Good news

This paper, long a severe critic of Toronto City Council, will break with cherished tradition and praise our lawmakers for a number of actions over the past month.

First, we congratulate Council on granting taxis a substantial fare increase in as timely a manner as possible. By council standards they studied and approved the fare hike with lightning speed. It was desperately needed to at least partially offset the soaring price of gasoline.

Drivers report paying anywhere from $25 to $50 extra per shift just for gas. For people already making low incomes, some, if not many, drivers were facing the choice of not supporting their families or getting out of the business completely.

We are not saying the fare hike will solve the low income problem. It won’t. But it will give people breathing room to work on other systemic flaws.

Just as encouraging has been the public reaction to the fare increase as they evidently understand the dilemma cabs face and feel the increase is justified.

A heads up, however. As we go to press, oil has hit $140 per barrel and some analysts are predicting $7 per gallon prices in the US by the end of summer. If these gloomy predictions prove true, the need for further fare hikes in the not so distant future is a distinct possibility. Just a thought, but perhaps our regulators could keep an eye on gas (and insurance!) prices and be prepared to act quickly in a rapidly changing world.

Which leads us to the Legislation and Licensing Committee asking for a staff report on allowing smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles to be used as taxicabs.

Small cars have long been used as taxis around the world with complete customer satisfaction. It is long past time North American cities shed their slavish dependence on “full sized” gas guzzling behemoths.

The rationale for using big(ger) cars here has been predicated on a concept of “customer comfort.” That has meant lots of leg room, etcetera. But it seems customer preferences are changing. The industry and regulators must adapt to shifting reality.

We toss in a very serious question mark. We know low emission and hybrid cars are used as taxis elsewhere. Reports are that they are accepted by customers and produce savings for taxi drivers and operators.

But there are at least two great unknowns: a) Do they, over the working life of the car, produce the advertised fuel savings? and, b) What are the ongoing maintenance costs of these vehicles?

Only experience will tell that story. We recall the Natural Gas fuel car debacle where too many jumped on the bandwagon and got burned by a whoop-de-doo brand shiny new technology that just didn’t deliver. One neighboring city is dumping its entire fleet of NG fueled busses. They didn’t perform as expected and proved to be massively more expensive to maintain as they aged.

This cautionary tale should be seriously considered by legislators before they get all excited about this latest shiny new option. Let others be the guinea pigs for hybrids and look twice and carefully before forcing taxis into an expensive experiment. If individual operators want to give new technologies a go, they absolutely should have that option open. But please don’t even consider mandating them.

City Council also ordered that the entire process of taxicab leasing be examined by the industry and staff. As a first step in lease reform it dropped the 45 day rule to get cars back in the road after a lease cancellation. But other reforms have long been recognized by both drivers and owners (if they are being honest) as desperately needed. This is long overdue.

One suggestion: it has long been our feeling that separating vehicle and plate ownership would solve many problems for everyone. It should be very seriously considered.

Finally, we congratulate the Police Services Board for establishing a working group to work to resolve differences and improve relationships between cab drivers and our police force. It is an initiative that is long overdue.