Yellow Transportation

Yellow Transportation Inc. -- which was awarded Howard County's two largest public transportation services last week -- made it a clean sweep yesterday by beating two other bidders to provide bus service for the elderly, disabled and impoverished in the county.The Savage-based company will operate the county's "para-transit" service for five years, beginning July 1, with an option to renew for an additional two years."We're very excited about the opportunity," said Mark L. Joseph, president of Yellow Transportation, which also will operate the Howard Area Transit Service and Connect-A-Ride for the county.

Yellow Cab of Baltimore celebrated its 100th anniversary Thursday with a downtown parade of taxis, including vintage cabs and even the most modern addition, hybrid vehicles. W.W. Cloud purchased the Brown and Blue Cab companies in 1909 and renamed them Yellow, making it the oldest registered Yellow Cab in the country, according to company officials. The cars, however, were black. Yellow grew and expanded until 2001, when Yellow Transportation of Baltimore was acquired by a global transportation company now known as Veolia Transportation.

RELIABILITY IS one of the pillars of a successful public transportation service. Travelers need to be sure that vehicles will arrive on time, at the right stop, when heading to work, medical appointments or to link up with connecting routes.Unfortunately, reliable service is becoming a myth for riders of the Howard Area Transit Service (HATS). Some of them filed more than 30 complaints against the bus system in the first eight weeks after Yellow Transportation began operating the suburban network.

Elizabeth Buie, a pioneering African-American cab driver and taxi owner, died of heart disease Saturday at the Alice Manor Nursing Home. The East Baltimore resident was 89. Born Elizabeth Webb on a Sanford, N.C., farm, she completed the seventh grade and did agricultural work in neighboring Broadway. When she heard there was work available here, she moved to Baltimore in the 1940s and took a job packing hand grenades at the Edgewood Arsenal. She rode a bus from her Gay Street home to Harford County.

Sun Cab Co. Inc., a 63-year-old Baltimore taxi company, is selling all its 76 permits and vehicles to Yellow Transportation Inc., boosting the number of cabs affiliated with Yellow to nearly half those driving the city streets.The purchase, which must be approved by the Public Service Commission, was not expected to affect taxi service in the city since fares and number of cabs are controlled by the PSC."It's hard to see how, by product or price, that it hurts anybody," said People's Counsel John M. Glynn, the state official who represents consumers before the PSC.Frank Fulton, a spokesman for the PSC, said the commission would consider the effects on competition and the public in its review of the applications to transfer the permits.

The Maryland Department of Transportation has settled its differences with its longtime provider of van and cab services for Baltimore-area disabled people - bringing to an apparent end a bitter contract dispute that had threatened to disrupt service to clients. Secretary Robert L. Flanagan and Yellow Transportation Inc. said yesterday that the department has agreed to extend the company's contract for nine months, with a potential of up to six one-month extensions before the service is put up for bid again.

New positionsYellow Transportation Inc., Maryland's largest privately owned transportation company, appointed Robert Mawson director of its Baltimore Trolley Tours.

A charter bus driver's failure to report drinking by Owings Mills High School students on his bus en route to their prom has resulted in Yellow Transportation's temporary suspension from Baltimore County's Safe and Sober Prom Pledge Program."

The Anne Arundel County health department, joining a growing number of agencies that are privatizing some services, turned over to a Baltimore-based company last week a program that provides transportation for Medicaid recipients.Yellow Transportation Inc. began dispatching its vans and sedans to county residents who have valid Maryland Medical Assistance cards and who have no other way to get to doctor's appointments."This is the transportation of last resort," said Douglas Hart, director of administration for the health department.

The city's pocketbook may rest a little easier with the proposed transfer of its money-losing trolley operation to Yellow Transportation Services, but the wallets of the Baltimore Trolley Works riders will be pinched in the deal.Yellow Transportation, which is the operator of Yellow Cab, Yellow Bus Service and the Baltimore franchise of Carey Limousine, would raise the standard fare of the trolleysfrom 25 cents to $1, company president Mark Joseph confirmed yesterday."We want to make the trolley self-sustaining and profitable, and the only way to do that is to raise the fares," Mr. Joseph said.

