[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.
