City Council Allows Hike In Cab Fare

Taxi fares in Cambridge will increase sharply today, as the result of a City Council vote last night to approve drivers' requests for their first fare increase in almost two years.

The new rate will be 95 cents for the first two-sevenths of a mile, and 20 cents for each additional seventh of a mile. Currently, Cambridge drivers charge 95 cents for the first fifth of a mile and 20 cents for each additional fifth of a mile.

The council vote will mean fare increases ranging from 11.4 per cent for a one-mile trip to 31.3 per cent for a five-mile ride.

In addition, cabbies will be able to charge $14 per hour for waiting time instead of $10 per hour, a 40-per-cent hike.

More than 60 drivers applauded the unanimous vote. "We've been eating inflation for a long time," one of the drivers, who originally came to the council more than a month ago seeking the increase, said after the vote.

A committee chaired by council administrative assistant Richard McKinnon reviewed the increase request and recommended that it be granted in full in a report issued two weeks ago.

The report also says the increase skewed "appropriately with the local in-Cambridge rides impacted the least and the longer out-of-town rides carrying the larger percentage of the increase."

"It's best for Cambridge that the short rides normally taken by the lower income and working class people go up less," city traffic commissioner George Teso said yesterday.

Teso recommended monthly or bimonthly meetings between city officials and cab owners and drivers, as well as representatives of city consumers in an effort to make fare increases more a routine matter.

"It is not surprising that the industry fails to bring forward a uniform and substantial package of data to support their petitions, for at present there is no formal request for such a package from any regulatory bodies," the report states.

The proposed committee might "allow us to ask the cab industry for things as well," Teso said, citing improved low-cost service to elderly residents as an example

Though most councilors said they supported the committee proposal--and also urged city officials to look at alternative arrangements, including a multiple fare system, for city cab service--councilor Daivd Wylie said he thought the council should "go slow on creating any body that has the potential for creating a cozy situation between the cab industry and some politicians."