAB DRIVERS MURDERED
Somewhere, the game turned deadly. Luck didn't just determine whether you
made a living or not, it also decided if you lived or died. In the last five years, six
drivers here have lost their life. Adam Henry Pipien, Richard Sandsness, Raymond Maser,
Randy Stewart, Dean Marsh and Slobodan Tadic.
All were killed during robbery attempts, and in three of the six murders, no
suspects were brought to justice. These drivers were only doing a
