Hybrid System Gains Ground As D.C. Cab Fare Vote Nears

"What I should do is look at that option, but it's also my responsibility to look at the other two main options, the current system and a system that is more like the traditional metered system," he said.

"If more people are unhappy with the current system, then that means people want change," he said. "What they want, we still have to determine. What we want is a decision that goes forward and we won't have to revisit in the near future if we can avoid it."

No other U.S. city has a taxi system quite like the District's. Its zone system dates to the 1930s, and about 90 percent of its 7,500 licensed cabdrivers are independent owners. It is an industry without much supporting data -- no information on how much drivers make, how many passengers are moved annually, peak ridership times or seasonal changes.

"The only data we have is collected by individual drivers on their manually scribed manifests," said Causton A. Toney, who stepped down as commission chairman in January after a year and a half on the job. "Nobody knows how big the industry is."

Because of the setup, local cabdrivers historically have had a lot of power, Toney said. He thinks the commission, established in 1986 after Congress relinquished control, has failed to act in the past because of fears that drivers "would create a crisis."

"Every time the issue comes up, drivers say, 'We're going to strike,' " he said, describing the response as "scare tactics." "From 1986 until today, the commission has been fiddling with this issue and has been unable to resolve what is at its base a common-sense issue."

He does not have much faith that zone meters will solve the problem.

"It does nothing to address one of the largest failings of the zone system -- the fundamental unfairness of the system itself," he said of the zones, which were originally drawn to benefit Congress members and others on Capitol Hill.

"You can go from Constitution and Second to Foggy Bottom and consume a driver for 25 minutes and pay only $6.50 for a trip three miles or more -- and somebody else goes less than a third of a mile and has to pay twice that. The zone calculator does nothing to address that."

On at least two current taxicab commission members have been open in their support of meters. "The current system is arcane and unfriendly and needs to go," member Cornelius Baker said. "We have a system that is not rational in its pricing structure and has arbitrary boundaries drawn that no one can understand. . . . Our system is not befitting our stature."

He said he has heard a lot about the zone meter. "Clearly, they're better than what we have now," he said. "They give greater confidence that fares are not being arbitrarily set. But they're still not fair."

Travis, a longtime supporter of zones, has the usual worries about meters -- that fares would fluctuate wildly, depending on traffic congestion, bridge openings and other factors. But she thinks the zone meters could work.