Steve Eldridge, The Examiner
2007-09-14 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

The District’s Taxicab Commission has once again proved that it can’t get the job done. Public hearings get canceled because of the “lack of parking” and then the commission comes to a stalemate when making a decision about meters versus zone fare collection systems.

Don’t most boards provide for this problem and start with an odd number of voters so that a decision actually gets made?

Can anyone on the commission spell quorum?

The good thing about the commission’s inability to come to a decision is that it gives Mayor Adrian Fenty the chance to decide for himself knowing there is no clear consensus.

Either way he decides he will have half of the commission upset with him. Isn’t that the way things work best in the District?

Perhaps it’s time to rethink (again) the way the commission is seated.

Perhaps it would be better to have fewer cab drivers and cab company owners on the board who bring in their own agendas.

Perhaps there needs to be some rider representatives like they have over at Metro. Perhaps it’s time for the District to pick a system that’s used in another major U.S. city and go with it ... once and for all.

Metro Fare increases

Over at Metro the board of directors’ Finance, Administration and Oversight Committee has tabled the discussion on fare increases until it receives more information.

Here’s the information I think they need: The system is running a deficit of $175 million and the local jurisdictions won’t be coming up with the money for the near term.

It’s time to reduce staff and make things run more efficiently and, as much as I had to advocate for it, to raise fares. There, problem solved.

The silly thing about the way Metro is forced to operate is that it will have to hold public hearings on the fare increases.

What is it that we expect to hear from the passengers?

How many will stand up and say “Please charge me more”? More than likely the public hearings will result in requests for more and better service.

Using GPS, not zones

Speaking of taxi fares, Alex writes: “The zone system has the advantage that you only pay on the basis of the beginning and ending points, so you don’t have to pay for getting stuck in traffic or taking a devious route.

“It has the disadvantage of arbitrary zone boundaries. The meter system compensates the driver for getting stuck in traffic, giving him no incentive to find a faster alternative. It’s main advantage is that reduces arguments over fares by have a machine determined price.

“An alternate using GPS has been suggested that sounds good except that it still uses the arbitrary zone boundaries.

“Why not use the GPS system to determine the distance between the starting and ending points and base the charge purely on that distance.

“Something like $X for the first mile and $Y for each additional mile, where X is the current one-zone charge and Y is calibrated to result in average fares that approximate those of the current system.”

Questions, comments, random musings? Write to Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com