Tuesday, Aug. 16

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Cab fares to go up       Send a link to a friend

[AUG. 16, 2005]  Lincoln - Owners of the two Lincoln cab companies returned to city chambers on Monday evening.  Michelle Squaire of American Cab and Brian Rankin of Lincoln Land Taxi presented a unified plea last week to raise the city regulated taxi rates.  Those fees are set by ordinance of the city and had not been addressed since 1992. 

The taxi owners had also requested simplifying the four city zones into two zones. It is a lot of work for our drivers to calculate out fares with the various zones, Squaire said. She proposed an in-city limits zone bound by the Business-55 loop and a zone outside that loop. After reviewing the current zones Alderman Verl Prather agreed saying, “They’re pretty outrageous, [they’re] like looking at a war zone to figure out.”

The business owners also asked for changes in wait time and additional child passenger provisions. However, those requests would constitute rewriting the entire ordinance, which would take months of meetings, city attorney Bill Bates said. The companies said that they didn’t have that long, they are near losing money now.

So, in the interest of being expeditious in getting the companies fares to a level of keeping them in business the committee focused solely on the rates.

Alderman Buzz Busby presented two rate tables; one that calculated fare increases since the last increase in 1992 at 2% and the other at 3% and then rounded those fees to the nearest quarter.

The committee agreed that the 3% rate would help bring the businesses into line with today’s costs and also falls in line with current cost-of-living increases. They were in full agreement that we need to protect our cab companies. “They provide a vital service,” finance chairman Verl Prather said.

While the committee recognized that the rates had not been increased in over 13 years they did not adopt the requested amounts that began with an in-city rate of $6.00, compared to the current $2.75. Alderman Patrick Madigan said that he was concerned that the Lincoln market, current patrons, especially those on a fixed income, would not be able to handle the larger increase.

Busby proposed the following amended rates:
Zone / Rate
1 / $4.25
2 / $4.75 (This was originally $4.50, but Squaire and Rankin asked it be raised a quarter.)
3 / $5.00
4 / $5.50

“I realize it is quite a jump, but we haven’t looked at this in fifteen years,” Busby said.

The new rates will be increased annually by 3% to keep up with the cost of living. Some figures will be rounded up by a quarter in order to keep figures simple and avoid the drivers having to deal with nickel and dime change.

It was considered whether to implement the increase in two six-month stages in order to ease cab patrons into the higher amount. Alderman Wanda Lee Rohlfs likened the proposed two-stage increase to the stamp increases that were implemented in stages some years ago. It was confusing, she said. She thought that the visible rise in gas prices is definitive enough. “Everyone can see that it’s going to cost more to go anywhere for everybody,” she said.

The new fees will go into effect as soon as the ordinance modifications are approved. It will be scheduled to come to a vote on Sept. 6.

The business owners were happy with the committee’s quick action on their behalf.

After the meeting Michelle and Randy Squaire said that they are still have concerns whether the increases would be sufficient to meet their current costs of doing business. Randy said that beyond the obvious gasoline prices, their operating costs have more than doubled in areas such as maintenance labor and insurance.

Michelle said that their drivers have been taking the hit in less than adequate pay. She said that she still could be forced to stop doing business if gasoline and other cost continue to go up. She will wait and see how it works.

Alderman Marty Neitzel said that they could come back to the council and ask for additional increases if the gasoline continues to rise and gets too high.

Gasoline in Lincoln went from $2.59 to $2.75 per gallon on Monday.

[Jan Youngquist]
 

 

 

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