Moonlight taxi driver can’t weather ‘the perfect storm’

Rob Taylor has been driving a taxi in Carbondale for 10 years, but said the slumping economy and university retention problems would drive him out of business within six weeks.

Taylor, the owner of Carbondale Moonlight Taxi, said most of his customers needed a ride home from the bars or from shopping trips, but riders have became scarce as businesses close and are not replaced with new establishments, he said.

“It’s almost as though it’s a perfect storm, but really the economy is the final thing,” Taylor said Tuesday.

Taylor said the downward spiral began in September when his riders who were upperclassmen at SIUC did not return to Carbondale for the fall semester. He said those students transferred to other schools as the university’s tuition continued to rise and the social life in other college towns became more attractive.

A member of the Carbondale Liquor Advisory Board, Taylor said he supports the city’s crackdown on parties with a history of violence, such as Halloween. But because those events were not replaced, students may not be as excited about studying and living in Carbondale, he said.

“If you’re really going to come down on the party scene here, you’ve got to replace it with something,” Taylor said.

Moonlight’s traffic of elderly shoppers weakened as well as stores in the mall began closing their doors, he said.

Taylor said the last year has been stressful and sad for him; he will be moving to Rockford after residing in Carbondale for 15 years. Before he founded Moonlight roughly three years ago, Taylor began his career as a cab driver at Carbondale Yellow Cab, he said.

Taylor said any cab driver in town has a difficult ride ahead with no promise of the recession’s end in sight.

“I hate that he has to go out of business,” Dianna Sarver, manager of Yellow Cab, said of Taylor. “We don’t want anybody going out of business.”

Sarver, who has been with Yellow Cab for 12 years, said she believes Carbondale can support two cab companies. She said the company’s 60-year presence in the community and faithful customers should keep Yellow Cab open.

But as Taylor bows out, another taxi company has entered the city.

Jeremy Osthoff, owner of newcomer ACE Taxi LLC, said customers in Carbondale have made a good first impression since his green cabs began shuttling passengers two weeks ago. He said the strong response has encouraged him to add two more vehicles to his fleet. That means six ACE cabs — four sedans and two minivans — would be cruising the streets of Carbondale ready to transport customers, he said.

“We’re not here to make a quick buck,” Osthoff said. “We’re here to give customers a better service and value for their money.”

Osthoff said he is comfortable opening in Carbondale because ACE could do better than its competitors. He said if business continues to boom, the company would expand into other southern Illinois communities, such as Mount Vernon, Centralia and Marion.