Salt Lake is trying to tackle taxi woes

Salt Lake City's taxicab industry is in disarray. Its cab fleet, for starters, is perhaps the oldest in the nation, spreading polluted emissions throughout the Salt Lake Valley.

"You have a legally sanctioned polluting cab fleet in a city that wants to be progressive with clean vehicles," Ray Mundy, an outside taxi industry consultant, told the City Council. "This is by far, perhaps, the oldest cab fleet I have seen in about 25 years of doing research."

To make matters worse, drivers are working 12-, 14- and 16-hour shifts, often making less than minimum wage and unable to afford health insurance.

"They make about $5 an hour, averaging 12 to 14 hours a day on their shift," Mundy said. "Most (drivers) would lease a cab for 12 hours, and after paying their lease and paying for gas, if they make $60 for that time, they are doing well."

The taxis that cab drivers use are horrid polluters, Mundy said, fouling the Wasatch Front's air. For instance, the city's most prolific cab company has taxis that are an average of 14 years old, much higher than cab companies in other cities that usually jettison their taxi models older than five years.

Mundy found that City Cab taxis were an average of 14.1 years old, Ute Cab taxis were 11.2 years old and Yellow Cab taxis averaged 10.1 years old.

Adding to pollution caused by old cars, as many as 100 cab drivers regularly line up at the Salt Lake City International Airport waiting for passengers. A cab can wait as long as three hours for a single fare.

"There is no economic rational theory that says why anyone would sit at the airport for three hours except that they like the company," Mundy said. "The only thing I could think of is that they love the club mentality. Some people like to go to bars, other people like to go to the airport and wait with their friends."

The line at the airport has actually become like a social club for cab drivers where they pass the time away playing cards, checkers and chatting, said Mundy, director of the Tennessee Transportation and Logistics Foundation.

"When you see that line out there, you think it must be incredibly lucrative because why else would you sit there all day? But it's not," City Councilman Dave Buhler said.

Mundy offered some potential changes to the city's taxi cab regulations that could help fix the city's taxi fleet.