From the September 2007 issue of the Chicago Dispatcher

Fare Increase, Fly Tickets & Foot Chases
Controversy surrounds proposed changes to lease cap ordinance
By George Lutfallah

On Thursday, August 30, petitions for a fare increase were filed with the city clerk, as were proposed changes to ordinances that govern taxicabs. The petitions requesting an unconditional fare increase included the signatures of approximately 2,000 cabbies. The cabbies are asking for the initial charge to increase from $2.25 to $2.75, for the rate per mile to increase from $1.80 to $2.25 and for the waiting time to increase from $.20 to $.25 per 36 seconds.

Filed separately were proposed changes to the ordinances that govern taxicabs, which were drafted primarily by George Kasp and me, but were developed after taking advisement and input from various parties in the industry. For example, you'll read about a proposed “Driver Medallion” that would be a special license for a cabdriver to own his or her own medallion. This was not an original idea on our part. There are also provisions to protect the privacy of drivers with regards to GPS and security cameras. These concepts came from cabbie activist Wolfgang Weiss. Many of the other provisions came from generally speaking with drivers and owners about their issues and concerns.

The full text of these ordinance proposals appear on page five. The proposed changes would:

– Give cabbies more time to pick up and drop off passengers with disabilities or those paying by credit card. We believe that cabbies are given “fly tickets” oftentimes because of the time it takes to load and unload passengers with disabilities and passengers paying with credit cards. It is in nobody’s interest if a taxi driver feels compelled to rush a person out of his or her cab for fear of being ticketed. Passengers with disabilities may need extra time to enter or exit a taxicab and the driver shouldn’t fear punishment for accomodating this customer. Similarly, since accepting credit cards is mandated, cabbies shouldn't be put in a position in which they feel the need dissuade passengers from using credit cards because of the extra time it may take to process them.

– Grant the Commissioner of Consumer Services the sole authority to permit a fuel surcharge. Currently only the City Council can grant a fuel surcharge to taxi drivers. We believe that the City Council cannot react fast enough to temporary economic downturns and that the Commissioner should have the discretion to grant a surcharge.

– Allow cabbies to park their cabs on residential streets. We believe that cabbies should be able to park their cabs in front of their homes with no more restrictions than a private automobile would have.

– Place restrictions on the city's ability to collect GPS and security camera data. We believe that the privacy of both drivers and the riding public needs to be preserved and that GPS and security camera data should be obtainable by the city only in cases involving alleged criminal activity.

– Require that whenever there are city auctions for taxicab medallions in the future that at least half of these medallions be reserved exclusively for taxicab lease drivers who don't currently own a medallion. We believe that lease drivers should have the opportunity to become medallion owners. In our experience, the best taxicab drivers are those who own their own medallions. They are committed to being in the industry for the long run so they tend to care more about customer service and the image of the industry and its impact on the city of Chicago. We believe that drivers who own their own medallions tend to take better care of their cabs than lease drivers do. The bottom line is that drivers who own their own medallions tend to be more professional than those who don't. Furthermore, with the upward trend of medallion prices, we believe that drivers are being priced out of the market by large fleet owners. While we believe that drivers who own their own medallions are the best drivers for Chicago and the riding public, we also value the importance of the fleet owner to provide opportunities for new drivers to enter the industry.

– Provide opportunities and restrictions for medallion owners to petition for a lease cap increase. A lease cap is the maximum amount a cab owner can charge a lease driver for use of a cab over a specific amount of time. We believe that medallion owners have rising costs like any other business and should have the ability to petition for a lease cap increase just as taxicab drivers have the ability to petition for a fare increase. We also believe that there should never be a lease cap increase unless there has been a meter increase and that a lease cap increase should not effectively negate the benefits of a meter increase drivers would receive. In other words, at the end of the day, drivers have to take home more money than they did before there was a lease cap increase.

This last point regarding the lease cap was a point of contention for some, including strike organizer Melissa Callahan. Callahan was privy to the proposed changes that Kasp and I had drafted but the issue of the lease cap had not been addressed by us at the time she reviewed our proposal. It wasn't until the day before the proposed ordinances were to be introduced to the City Council that Kasp and I wrote the lease cap provision and included it in the proposed ordinance amendments.

While Callahan agreed in principal with all the other proposed changes, she was suspicious of the lease cap issue for four main reasons. First, lease drivers in general do not want to see a lease cap increase and the petitions that drivers signed was for an unconditional meter rate increase. While the proposed ordinance amendments Kasp and I drafted did not call for a lease cap increase, they did propose conditions in which owners could petition for a lease cap increase. Second, she thought that drivers should have had an opportunity to say whether or not they agreed with the proposed issue of the lease cap before Kasp and I submitted the proposal. Third, since Kasp and I included the issue of the lease cap after Callahan had reviewed the proposed ordinance amendments but right before they were to be submitted, she was suspicious of our intentions. Fourth, she incorrectly thought that Kasp and I were attaching the proposed ordinance amendments to the issue of the fare increase, which would have conflicted with the petitions for an unconditional fare increase. However, the proposed ordinances Kasp and I wrote were being submitted separately and had nothing to do with the petitions for the meter increase.

In fact, Callahan was so suspicious of the move that when Kasp went to City Hall to submit the proposed amendments, along with the drivers who were going to submit the petitions for the fare increase, she grabbed the proposed ordinance amendments and ran out of City Hall to prevent them from being submitted. Kasp chased after her to retrieve the proposed ordinances which prompted Prateek Sampat of the American Friends Service Commitee (“AFSC”) to chase after Kasp. As the three ran down the streets of Chicago, Callahan attempted to board a bus at which point Kasp too boarded the bus, only to have his shirt ripped by Sampat who was trying to halt Kasp's pursuit. After things finally settled down, Callahan still did not turn over the proposed amendments; instead she and Sampat went to Sampat's office so she could make copies to distribute at O'Hare to taxi drivers. Callahan later discontinued distributing the copies after she more carefully studied the provisions of the proposed amendments and considered the possible benefits to drivers of the new language.

Although the current ordinance calls for lease caps to be based on 1993 rates, medallion owners have been lobbying the city for a lease cap increase while some lease drivers along with the AFSC have argued against one. While Callahan doesn't necessarily support the lease cap provision Kasp and I submitted, she does like some aspects of it, including a provision that would limit how much a lease cap could possibly increase, in the event that fleet owners are successful in their efforts to increase the lease cap.