Hey all...especially for those of you living in Greater Downtown...I cannot tell you how much you need to try out UberX.

I am not getting paid to say this.

I've been living in Detroit for 5 years now [[excepting the 18 years before college.) When I was in Ann Arbor, cab service was reliable, courteous, and affordable. You could call a cab company, set a reservation, they would call your cellphone when they arrived, and then happily take credit card to close out the tab.

When I moved to Detroit I was absolutely shocked at how incompetent and piss-poor the cab service is.

I would call dispatch, and the people answering the phone couldn't pass even the most basic of modern customer service standards. I would ask how long the wait would be, and they would tell me things like, "well between 20 minutes to an hour". I'd reply saying, "that's kind of a large window of time...are you sure you can't narrow that down a bit?"

"NO. Do you want the cab or not?"
"Ok, I'll take it. Just have them call me when they get here so we know to come down."
"Um, no, we don't do that. They'll beep the horn, and if you aren't there in a few minutes, then they'll leave."

What the hell??

Then if I take the cab, they've pulled sh** like not turning on the meter and then throwing out arbitrary fares, like, "that'll be $10" to go from Corktown to Campus Martius.

"Um, that's BS. I'll give you $5 plus tip. Here's my credit card."
"We don't take credit card."

At every stage in the experience, it's a disaster. I've had friends from out of town come in and say the same thing. It's a total embarrassment, IMHO.

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So enter this company called, "Uber".

You download an app for your phone, and you link it to a credit card. You order a cab from your phone, the company uses GPS to help you name your location, and it sends the data to the nearest driver -- whom you can follow in real time on a moving map -- to see how far they are.

Then when they arrive, you get a text message to let you know. They already have your phone number, so if there's a problem, they call you.

Then since they already have your credit card, you don't need to waste time paying, and all the fares are automatically calculated.

The only problem has historically been that Uber is f-ing expensive. $20 minimums...and at that price, it's tough for me to make it worth it.

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Enter: UberX.

It's the exact same service, except instead of taking a Lincoln Towncar or a Black Navigator, the cars might be smaller sedans. My last two trips were in a Ford Taurus.

And the fares are much cheaper to get around Greater Downtown. Like $5-7.

The last two weekends I've decided to see if I could avoid driving all weekend, and the experience has been phenomenal. When you're factoring in the price of paid parking, plus the pain in the ass of just trying to find parking, deal with traffic, and then the walk from your parking spot to your destination, the $5 starts to look really cheap.

On Friday, for the tree lighting, I got picked up right at my door, taken right to Campus Martius. I hung out there through much of the night, then walked over to Greektown and did some partying. Then I took a ride home at 1 a.m., again with door-to-door service.

On Saturday, I took a trip to the Detroit Opera House for a show, then partied at Detroit Beer Company and closed the bar out. Then UberX'd it home.

Total spent for the weekend was $23.

And when you factor parking costs, plus driving while buzzed, plus dealing with traffic...it was totally worth it.

I'm curious about how others' experience of it and cab companies as well.