Debate Over D.C. Cab Fares Revs Up

Alexander said he questioned the more expensive driver about the discrepancy. "But he said, 'That's the cost,' and something about the districts or zones or something. I paid it. But if there was a meter, you wouldn't have to deal with something like that."

Many residents seem to share that opinion.

"Zones confuse me," said Susan Wagner, a school librarian who lives in Southeast. "I think I may have been overcharged, but I really don't know."

Elliott Nickeson, a lance corporal stationed at the Marine barracks in Southeast, considers the zones "ridiculous."

"There's nothing to look at, nothing to tell you anything," he said. "I don't know how many districts we went through. I don't like the whole idea that the driver seems to decide the price."

But opponents of the meter say it would bring unwanted changes to D.C. taxi service: Residents traveling from poorer outlying neighborhoods in Southeast or Northeast probably could not afford a meter ride, they say, because it could add up to much more than a zone fare. Another reason fares could rise is that the meter would not stop clicking when the cab is idling in one of the city's infamous traffic jams. Some drivers also predict increasingly tighter regulation of a historically independent business that gave blacks, and later immigrants, an economic foothold.

The District has more cabs per capita than any large U.S. city, Toney said. That is perhaps in part because so many of the drivers are self-employed. There are about 6,500 taxicabs here, prowling the streets for passengers. New York City, with more than 10 times as many people, has about 13,000 cabs.

"If they get the meters, the only cab you'll see in this town will be at hotels, like the other major cities," Wright said. "You won't find them anyplace else. You won't find them in the neighborhoods."

Not every driver shares his point of view. Faisan Osman, who has been driving for five years, said he would not mind a change, because it would simplify things.

"I think the meter's better because it's fair to everybody," he said. "Now you take somebody to Capitol Hill, it's $6.50. You take somebody for two blocks, it's $8.80. I don't know why we have meters everywhere else and not in Washington."