Taxi companies to raise their rates

Fresh off the Utah Transit Authority's announcement that it plans to increase transit fees, Salt Lake City's taxicab companies are poised to raise their rates as well.

This week a city-appointed judge ruled the city's three taxicab companies should be able to raise their rates by roughly 10 percent to offset rising gasoline and insurance costs.

It would be the first such increase since 1997, and in that time the Consumer Price Index for the western United States has increased 19.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The judge's recommendation will be forwarded to the City Council, which has the final say on whether the cab companies can raise their rates. The council has yet to set a hearing date to take public comment on the proposed increases.

Determining whether those rates should be increased has become an expensive proposition for the city. The council has allocated $42,000 to hire St. Louis consultant Ray Mundy to analyze Salt Lake's taxi industry and determine, among other things, whether the rate hike is reasonable. Mundy will also be charged with looking at other more major overhauls of the city's taxicab regulations, which were proposed by Mayor Rocky Anderson's administration last year.

The modest rate increase is scaled-back from the increases Yellow, Ute and City Cab had asked for in a Dec. 22 letter to city Business & Licensing director Edna Drake. Cab company attorney Don Winder suggested rates should be increased from $1.60 to $2.05 for the initial pickup and from $1.60 to $2 for each mile. In the letter, Winder said the larger increases would allow the cab companies not to petition the city for further rates hikes for years to come.

But a new ordinance passed by the council in December calls for a review of rates each year. Winder said it was pointless to secure rate increases that would cover future inflation if there would be a yearly rate review.

The increases city judge Michael Crippen approved this week include a 15-cent hike in the initial pickup charge, from $1.60 to $1.75 and a 20 cent hike in the per-mile charge, from $1.60 to $1.80.

"The cab companies are very sensitive to their market and their ridership," Winder said. "They try to be very conservative."

There appears to be little opposition to the proposed increases. Even industry critic Russell Ridge, who has sought a city permit to open a new cab company since 2000, said a rate hike is in order.