DC Taxicab Commission Bows to Pressure
The Eight member DC Taxicab Commission meeting Tuesday reminded a lot of people of what the early DC Council meetings were like. Totally out of control! Cab
Drivers were screaming from their seats, often ignoring the Chairman's insistence on order. The meeting was held so the appointed body could vote on a recommendation to Mayor Fenty on whether he should keep the current Zone system for determining fares or go to a meter system like every other Major city.
Angry drivers, at one point got up and stormed out of the meeting and got into their cabs vowing to go on strike. "Make the Congress walk" said one veteran hacker.
They wanted to keep the zone system, complaining that a proposal to put time and distance meters in their cabs would cost them money.
Taxicab commissioners couldn't agree on a recommendation after eight separate votes.
Another proposal to keep the zones; but add a GPS system that would give the passenger a print out of the route, the distance, the fare .....that proposal was also defeated.
In the end the Commission decided to allow the Mayor (as though he needed their approval) to use his authority and current regulations to "do what he wants".
Some Congress members and their staffs hate the zone system and want it changed. If the Mayor doesn't act by October 17Th to either change to meters or keep the zone system--the law changes to meters.
Stay tuned...PS the Tuesday meeting went four hours..way too long..
posted by Bruce Johnson @ 7:34 PM
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google.com-"Karl Rudder's Blog"-The Unchallenged DC Taxicab Fare Structure = detailed insight to the little known facts
It has been an insult to DC residents, taxicab drivers and tourist that for 75 years not one DC City Council member (other than John Wilson in 1975) or any element of the local news media have ever responsibly researched or made any effort to "report" on the corrupt legal history of the very unique DC taxicab zone system. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by Congress and the DC government at conducting many "studies" on the unique DC taxicab zone system yet not one of these "studies" ever made the slightest referral to the fact that the DC Public Utilities Commission had issued order no. 956 on 11/06/31 and had listed 20 reasons to support their decision to deny,"any version of the zone system to replace meters in DC taxicabs."
It is very important that one of those reasons for the initial denial of the zone system was that the zone system had been found to result in "discriminative service" to passengers. In 1931 this racist society had "colored restrooms" so that denial related to the discriminative service that only white people were receiving from the DC taxicab zone system.
Judge Adkins had upheld the initial denial of the zone system by his ruling, "In my view the zone system is only a means to exploit the labor of the driver."(PURC 1932 pgs.17,19) Judge Adkins was talking about only white cab drivers labor being exploited in 1932!
I attended and testified at the September 2007 meeting of the DC Taxicab Commission making specific referance to the initial PUC decision, Judge Adkins decision as well as the Appeals Court having upheld his decision.
The very costly "study" that the DC Taxicab Commission had financed and had just completed had not only ignored the corrupt legal history of the zone system but also completely failed to address the racist design of the zone system that provides the cheapest and most reliable taxicab service to white people in downtown and NW areas of DC yet cheats the predominant Afro-American residents of DC.
The insulting zone boundaries of Alabama Ave. SE, Atlantic St. SE, South Dakota Ave. NE,12th and Rhode Island Ave. NE, 19th and Benning Rd.NE,42nd and Benning Rd.NE and so many others have deserved yet never received a careful examination.
The news media gives us a daily update on OJ rather than the slightest insight into the 75 years of Congressional corruption of the DC taxicab industry.
"What we have here is a failure to communicate !"
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