No one should be surprised by D.C. Superior Court Judge Brooke Hedge’s decision upholding Mayor Adrian Fenty’s order shifting the city’s decades-old zone taxi system to time-and-distance meters. What’s perhaps baffling is the D.C. Council’s silence — or more accurately acquiescence.

From the beginning, Fenty and his then-General Counsel Peter Nickles broadly interpreted the amendment inserted into federal appropriation legislation that essentially required the city to make a decision: time-and-distance meters or the current zone system. The mayor, guided by Nickles — the city’s version of Vice President Dick Cheney — determined that the legislation provided Fenty with the powers to order the installation of time and distance meters in all taxis without council input.

The council could have blunted the mayor’s order. There’s precedent for such action. When Fenty sought last year to institute a new policy that would have required agencies to destroy e-mail correspondence every six months, the council, led by at-large member Carol Schwartz, immediately stepped in. Fenty rescinded his order, adopting the council-created policy instead.

Taxi drivers and District residents, adversely affected by the change, have no champion on the council. Ward 1’s Jim Graham, chairman of the committee that oversees the D.C. Taxicab Commission, postures as their friend. But he has failed to take any aggressive action to halt or even slow the mayor’s consolidation and corporatization of the District’s taxi industry.

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After the judge’s ruling, Graham offered that he’d ask the mayor to delay the May 1 deadline for the installation of meters. On Tuesday, Fenty announced cab drivers without new meters won’t be fined until July.

Everyone seems to believe the hype: Switching to time and distance meters will protect taxi riders. That’s comparable to the belief that a surveillance camera on every corner will stop crime. The numbers just aren’t there to support either theory. Fenty need only speak with his special friend, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to know that meters aren’t a panacea. More than a few riders are taken to their destinations via the scenic route — with the meter running, the cab dirty and the driver exhibiting rude behavior.

The best method for resolving concerns and improving the industry is plain and simple enforcement. Now, there’s a concept. District officials are famous for introducing and passing laws for everything. But ensuring that such laws and the attending rules and regulations are followed consistently is another matter. The alleged theft in the District’s Office of Tax and Revenue and other infractions highlighted in the auditor’s “yellow book” accompanying the city’s 2007 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report serve as testimony to lax enforcement.

So you fans of time and distance meters, your work isn’t complete. Now you have to ensure officials in the taxicab commission actually do their jobs.

Good luck with that.