"It's busy at rush hour, but then it's always going to be busy," he adds. "I'm talking about business in general. When it's slow, it's really slow."

The winter months are traditionally the most profitable for cabbies on the East Coast, when inclement conditions keep walkers off the streets. "We do the opposite of what the squirrels do. We save in the winter to make it through the summer," Cavellini says.

But Roy says that recently, many of these winter-only users--the "fair weather walkers," as he calls them--have been abandoning taxi services altogether, dealing yet another blow to local cabbies.

And according to Ambassador Radio Service President Tom R. Cromwell, this blow is so severe that even the recent five to eight percent increase in the number of phone requests for cabs has not been enough to keep Cambridge drivers in the black.

According to six-year driver and former president of the Cambridge Taxi Association Neil A. Lahaie, a cabbie working 60-hour weeks can hope for a monthly salary of sometimes as much as $3000 when taxis are in demand. When business is as slow as it has been recently, however, a cabbie can't expect to pull in more than $1500--slightly more than a minimum wage earner would make for a similar time commitment, he adds.

"It's getting very, very tough to maintain an even keel here," says Lahaie. "[Drivers] just want to get the cabs out there as much as they can. There's no such thing as a 40-hour week."

It's a Living

The city's taxi industry is centered around four main cab dispatchers, which own or provide radio dispatch service to the 248 medallions that work the city. But according to Cavellini, the large fleets of company-owned taxis which still patrol the streets of metropolises like Boston and New York have become a part of Cambridge history in the past decade, as drivers work to reap more financial gains through individual ownership.

The Yellow and Ambassador services owned by the Brattle Cab company, and the primarily Haitian Union Taxi company, for example, simply hook up drivers with passengers via radio for a monthly fee. Only Cambridge's Checkered Cab Company has charge of its own taxis, and even of those, about half belong to their drivers.

Increased individual ownership has "changed the face of the industry," Cavellini says, by decreasing the number of student and part-time drivers in the field and thereby creating a more static cabbie pool.

"The common understanding in the public is that taxi driving is an entry-level profession, where recent entries to the country are found," Cavellini says, explaining the job's appeal to immigrants in particular.

Forty to 45 percent of Cambridge cabbies are minorities, according to Cavellini. Women drivers comprise a far smaller percentage--six work the night shift, and 30 or so go out during the day.

The entry-level perception is not unfounded, and many drivers use the job as a stepping stone, Cavellini explains, adding that in times of fiscal stability, driving a cab is much like other blue-collar occupations.

"You're never going to get rich on it. You're never going to send your kids to college on it," Cavellini says. "It's a living wage."

Freedom and Uncertainty