George Jay Joseph, who owned and rebuilt Baltimore's Yellow Cab Co. into the region's largest passenger ground transportation business, died of cancer Monday at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. The Chevy Chase resident was 87. Born in Bethlehem, Pa., he was the son of a Lithuanian immigrant peddler who went on to found a department store in Reading, Pa. He earned a bachelor's degree at Pennsylvania State University and a law degree from the University of Virginia after Army service during World War II. Mr. Joseph went into the legal publishing business in downtown Washington in the 1950s and named his first two companies, Jefferson Law Book and Thomas Jefferson Publishing, in honor of the president who established the University of Virginia.

The Maryland Department of Transportation has settled its differences with its longtime provider of van and cab services for Baltimore-area disabled people - bringing to an apparent end a bitter contract dispute that had threatened to disrupt service to clients. Secretary Robert L. Flanagan and Yellow Transportation Inc. said yesterday that the department has agreed to extend the company's contract for nine months, with a potential of up to six one-month extensions before the service is put up for bid again.

Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan defended his department's inquiries into a prominent disability rights activist's transportation arrangements yesterday, saying he needed to know whether the advocate was getting preferential treatment from a state contractor. Flanagan said department officials had an obligation to ensure that Yellow Transportation Inc., a contractor that provides van and cab service for the disabled, wasn't providing service for Joel D. Myerberg that wasn't available to other riders.

A disability rights advocate who was hailed in Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s State of the State address said yesterday that he feels "hurt" and "insulted" after learning that Department of Transportation officials tracked his movements and questioned whether he was getting preferential treatment from a state contractor. Joel D. Myerberg, head of the Maryland Disabilities Forum, said he was outraged by an e-mail in which the assistant to the No. 2 official of the department reported on his activities during a visit to Annapolis and questioned whether Yellow Transportation Inc. was giving him service it denies to others.

The Maryland Transit Administration has awarded the contract to operate a paratransit service for thousands of disabled Marylanders every day to two out-of-state companies - replacing a Baltimore company whose service drew widespread criticism. The MTA decision would replace Yellow Transportation/Connex, the company that has operated the door-to-door Mobility service in the Baltimore region for most of the past 16 years. The company has been the subject of many complaints by its customers and disability rights advocates but has also been credited with saving the program when another contractor defaulted in the late 1990s.

Commuter contract goes to Yellow Transportation The Maryland Transit Administration has awarded Yellow Transportation a two-year $1.6 million contract to operate the commuter service between Columbia and Baltimore. The company began operating 17 daily trips July 1. Two additional coaches provided by the MTA will join the fleet in the next few months. About 425 passengers ride from Columbia to downtown Baltimore each day, according to a statement released by Connex, owner of Yellow Transportation.

Commuter contract goes to Yellow Transportation The Maryland Transit Administration has awarded Yellow Transportation a two-year $1.6 million contract to operate the commuter service between Columbia and Baltimore. The company began operating 17 daily trips July 1. Two additional coaches provided by the MTA will join the fleet in the next few months. About 425 passengers ride from Columbia to downtown Baltimore each day, according to a statement released by Connex, owner of Yellow Transportation.

A 60-year-old taxi driver was fatally shot during an apparent robbery early yesterday just a few hundred feet from his company's offices in North Baltimore, police said. Detectives said they had no suspects in the killing of Jesse Gross, a veteran cabdriver, and were trying to find witnesses and round up videotapes from surveillance cameras mounted on buildings near the shooting scene. The shooting occurred about 3:30 a.m. as Gross was sitting in his idling taxi in the 200 block of W. 21st St., police said.

A 60-year-old taxi driver was fatally shot during an apparent robbery early yesterday just a few hundred feet from his company's offices in North Baltimore, police said. Detectives said they had no suspects in the killing of Jesse Gross, a veteran cabdriver, and were trying to find witnesses and round up videotapes from surveillance cameras mounted on buildings near the shooting scene. The shooting occurred about 3:30 a.m. as Gross was sitting in his idling taxi in the 200 block of W. 21st St., police said.

Most commuters may look at this region's gridlocked beltways and cities as a nightmare. But Europe's largest private operator of buses and commuter trains sees only lucrative opportunities. That is why Connex is acquiring privately held Yellow Transportation Inc. of Baltimore, the chief executive of the French company said yesterday in his first interview since the deal was confirmed last week. "The Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area is one of the fastest-growing and most congested areas in the U.S.," said Antoine Frerot.