Cabbies Survey Riders in Bid to Keep Zone Fares

Taxi Drivers Hope to Make Case by Gathering Feedback Before Jan. 8 Public Comment Deadline

If anticipating a ride in a taxicab in the next few days, best to bring a pen. Chances are the driver may hand you a survey, part of a last-ditch lobbying effort against Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's decision that District cabs switch from a zone system to meters April 1.

On a recent gloomy Tuesday morning, Stanley Tapscott, a longtime driver and a D.C. taxicab commissioner, zigzagged from Northwest to Southeast and back via Northeast with a reporter beside him, cruising for passengers or bidding for them on his radio through a central taxi dispatcher. It was a slow day, but the three sets of passengers he picked up dutifully checked the boxes on surveys he handed them after chatting about the state of the weather and a general inquiry about their riding habits.

"You ride cabs often?" Tapscott asked a woman with a walking stick whom he had just picked up at an eye-care center in Northeast.

"All the time," answered Mabel, 84, who asked that her last name not be used. "I've been going to the doctor and the hospital two or three times a month."

"Have you heard about the new fare?" Tapscott said.

She had, she said, from another taxi driver. "There will be so many different fares; it's very confusing," she said. "When there was a set price, that wasn't confusing."

"So you prefer zones to time-and-distance fares?" Tapscott asked, reaching into his glove compartment to pull out a survey for her to fill out.

"I hate to say it, but I do, because I know when I get into a car what the fare will be," Mabel replied. Tapscott agreed.

The decision to abandon the city's zone system, announced Oct. 17, outraged many of the city's 7,500 cabdrivers, prompting a strike on Halloween. A number of cabs defied the strike.

Since then, a Jan. 8 deadline to deliver public comments to the D.C. Taxicab Commission and mayor's office about the new regulations has had drivers who oppose the change scrambling to make their case, with some powerful backing, including from D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8).

Taxicab Commission Chairman Leon J. Swain Jr. said approximately 350 comments have been received so far, and they will all be reviewed after the closing date for possible changes to the regulations.

Opponents of the meters say poorer or elderly residents in Southeast who rely on cabs to make medical visits will be the hardest hit by the new fares, which a recent report found would result in fares that on average were 97 cents higher than zone fares. Under the zone system, the minimum a passenger pays is $6.50, not including peak charges, but that can cover fairly lengthy trips if contained within one zone.

"We are circulating the petition to get the pulse of the public regarding meters and to see whether they were contacted by the mayor's office," said William J. Wright, president of the Taxicab Industry Group, one of several taxicab lobbying groups and the one that led the strike.

Drivers from a coalition of taxicab companies participating in the survey say an August poll, which Fenty (D) said showed widespread dissatisfaction with the city's zone system, did not adequately represent D.C. residents.

The survey, which Wright distributed in 40 churches and through cab companies to approximately 150 drivers, asks riders three questions: whether they were consulted by the mayor; whether they favored time-and-distance meters; and whether they would like to have zone meters that would tell a passenger immediately what the fare will be. Some drivers are promoting zone meters as a compromise. Fares would be based on zones but would be calculated by a Global Positioning System when the passenger gives the destination.

"There's no way I can cheat you," said Tapscott to another passenger, fiddling with the buttons on the prototype zone meter in his cab. Tapscott said he commissioned the meter from a Canadian company four years ago as a way to make the zone fares more transparent. Only about 300 of the city's drivers currently use the device, but advocates hope it might present an alternative to time-and-distance meters.

The District is the only major U.S. city that does not rely on meters, and its zone system has stirred controversy for years. Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), a longtime critic of zones, attached a provision to legislation last year requiring mayoral action.

Of 355 surveys returned to Wright, 296 were against time-and-distance fares, 52 favored them, and seven abstained. A majority of respondents, whose addresses crisscrossed the city, said they were not consulted by the mayor. Most also said they would favor zone meters.

"No! No! No!" a respondent from Northeast wrote beside the question about time-and-distance fares.

"I would take cabs a lot more if there were meters because I avoid cabs for short distances because fares are so big with zones," another wrote.

Sitting in Tapscott's taxi, Deaunte Toney, 25, ticked off the squares on the survey: no, he wasn't consulted, no, he didn't favor time-and-distance meters, and yes, he liked the idea of a zone meter.

Toney said he budgets $14 a day for the cab journey that takes him from his home in Southeast to his job as a hotel custodian in Northeast. It's cheaper than a car, and buses take too long, he said. He goes home by public transportation or gets a ride with a colleague.

But the more erratic charge of time-and-distance meters, which would vary according to traffic conditions, has made him think twice, he said.