Earlier in the day, lines were sporadically forming at 30th Street Station, with 40 or more people at times waiting for taxis or limousines.
But as the rush hour ended, there were few people waiting for cabs and a line of about nine medallion cabs was queued up for customers, a sign that Philadelphia commuters survived the first hours of the planned two-day taxi strike with minor inconveniences.
"It's going just about how we expected," Blount said.
He said that 100 to 150 of the city's 1,600 medallion cabs appear to be not honoring the strike.
Most of the cabs picking up passengers at 30th Street Station were from PHL Taxi, whose owner supports the Parking Authority's technological improvements and has refused to strike.
The striking taxi drivers are upset over mandated use of global positioning system dispatching and credit card readers.
In addition to PHL taxis, neighborhood cabbies from Germantown drove into Center City to pick up business. Limousine and sedan drivers, allowed to do street pickups under an authority emergency order, were also plentiful.
Blount said the cab drivers' response to the strike illustrated what he called a "serious problem" with the parking authority's dispatching system: "Everyone is serving Center City, nobody is serving people in the neighborhoods."
Pam Remick left her Brooklyn home earlier than usual, hoping to get to her job in the Naval Business Center before 9 a.m.
But she wasn't counting on a long wait because usually there's none at all outside 30th Street Station, she said.
"As of now, we are meeting the demand," Phyllis VanIstendal, spokeswoman for Philadelphia International Airport, said about 9:20 a.m. There are fewer cabs - "it's thin," she said - but travelers are finding enough options because it's a less busy time of day.
"That could change as the day progresses," she said.
