New Taxi Fare System Indorsed Irving Schlaifer, chairman of the Uniform Circular Zone Committee, explained "the new system would give uniform rates for uniform trips: all The Brookland Citizens As- trips within a 1-mile radius sociation last night urged that would be in zone one, all trips · "unified circular zone sys- within a 2-mile radius would tem of computing taxi rates be charged for two zones and be adopted in the District. 30 on. In the present fixed In a letter to the District zone system it is possible to Commissioners, the District ride 5 miles for 50 cents while Public Utilities Commission other trips may cost $1 or and the appropriate commit- more for only five blocks." he tees in Congress. the group ex- pointed out. pressed their feeling that "the present zone system of rigidly Axed boundary lines for com- tion president in her home at puting tax rates in the Dis- 1262 Lawrence street NE. trict is unfair. unreasonable, discriminatory, inadequate, in equitable and arbitrary." Explained to The meeting was conducted by Kathleen W. Noel, associa did not give the area residents enough time to express cohesively their opinions, and in terming its action "illegal" urged association members to attend a board Thursday which An will reconsider the case. attorney is expected to show a which reflects the The American University petition Park Citizens Association last area's pointed opposition to the night reamrmed opposition to new licensing principally on the licensing of any new liquor the grounds that the area needs store in the Westmoreland no more liquor stores. In other business. Irving circle men Referring to the granting of Schlaifer, chairman of the UniCircular Zone System ■ liquor license to a shop at form 4855 Massachusetts aveune. Committee, explained the need NW.. by the Alcoholic Beverage for a uniform taxi rate system Control Board, association based on circular president Wilbur D. Thomas termined by accused the board of acting starting point in a cab. arbitrarily. He told his group to "Aght for their rights pressing for a repeal of the firense zones dethe passenger's The meeting was held at the Vestmoreland in Church. Congregational Westmoreland circle West End Unit Backs The suffrage amendment now being studied by House Judiciary Subcommittee members received unanimous indorsement last night from the West End Citizens Association The amendment calls for a vote for Washingtonians in the national elections for President, Vice President, and for The the election of delegates to the House of Representatives. Bubcommittee concluded hear ings on the proposed amend for mid-May Members of the ment last week A similar meas- association objected to the RLA ure has already been passed by plan since ther feel the aren the Senate. does not fall under the RLA The association also joined "blight" criteria. forces with John W Lyon, vice presiden: and general mana Hits GWU ger of the Parking Manage Mr. Steinem also commented ment. Inc. in opposing the rehat he "resented George development plan of an 8-acre Washington University officials Fogy Bottom atea as a luxury saying they could build on apartment project He private proper's referred to a statemen D. Dean Cha.es B Nutting of GWU Nama $20 Million Project The plan termed the Co-Law Cente lumbia Plaza project. was pro- would he bl posed by the staff of the National Capital Planning Com- teenth Twe: De mission and the Governmentsponsored Redevelopment Land Apren by Pennta NW The ac a tract. Another speaker at the meeting, Irving Schlaufer, received Obiection to the $30 million own much of the land in the arattimest project was stated by association president. Lester H Steinem He said he was opposed to the public another indorsement for his stepping in to do the job that uniform circular taxicab zoning private enterprise could do just as well M Lyon gated that his company feels it could comply With the requirements of 8 ard ope: and go it without the use of public funds The association voted to send it members to a public hearing on the renewal plan slated The plan from the association plan would base rates on the actual distance traveled rather than on fixed boundary lines The meeting was held in fald Western Presbyterian Church 1906 H street N W THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1968 PAGE C-45 CABS WILL CARRY RIDERS IN GROUPS AT LOWER RATES Both passengers and drivers will benefit under the city's new plan to allow group riding in taxis. The plan will go into effect April 2 with rides from the Eastem Airlines shuttle terminal at La Guardia Airport to four zones in Manhattan. Inder the group fares, a passenger going from the shuttle to the Gr Central district will pay $5 for the ride if he shares the cab with one other person; $2.50 if there are two others, and, $2 if there are three other riders. The regular metered fare for the same trip is estimated at $4. So, the riders will save 25 to 50 per cent. At the same time the cab company