Mayor Vincent Gray wants to overhaul the District’s outdated taxi service and he wants the passengers to pay for it with a proposed fare surcharge, even as some city council members question whether the troubled D.C. Taxicab Commission could even handle the changes. Gray plans to ask the D.C. Council to establish a fund that will derive its revenue from a surcharge on each taxi trip, according to Ron Linton, the mayor’s nominee for chairman of the Taxicab Commission. The surcharge amount has not been determined, but Linton estimates the charge would save the city’s general fund up to $2 million per year.
At his confirmation hearing Tuesday, Linton outlined an eight-point plan he said had been approved by the mayor to improve the city’s cabs, including:
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> installing credit card readers and Internet display systems for riders
> a loan program for all D.C. resident drivers to upgrade their fleet to more fuel efficient vehicles
> stepping up enforcement efforts against illegal drivers.
The rate hike would exclude the elderly and lower-income passengers while providing “drivers and owners with high enough income to make it worthwhile to provide the level of service” the higher rate yields, Linton said.
But critics of the commission, which has four of its nine seats vacant, say it’s asking the public to pay for a job it should already be doing.
Laurence Benenson, an attorney for two city taxi driver associations that are suing the city and the commission, said the city’s estimated 8,600 drivers pay $50 every two years into a special fund that is supposed to help cover the commission’s costs. Part of the suit includes finding out what happened to that fund’s balance, which was nearly $256,000 in 2009, according to an audit.
“If you have that money … there’s no reason you can’t use it to pay for these things,” Benenson said.
Jack Jacobson, a Dupont Circle ANC commissioner spokesman of a group that successfully fought additional fees related to the 2008 switch to metered cabs, said he couldn’t think of “any other industry where customers are forced to pay for updating an industry that has adamantly refused to pay for updating itself.”
Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells doubted the commission could even handle such a massive overhaul, calling the office an “archaic” and “outdated system” and suggested the commission be folded into the city’s Department of Transportation instead.
