In mid-September I hailed a Yellow Cab at Union Station for a ride to LAX, and my driver was an affable chap. Traffic was light and the ride was quick, but we covered a lot of ground.

Oganes Papazyan, 62, said he had been a professional musician for many years and still played piano at his Armenian church and elsewhere, but as a family man, it was tough to make a decent living doing the thing he loved. He took up driving about 20 years ago, only to see the taxi industry decimated in recent years by the rise of Uber and Lyft.