> Flagging a cab on a busy road in NYC is always faster than waiting for an Uber, at least in my experience.

In Seattle, you can't really flag down a cab.

What you could do in the past (pre-uber) was call their phone number, have the dispatcher on the other end pick up and be annoyed that you are bothering him, and request a cab that may or may not show up.

Also you had to know where you are at, which for a lot of people I know, is a serious challenge. A surprisingly large % of people have serious problems finding what intersection they are at. (To be fair, sometimes you are on a street that, for whatever reason, doesn't have any street signs, or the street sign is not lit up at all and you have to use your phone's flashlight to try and read it... and again, all this while drunk).

The experience sucked.