Unfortunately for our tour, it wasn't rush hour. It wasn't raining. Tractor-trailers refused to jackknife. Not a single grid was locked.
Drive on.
Under smooth blue skies, over bumpy black asphalt, we toured Center City for more than an hour with United Cab driver-owner Gregory Luzhansky.
Luzhansky, 37, is a Russian emigre from Kiev who has made his living driving taxicabs in the city since 1979. At one point, he owned six cabs, though he's back to a pair now.
Luzhansky's name sounds almost like Greg Luzinski, and the cabbie himself sounds like Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff, of whom he is not particularly fond.
Together, we explored the sights:
* A taxicab had just collided with a blue Honda westbound on Vine Street at 16th, at the ramp entrance to the expressway. It looked as though somebody got in the wrong lane and tried to squeeze back in.
Traffic was backing up, and police were on the scene. Fortunately, we were eastbound. We gaped and drove on.
* Still on Vine Street, we caught the red light at 11th. An engineer and helper dashed from behind a construction barricade, stretched a tape measure across Vine Street, took their measurement, then scampered to safety just as the light turned green.
Elapsed delay time: 0:00, good for the gold in the Traffic Olympics.
* Market Street East, Philadelphia's highway of dreams for the 1990s. Right now, half of it's dug up, the other half is rutted and patched.
Luzhansky pointed to 1234 Market, the destination for many of his fares. Concrete barricades prevent anyone from getting in or out in front of the office building: He must do business around the corner, like it or not.
We eased past a brazen bicyclist and a bus or two, in Luzhansky's 1977 Chevrolet Malibu wagon. He explained why he doesn't drive a new car anymore.
"You take a new car, you go 10 times Market Street up and back, and you need something (repaired), I guarantee you," he said.
