Taxi fares in Lincoln rose substantially today after the city council Monday voted to totally revamp the ordinance regulating cab service.

 

 

 

 

On Monday, the cheapest cab fare in town was $4.25 for one passenger - and that's for a short ride. That increased to $5.75 today.

Under the old rate schedule, the highest fare a cabbie could charge a lone passenger was $5.50. Today, the maximum fare for one rider shot up to $8.50. The charges are higher with all fares if additional riders are involved.

Citing increased operations costs, especially fuel expenses, and the expansion of Lincoln's west side, aldermen agreed several weeks ago to rewrite the taxi regulations. Michelle Squaire, owner of American Cab Co., Lincoln's only taxi provider, had appealed to the council in May to sanction increased fares to reflect rising gasoline prices.

Under the old set of regulations, cab drivers charged on the basis of traveling between four zones, with charges going up every time a zone boundary was crossed.

Squaire and some city officials conceded the zone system is difficult to understand.

"It just kind of sounds like the formula might be complicated," Alderman Wanda Rohlfs, the council's ordinance committee chairman, told a reporter in May.

Last month, Alderman O.V. "Buzz" Busby strongly criticized the zone system during a committee debate on the taxi fares. He said the zone boundaries, as defined in the ordinance, were so complicated he doubts if cab drivers understand how to accurately charge their riders.

Busby proposed a simplified two-zone system, one for Lincoln proper and the other for outlying parts of the city.

But the ordinance committee ignored his suggestions and instead recommended that three new zones be added to the ordinance. Those new zones reflect commercial growth that has taken place on Lincoln's far-west side since the cab fares and zone boundaries were last changed in 1990 and 2005.

"You all agreed the four zones were atrocious," Busby said prior to Monday's vote. "So, what do you do? Add three more zones. You made a bad situation worse."

He was the only council member voting against the new fares.

http://www.lincolncourier.com/story.asp?SID=13743&SEC=8