Debate Over D.C. Cab Fares Revs Up
Analysis Awaited On Zones, Meters

By Sue Anne Pressley Montes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 13, 2006

It was 1956, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower was gearing up for a second term. Movie star Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco. And D.C. cabdriver William J. Wright testified before Congress about the reasons the District's zone-fare system was preferable to the meters used in cabs in every other major American city.

Fifty years later, Wright is preparing to defend the status quo again as the District's taxicab debate resumes: Should the city keep the confusing but time-honored zones or switch to meters and a future that some say could bring big changes to the local taxicab industry?

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) favors the switch to meters, and he and his staff are awaiting the results of the District's first comparative study of meters and zones. During the eight-month project, which was completed this month, about two dozen D.C. cabs were outfitted with test meters, and fares were calculated for each trip using both methods.

"We needed real-time data, hard data," said D.C. Taxicab Commission Chairman Causton A. Toney, who expects an analysis of the information in about a month. "It was clear that before any move could be made to change the system, it was important to be able to tell both drivers and the riding public what the impact would be."

A series of public hearings on the issue will begin this summer.

But the opposition already is primed for battle. Wright, now 83, is saying the same things he said in 1956 and periodically over the years when officials attempted to change to meters: Cabdrivers will not stand for it.

"We're going to fight it again," said Wright, who heads a drivers organization called the Taxicab Industry Group. "The zone system is a good system, and I'll tell you why: People in Washington, D.C., they know what the fare is because the zones don't change -- I don't care how much traffic you're in."

Taxis and their often confounding fares are an enduring -- if not always endearing -- feature of the nation's capital. Since 1933, when Congress banned meters in D.C. cabs, drivers have used the zones, concentric circles emanating from the downtown area, to determine fares. This can lead to some cockeyed prices: It is possible to travel from the eastern edge of Georgetown, 22nd Street NW, to the U.S. Capitol for the single-zone flat rate of $6.50, but a shorter trip that happens to cross a couple of zones can jump into double digits.

Visitors to the city find the zones either quirky or outrageous.

"It's one of the nicest things about D.C., a flat rate," Kevin Blackburn of Oakland, Calif., a banker who makes monthly trips to Washington, said as he stood in a taxi queue at a downtown hotel. "If they went with the meters, I would have to adjust, but it's certainly an easy way for somebody traveling around town. Most trips are between $7 and $9 with tips."

But John Alexander, a first-time D.C. visitor from Laguna Beach, Calif., who was in town for a Chorus America national conference, quickly soured on the zones. Like many residents who oppose the system, he suspects there is plenty of room for a driver to cheat.

"Last night, I had to go to a dinner, and the cab that brought me back charged me twice as much as the cab that took me there," he said as he waited for another taxi outside his downtown hotel. Well, maybe not quite twice as much, he amended, but $12 vs. $19.50.

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."