will receive $6 to $8 for the normal $4 trip. The drivers will gain because they receive a percentage of the fare. Travelers will still have the option of demanding sole occupancy of a cab, even though they will use the same waiting line as the group riders. FAMILY SAVINGS Husbands and wives, or other persons traveling together to the same address, will pay only what the meter registers, as they do now. The group taxi fares were disclosed yesterday by Amold Frain, Chairman of the Mayor's Taxi Study Panel and the ty's Investigation Commissioner. The four zones were laid out to encompass the destinations of 90 per cent of the shuttle's passengers, Mr. Fraisan said. The sanes and the group fares areas follows: Zone 1-all of Manhattan south of 23rd Street. Two passengers will pay $4.25 each; three passengers $5.50 each and four passengers, $5 each. The taxi panel calculated that the average or base, metered fare to this sane is $6, when (Continued on Page 82, Column 4) CITY CABS TO BEGIN GROUP RIDING PLAN (Continued From First Page, Second Section) three passengers are brought to different addresses. Zone 2-23rd Street to 60th Street east of Fifth Avenue. Two passengers will pay $5 each; three passengers will pay $2.50 each and four passengers $2 each. The base fare was estimated at $4. Zane 3-G0th to 96th Street, east of Fifth Avenue. The group fares will be the same as Zone 2. The base fare is also estimated to be the same. The purpose of two East Side zones is to group passengers with similar destinations. Zone 4-23rd Street to 72nd Street west of Fifth Avenue. The base fare was calculated at $5.25. Two passengers will MANHATTAN pay $4 each under the group rates. Three passengers will pay $3 each and four will pay $2.50 each. FIRST TIME IN CITY The experiment in group riding will be the first time As form of cab sharing has been tried in New York City, Mr. Frainm said, and will be conducted only from the shuttle terminal, where a special dispatcher-a city employee paid by Eastern-will group passengers going to the same zone. There have been recent complaints by taxi riders that cab drivers at Kennedy International Airport have been telling passengers they must pick up additional fare-paying passengers before heading for the city. This is against police hack bureau regulations, which forbid soliciting additional passengers, or, charging more than is on the meter for a trip within New York City limits, which Kennedy is. Mr. Frainan said he advised the taxicab managements and union of the new group fares and "they're both cooperating with them completely." Although some cabs will hold five passengers, Mr. Fraiman said four would be the maximum allowed for group rides to prevent the system from becoming too complicated From the files of Irving Schleifer, Chairman 1844 Kamedy St., N. W., Washington, D. c. 20011 99-714 073 - 6 By William Raspberry THE EXTRA NICKEL your one-zone taxi ride costs, starting yesterday, is a minor inconvenience to you. But for the cabbie who chauffeurs you, it is more likely to be an insult. A 10 per cent increase sounds fairly reasonable, but for the bre-zone trip that constitutes perhaps the bulk of the average cabbie's work, it will mean a 5-cent increase over the old 60-cent fare. Washington's hackers staged three brief strikes in protest of that token in crease, including the one that began Sunday midnight. The strikes may not mean very much, however. They only tell the Public Service Commission that most hackers are unhappy with the fare structure here, and the PSC has known that for years. The hackers' dismay stems from two basic reaapns: the rate itself is low (Washington has perhaps the cheapest cab ride of any major city in the country) and the absurd zone system, imposed by Congress, makes the rate structure unfair to both cabbie and passenger. The PSC has chopped the city up into 26 zones of various sizes and shapes. Any ride within a single zonewhich can be all the way from the Capitol to the east entrance of the State Department-costs 65 cents. Any trip that crosses a boundary-22d Street nw., for example-costs a dollar, even if it's from the east entrance to the west entrance of State. THE RETURN FOR the same distances increase with the number of passengers, which is why single fares keep getting passed up while drivers look for the more-lucrative group rides. The rates are based on mileage instead of zones for any ride that crosses the District line. Thus a ride to the D.C. side of Western Avenue, based on the zone system, may cost only half as much as a mileage trip that terminates on the Maryland side of the same street. The resident who knows this and walks the extra 100 feet to save a buck infuriates the cabbie. The stranger who learns it the hard way thinks he has been robbed. Cabbies love to cruise near the downtown hotels because there is always the chance they'll get an airport. run. That is mileage all the way, and lucrative. But you may wait for an hour at