Gas for Nothing

In New York Magazine, a brief but compelling look at the economic downturn's effect on cab drivers:

As we merge onto the FDR Drive, yet another vacant taxi speeds by on our right. Waraich almost shudders in empathy; he’s made the same defeated trip himself, two or three times a week. “It’s awful,” he says. “That means he got no fare and he decided to go to midtown. He’s burning gas for nothing.” Cabbies make their money north and south. They count on fares from downtown to midtown (or farther) and back again, in a continuous loop. But now their money flow has been broken; it’s the roadside version of a liquidity crunch. “You lose heart, and you go back to midtown,” Waraich says. “If you don’t get a fare there either, you get so upset. It can put you in depression.”