INDUSTRY IN REVIEW

By Don McCurdy

Clearly defined.

Madison Wisconsin Mayor Paul Soglin has redefined the term “taxi stand.” Instead of designating stands where taxicabs “stand” by and wait for customers the mayor’s “taxi stands” are signs on a pole where passengers wait for a taxicab. The new “people stands” are supposed to cut down on how many taxicabs cruise State Street, the local party street.

Your honor, I object. For several reasons actually. The first reason is that you’re half stepping. If you’re going to have a taxicab stand make a place for the taxicabs to stand by and wait for passengers. If you make it harder for passengers to get a taxicab you will end up with more drunk drivers. How is that improving safety?

Second, what is the problem? How many pedestrians have been mowed down by cruising taxicabs? My experience is that cruising taxicabs go very slowly in order to give the potential passenger time to recognize them and start waving. Are you fixing a problem or creating one?

Third, and I believe this of all regulations, is it necessary? I don’t believe that taxicabs cruising State Street are “enormous violations.” Is it a street? Do taxicab drivers pay an inordinate amount of gasoline taxes to use the street? If you are going to claim something is a “taxi stand” then taxicabs should be allowed to stand there.

Why is that?

Those who regularly read this column know that I think New York City is just a little heavy on the regulations when it comes to the taxicab business. Well, maybe on a lot of businesses. So the question arises, how is it that the fares have remained the same since 2006? Have no other prices controlled by the NYC government gone up? Isn’t it actually a conflict of interest for the city council to select how much a business will charge the people who vote them into office? If I would make a huge portion of my constituents unhappy by raising fares why would I want to do that? I can keep the bulk of my voters happy at no cost to myself. How could life get better than that?

Why is it that there isn’t a mechanism to peg fares to inflation and totally avoid the long periods without a fare increase, huge fare increases when they do happen and wasting council time with it every so often? Surely, the people who can figure out that anything over 16 ounces is bad for you can figure out a formula by which taxicab drivers could get a cost of living allowance each year. Or, maybe, they just don’t want to give up the power?

Let me see if I understand.

Let me get this straight, Chicago has “reformed” their taxicab industry and now there are no set guidelines but each case will be reviewed individually? Well, let’s look at the practical application of that process.

Joe Bureaucrat gets daily, weekly, and monthly reports from various agencies regarding taxicab driver’s citations and complaints. Joe then reviews each case individually and evaluates which need further investigation and which don’t. Joe then investigates those cases deemed most onerous.

What happens when Joe’s department get downsized because Chicago is broke? You mean like it is now? Yes, exactly as it is now. Drivers will find a way around many of the provisions and learn to live with the ones they can’t get around. That said, what of the regulatory staff? Wasn’t part of their issue the regulators failure to enforce the rules already on the books? How does the new ordinance address that?

With specific consequences for specific behavior there’s no room for corruption or cronyism without it being obvious. With discretionary rules the flexibility allows selective prosecution. But then it is Chicago, selective enforcement is the rule.

Strike, strike, strike!

The taxicab drivers in Chicago were so incensed with the new ordinance that they called a strike. The United Taxidrivers Community Council called the job action to draw attention to the increased cost of the new ordinance with no recourse to recoup the expenses. As is usually the case, the strikers declared victory and city officials denied there was any disruption of service. In one story the highly trained reporter stated that cabs usually found at the Hilton were nowhere “in site.” I have heard it said that poor language skills are decimating the English language, which I assume to mean they are killing every tenth word.

That’s the spirit!

The Washington DC city council finally finished their new taxicab ordinance only to be told by the city’s chief financial officer that the city can’t afford the new ordinance. In what can only be called the true spirit of DC the council rejected the news and said the CFO’s figures were “too pessimistic.” Since when does anyone in DC care about what something costs or where the money is coming from? Damn the economics, full spend ahead!

Fur still flying.

Mayor Michael “Beyond Term Limits” Bloomberg’s NYC outer borough livery flag program has generated a tremendous amount of new business, for law firms. Numerous lawsuits have been filed by various factions, including the handicapped community. The demand for all of the new taxicabs to be wheelchair accessible was one of the first suits shot down. Since the city doesn’t actually provide taxicab service to anyone the case couldn’t be made that the city should be required to provide wheelchair accessible service.

Yes it is.

Articles out of Calgary, Canada complain that it is hard to regulate the taxicab industry. Further, they complain that it is difficult to get a taxicab at peak hours. Well, that is fairly common in most big cities, especially when you tightly regulate the number of taxicabs. Get a taxi plate price up around 100k and you limit a company’s ability to be creative with short shift leases and other such innovations. If I know I’m not going to have a bunch of new competitors why would I want to invest in trendy new GPS
dispatch systems or IVR telephone equipment?

Beyond public safety minimums, in my opinion, taxicab regulations generate as many or more problems than they solve. The tried and true medallion/permit/plate systems are milked by cities for their income potential, not their value to the public or the taxicab industry. Self interested parties claiming to represent the industry while actually representing their own interests often twist the debate and results with political payoffs. It can be quite hard to regulate the taxicab industry, especially when you know little about how it operates and are listening to the well connected.



If you have any comments regarding this or any of my articles please feel free to contact me at dmc@mcacres.com. —dmc