Union Station, particularly if you're black. The cabbie will think you want to go to far Southeast Washington, a long, zone-based ride that may be half again as far as National Airport but only half as lucrative. It is a system designed to infuriate cabbie and passenger alike. The obvious solution would be time-and-distance meters, but Congress has specifically forbidden that bit of logic. Probably the next best alternative would be a mileage zone system, such as proposed by Irving Schlaifer, perhaps the town's most talkative and exasperating hacker. UNDER SCHLAIFER'S system, a zone boundary would no longer be a fixed line on a city map but a point a half-mile away from the point of origin. He would use a clear plastic card with a series of concentric circles indicating zone lines. He would place the center at the point of origin and count the number of half-mile zones to the destination. (A ruler could be substituted for the plastic card with the same result.) In any case, a passenger would pay for the distance he had traveled, not for his luck in crossing or avoiding arbitrary zone lines. Schlaifer's system has a lot to recommend it. If it were tied to a flat rate regardless of the number of passengers and extended to include interstate runs, it would avoid most of the passenger complaints. Schlaifer also believes that with a basic 60-cent fare plus 25 cents for each additional half-mile, cabbies could earn substantially more money. If the system worked as well as Schlaifer expects, it could trigger an influx of part-time hackers. This could be handled by setting realistic limits on the number of cab licenses or at least on the number of parttime operators. But this is a minor problem. The mileage zone system seems so clearly supe rior to the present setup that the PSC, during its current fare deliberations, ought to give it very serious consideration. Zone System for Cabs The District of Columbia's taxicab drivers have made their point and made it abundantly. Monday's all-day strike, as well as three prior brief strikes, was remarkably successful for an industry as full of one-man operations and individualists as this one. Obviously, the chairman of the Public Service Commission was right in saying that fares cannot be changed solely because of the strike but just as obviously the cab drivers have established that the time for a complete overhaul of the rate structure has come. Washington has long been noted for the low cost of taxicab service and the 10 per cent fare increase authorized recently by the Public Service Commission is not going to change that appreciably. The existing zone system, drawn as it is to keep down the cost of rides throughout the business district, makes a cab ride from Capitol Hill to Dupont Circle or beyond just about the best transportation bargain going, except for the Staten Island Ferry. As any of our congressional overlords will be the first to tell you, there is much to be said for this, from every point of view except that of the men who drive the cabs. An increase in cab fares will hurt the most those who can least afford it since traveling by taxi is more commonplace here among the poor than in almost any other major city. But even a 20 per cent increase, the goal of the strik ing drivers, would do nothing to remove the inequities that are the zone system's worst evils, The easiest way to get rid of this basic problem the lack of correlation between the cost of a ride and either the mileage traveled or the time required is to switch the city's cabs to meters. The practical objections to such a switch, however, are just as important as the fact that Congress has specifically ruled out meters here. The cost of installing meters is substantial and might drive out of business many of the drivers whose presence now makes cab transportation feasible here. In addition, meters geared solely to mileage encourages cabbies to take the longest possible routes and those that include time as a factor encourage slowness as well as indirectness. In a city with as many tourists as this one attracts, particularly one in which the street pattern mystifies almost everyone, meters might well create more problems and more dissatisfaction than zones. The variant being proposed by some of the driv ers, a system of floating zones based on mileage, has much to commend it. This system, discussed in William Raspberry's column in this newspaper on Monday, would authorize fares of, say, 60 cents to any point within a mile, as the crow flies, of the spot of origin. Charges would be worked out by providing drivers with standardized maps and a set of concentric circles to be used in measuring distances. A change to this kind of zone system no doubt would take some getting used to. And it is not clear that the PSC has authority to authorize its use. But it is an idea that ought to be explored. The cab drivers deserve a better shake than they are getting and raising fares again will not give it to them. |