Major changes urged for taxis

Salt Lake City's current taxi cab companies could be out of business as soon as February if the City Council acts on the recommendations of an independent consultant it hired last year.

Those recommendations, presented to the City Council on Tuesday, include eliminating the current three-cab-company system and opening the market to competition. Interested transportation companies could bid for between two and four franchise licenses, giving them the right to offer cab service in Salt Lake City.

While the city's three existing companies — Yellow Cab, Ute Cab and City Cab — could compete for those franchise licenses, other companies also would be eligible.

Any company submitting what the city considered the best business model would be awarded one of the franchises while others with less acceptable models would be left out.

"I love it. It's what I've been asking for for years," said longtime industry critic Russell Ridge, whose 5-Star Transportation Co. has sought a city cab operating license for years.

More competition, especially for franchise licenses, will produce better service and allow the companies to better contend with growing competition from outside shuttle services — which cab companies complain are acting like taxis but don't have the onerous city-imposed requirement that they provide 24/7 service — said Dr. Ray Mundy, investigator with the Tennessee Transportation & Logistics Foundation.

Mundy made other sweeping and controversial suggestions about how the city could improve its taxi industry. He outlined even greater changes to the city's taxi cab regulations that could be implemented in the years to come.

"The changes are pretty dramatic," Councilwoman Jill Remington Love noted.

Mundy has previously criticized the industry for having out-of-date cabs, bad drivers and poor service.

The cab companies and their lawyer, Don Winder, didn't want to comment on Mundy's recommendations Tuesday, saying they need time to digest the information Mundy used to reach his findings.

The City Council will take public comments on the recommendations until May 19. It wants to adopt some changes by June.

Under Mundy's plan, the city would then begin taking bids for its franchise license and award those contracts in late 2005. The new companies could then take over on Feb. 1, 2006, when the existing three cab companies' licenses expire.