D.C. Cabbies Feel The Pinch as They Prepare for Meters

His weekly math: 40 hours on the road, $180 for fuel, $35 for insurance, maybe $250 clear in his pocket when the 40 hours are up, he said. Good thing his wife also works (in a bank) because gas isn't his only big-ticket item. There's maintenance as well.

"Ah, if the car is broken," Hassen groused and threw up his hands again. "They just fixed my car. Two days ago they fixed it, $500. Alignment of the front end."

The basic D.C. meter fare also worries drivers -- $3 for the first one-sixth of a mile and 25 cents for one-sixth of a mile thereafter.

That's $4.25 for the first mile and $1.50 for each subsequent mile, which means a two-mile ride in the District will cost more than in Baltimore ($3.60/$2) but less than in Boston ($4.35/$2.40), New York ($4.50/$2) and Philadelphia (soon to be $4.77/$2.30). Here, as elsewhere, the rate goes up if a taxi is stuck in traffic.

A two-mile trip across one zone border -- say, from Union Station to Nationals Park -- costs $8.80 now.

"One mile, $1.50! In this city?" Mulugeta scoffed. "You can't even make your basic income all day long. You can work 15 hours and don't make what you make now with the zones. You'll be happy if you make what you make now, half of it. Honest to God."

After Hassen got his Chevy back, the installer, Zeraine Beyene, went to work on Mulugeta's Lincoln. For most of the day at Ace Auto, the only part of Beyene that's clearly visible are his feet sticking out of the driver's side of someone's cab as he contorts himself under the dash, splicing thread-like wires from a Pulsar 2030R into the taxi's electrical system.

He rolled onto his back on the front floor of the Lincoln and strained to explain.

"The meter has five wires, okay? The red one goes to the fuse box. The black one goes to ground. Here we have the white one that goes to the speed meter."

You mean odometer?

"Odometer, yes, sorry. Okay, sorry, no, yellow one goes to the odometer. The white goes to the top light on the roof, okay? The taxi light. When the meter is running, the light goes off. When there is no customer, the light goes on."

He knows where the green one goes, too. He was finished with the Lincoln inside of an hour and took it for a test spin. Mulugeta was waiting in the street, smiling, when Beyene pulled up and got out, adjusting his soiled ball cap.

"Okay," said the installer, an unlighted Marlboro dangling from his lips.

"Okay," said Mulugeta, climbing behind the wheel.

Cabbie economics.

"Going back to work, boss," he said. "What else can I do?"