Bethel, Alaska – You won’t find a luxury hotel or concert hall in Bethel, and you probably can’t even get a decent bagel here. But this remote Alaska town has at least one advantage over New York City: It may be the nation’s taxicab capital.
Situated on the tundra about 400 miles west of Anchorage, Bethel has 70 taxis for a population of just 5,900. That’s one cab for every 84 people.
That’s better even than New York, the ultimate cab city, where there is one hired vehicle – such as a taxi, commuter van or livery car – for every 149 people.
“It’s most likely by far the highest ratio of taxis per resident in the United States,” said Alfred LaGasse with the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association.
The main reason for the big fleet of taxis: Bethel, which is surrounded by thousands of ponds in a delta plain, is inaccessible by road.
People must fly cars in or bring them in by barge on the Kuskokwim River – and that is way too expensive for Bethel’s many poor.
“I bought a small Ford Focus, and it cost $2,000 to fly it in,” said Mark Springer, chairman of the local transportation commission.
Fewer than half the adults have their own car or truck. As a result, taxi drivers – many of them non-Alaskans, mostly Koreans and Albanians – have flocked here to fill the gap.
Cabs are seemingly everywhere, squeezing in passengers who pay $4 to go anywhere in the main part of town and $6 to the airport 3 miles away.
The high number of vehicles for hire was a big surprise when Wally Baird moved here from Nebraska two years ago to take a job as city manager.
“In every place I’ve ever lived and worked, you’re lucky to see even one cab,” he said.
Gim Jong-ihn, 72, was visiting his hometown in South Korea when he saw a TV story about the scores of cabbies working in Bethel. He came here two years ago to drive a taxi after retiring from asbestos-removal work in New York.
The town serves as a commercial hub for the vast region, with visitors from 56 largely Eskimo villages coming to shop, see their doctor or do other errands. Visitors arrive by plane year-round, by snowmobile in winter and by boat in summer.
