The Main Line’s last surviving taxi caught its last ride

When Virginia Jennings’ children were young, and she and her husband had stopped going out with friends in the city, she’d feel a pang of nostalgia whenever a Maxwell taxi drove by their suburban home.

Just the sight of a Maxwell cab would take her back to the couple’s pre-kids era in the early 2000s, when they’d call on a Saturday afternoon to lock in their ride for the night.

A few hours later, a driver would arrive to take them from their Wayne home to friends’ places in Manayunk or Fairmount. After a night out at McCrossen’s Tavern, Pitchers Pub, or the Grape Room, they’d call to be picked up, sometimes by the same person who drove them there.

“There was something nice about a cab company,” said Jennings, 45, who now lives in Havertown. She loved the comfort of knowing the drivers, who were always prompt, courteous, and friendly.

But at the end of February, Maxwell Taxi Cab Co. gave its last ride. The closure has left loyal customers bereft over the loss of the Lower Merion institution and marked the end of an era for suburban-based cabs.

On the Main Line, “we were the last ones to survive,” said George Fusaro, who for the past three decades owned the family business with his younger brother, Steve.

First Uber undercut the industry, and then car insurance and repair costs skyrocketed, George Fusaro said. “It got to the point where it wasn’t viable.”

The Ardmore-based company hung on for a while. As the pandemic flattened the taxi industry and drove other cab companies out of business, Maxwell stayed afloat thanks to hospital workers, private school students, and perhaps their biggest account, the Sisters of Mercy nuns.

Yet even as the pandemic relented, other challenges intensified. Fewer young people were calling cabs, some older customers were dying, and costs kept rising.

The last straw, Fusaro said, was the company’s latest insurance quote: A 60% increase, amounting to about $8,000 a year for each of its five cabs. The hike would have taken effect March 1. The Fusaro brothers decided to close that day instead.

It was a sad choice for the family, said George Fusaro. His father, who went by the same name, and his uncle Dick Passarella bought the company from the Maxwell family more than 50 years ago. The pair previously owned Cynwyd Cab and ran several other businesses.

George Fusaro, 63, and Steve Fusaro, 53, also own Havertown Collision and K & S Towing. Asked if he sees a future for taxi companies, George’s answer is unequivocal: “No.”

In recent days, he said he has tried to “give the company away,” calling city cab companies to see if they’d be interested in absorbing Maxwell. As of Tuesday, he had not received any calls back.

Before iPhones and rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft, Maxwell made it possible for Main Line residents and college students to safely enjoy a night of revelry.

On a weekend night during Maxwell’s peak in the 2000s, the company fielded more than 700 calls, with rides split among 19 drivers. Often, they were picking up Villanova and St. Joe’s students.

“It was nonstop from the moment you came in until 5 o’clock in the morning,” Fusaro said. “We knew where every party was, every hot bar in the city.”

In the cab, you could only pay cash — $2.80 to get in, plus $2.40 a mile. Later in the night, you’d call the office to get a ride home.

Beth Richfield said she and her other then-twentysomething friends regularly got rides from “Georgie” Fusaro in the 1980s. He’d take them to bars, clubs, even after-hours clubs in the city, she said, and she always remembered “just feeling safe.”

“Three girls, goofy laughing, and we’d be like ‘We don’t have any money.’ He would be like, ‘Pay me next week, don’t worry about it,‘” said Richfield, of Gladwyne.

Later, Richfield said, Maxwell was the only company she trusted to drive her children home from late-night bar and bat mitzvahs, or to transport her mother to and from appointments.

For Maxwell drivers, mornings were busy, too, with a steady stream of customers heading to the airport or to work.

If you had an early-morning flight, you could count on Maxwell to be outside your house 15 minutes before you needed them in a car big enough to fit your family’s luggage comfortably, customers recalled. As some longtime passengers aged and became less comfortable driving themselves, they called on Maxwell for more regular trips.

Business was strong and steady — until Uber entered the scene in the mid-2010s.

“Uber was just coming in and charging whatever they wanted, undercutting all the cabs just to put them out of business,” Fusaro said. If Maxwell would charge $40 for a ride from the Main Line to the airport, “Uber would do it for $25.”

Rideshare costs have since increased, rising 14% between 2023 and 2025, according to a report from a gig-work app company.

Uber’s rise led to what Fusaro called a “slow downturn” for Maxwell, starting with the night business.

On local college campuses, “the kids could all use a credit card with Uber,” paying for rides with a few taps on their iPhone screens, Fusaro said. Maxwell customers who didn’t have cash had to call the office to pay with cards.

On a weekend night, “we’d have three cabs sitting at St. Joe’s,” Fusaro said. Students on the street “wouldn’t even get in.”

They were looking down at their phones, Fusaro said, waiting for their Ubers.

Now, longtime Maxwell customers are deciding whether to call an Uber or Lyft next time they need a ride to the airport or a wedding, or can’t take their aging parents to an appointment.

Some customers said they’re considering calling former Maxwell employees who are still driving on their own. Fusaro said he knows of at least two who are doing so.

In Wynnewood, longtime customer Jeffrey Goldstone said he’ll take Ubers from his home, but continue to use cabs at airports and train stations, where he finds them more convenient than rideshares.

“Instead of going on the app and ordering an Uber and trying to locate which gray minivan is your Uber, you just go into the line,” he said. “It’s a pretty simple process.”

Taking Ubers from home has been an adjustment for Goldstone, who is one of four generations of Maxwell customers in his family. His grandparents used the service in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Their children, Goldstone’s parents who are now in their 90s, passed down the fondness for the company.

“They loved the drivers,” said Goldstone, 67. “They were friendly. They were dependable, and always early.”

“It’s the end of an era,” he added. “So many people were just ‘Maxwell people.‘”

Cindy Matthews Landis, 68, of Narberth, said she, too, will miss Maxwell, a company she first encountered as a young girl walking by their taxi stand in Wynnefield in the 1960s. As an adult, she had come to rely on the company whenever she had a flight to catch.

“I don’t know if I have a comfort level in Uber and Lyft for something as important as getting to the airport,” she said. “I don’t have travel plans until October, and then I will need to get to the airport.”

She paused. “And I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do.”