Milwaukee permits just 321 taxicabs on its streets, almost half of which are owned by Milwaukee County Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo. Amy Alkon has much more on this story.
Milwaukee permits just 321 taxicabs on its streets, almost half of which are owned by Milwaukee County Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo. Amy Alkon has much more on this story.
Another reason for real newspapers. Too bad Milwaukee doesn’t have one.
In Toronto it is secret who owns taxi licences and some former politicians have a mit full. They all claim that these licences are a retirement benefit they can sell when they want to stop driving or owning a taxi. It has to stop.
Too much regulation is what has been strangling western economies.
It’s as if most of the regulation has been passed just so that the politicians can look busy.
Maybe we should have part time government which meets only a couple of weeks per year at all levels since they have so much time on their hands to legislate so much nuisance regulation.
In every city,and even some smaller towns, I’ve lived in there is political manipulation of taxi licencing,must be a very lucrative business.
Milwaukee has one cab per 1900 population, wonder what the average wait time is.
The Taxi commission has the right to regulate the number of cabs in any city–including Canada. The commission should, by rights, be made up of private owners and drivers. That never happens. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s, I sold used Chevy Caprice and Impala, Crown Vic etc. units to various cab companies. We converted then to propane.
Most are great people, The corruption is in the taxi commissions, not the people who keep the wheels turning.
“The Taxi commission has the right to regulate the number of cabs in any city”
No they don’t have a right… cities have given them the authority.
A taxi licence should have the following requirement:
– the driver has a valid licence
– the driver has passed a regular criminal backround check
– the vehicle is regularly inspected for safety
– the owner / driver has lots of liability insurance
Meet these requirements and get a taxi licence. No limits on the number issued or set fares. You could still have fixed default fares but the driver and passenger are always free to haggle a deal.
cdw
There are two classes of taxi licenses in TO since Howard Moscoe and Mel Lastman “cleaned up” the industry in 1998. The new guy on council who is in charge of municipal licensing is green as grass. He intends to clean up licensing in Toronto by April – he won’t be finished his orientation by then. Drivers with the ambassador licenses are suing the city because they are racist, but they happily took the free plates instead of paying for one. The guys who were in line for a plate in 1998 had their pensions stolen.
Come to the Toronto taxi industry – have you ever danced in a snakepit?
“Corrupt” is right.
London Ontario runs their cabs the same way. Most taxi driver’s “lease” the cab from the owners which is also against Ontario labour law. I think the licences there are around a hundred grande but the price changes allot with the economy.
Very corrupt business/industry. Unless you happen to be one of the few licence owners. Some owners in London have 20 to 30 licences (1990’s).
great blog
This is EXACTLY what Lorne Calvert and Brad Wall have done by allowing the SWEEP (Sakatchewan e-waste electronics program) to limit who is allowed to recycle ewaste in Saskatchewan. How come only SARCAN is allowed to dismantle ewaste, and all the rest goes to Ecycle Soulutions in Alberta, and to Sims all the way out in Ontario? Even the Competition Bureau agrees that this is a government created monopoly, yet this government gives NO EXPLANATION WHY it has to be a monopoly. So much for the Sask Party free enterprise model. See http://www.saskatchewanentrepreneur.com for more information.
This is as wrong as agriculture supply management in Canada. We should demand that Harper abolish it.
More Hangovers from a Liberal past.
This report was recently submitted to the City of Regina. It was written by the officious sounding Tennessee Traffic & Logistics Foundation.
It is a rather odious piece of garbage, but a very interesting journey through the mindset of those people who think the government should regulate everything.
http://www.regina.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=5301
I wonder how the cab biz is in Montreal? 🙂
The idea that the state should not only limit the number of vendors but should set the prices of said limited vendors is just plain crazy. Then people are shocked when there is corruption…
Set minimum requirements for businesses (safety and insurance)
What’s missed here is the environmental and traffic benefits. If there is no limit placed on taxi licences and no city government regulating fares, then the number of individuals setting up as taxis would increase greatly. This would almost certainly result in two things: a drop in fare rates and a large drop in the number of cars during rush hour.
How many of us would rather have a cheap car-pooled taxi service to work rather than driving ourselves? Lots of us. But we won’t use public transit because it’s slower than even single-passenger cars.
But the public transit freaks don’t want this either, as their option takes a big hit as well as private cars. The laws banning jitneys many years ago were one of the most evil sources of corruption in municipal politics. As just an example, the taxi lobby is the principal reason why Pearson airport is perhaps the only large international airport without a high speed rail link to the downtown core.
When you legislate buying and selling, the first thing bought and sold are legislators…
cgh: “How many of us would rather have a cheap car-pooled taxi service to work rather than driving ourselves? Lots of us. But we won’t use public transit because it’s slower than even single-passenger cars.”
Saw a CATO Institute talk on that very subject, they looked at places where there isn’t this corrupt government legislated monopoly and found these single operator cabs were extremely efficient and cheap. Much cheaper than public transport, which is already more subsidized and more costly than operating our own vehicles.
I think it was Robert Heinlein who wrote (approx.) “If you want to see how free a society is, look at the way its cabs work” (maybe it was PJ O’Rourke).
And of course one has to wonder how a mere civil servant can amass 150 cab licenses worth $150k each, for a total value of $22.5M. Perhaps his wife saves it up from the housekeeping money; she’s very frugal, you know?
Why the urge to limit cabs, eggs, turkeys, chichens, and milk? Something wrong with free enterprise? Try getting a cab in some cities late at night. With the farm products we are protecting mostly millionaires from competition and saving consumers from low prices. The licenses have all concentrated in the hands of the rich. The poor are left wanting.
@ BobC:
I just read that Sask report. Ironically the writer of the report only included the economic published peer reviewed evidence against deregulation. As a little exercise I went and reviewed the economic literature behind taxi deregulation.
He neglected to include several studies in Ireland and New Zealand (peer reviewed) showing increased number of taxis, and decreased prices, and more targeting of repeat customers with discount plans post deregulation. I also read the studies against deregulation which appeared highly biased by those who already had licenses pre deregulation.
Yeah this is a biased report alright.
This is the same thing the media has been doing with regards to longer prison sentences with repeat offenders apparently “not working”. IN fact there exist a large number of peer reviewed studies demonstrating that longer incapacitation of repeat offenders does work to reduce crime. Funny how we never hear about those studies…
Oh, and I wanted to describe the “jeepney” service in the Philippines work. Forget about safety, licenses, insurance, etc., all of which we’d need here, but basically:
A guy buys an old Jeep chassis, puts a cover over the back, and a bench on either side. He then covers it with incredibly garish decorations, and a distinctive name on the front (best I ever saw was “Blowjob”). He also puts a sign on either side listing his start point, his end point, and the main route he’s going to take. For example, in Toronto, it might be “Scarboro Town Centre to Eaton Centre by Kingston Road/Queen St”. People are free to hop on and hop off at any point along the route, paying an agreed upon fare. After a few weeks, he generally has a regular clientele.
So, yeah, if I had to drive from Richmond Hill to downtown Toronto each day, I’d love to be able to buy a nice minivan, take five passengers at $4 each way (way cheaper than public transit for them), get them to their destination in about 1/3 to 1/2 the time, and generate $800/month to pay for the van, gas, insurance, etc., which I then get to use for free on the weekends.
(Google “jeepney” for images; they’re amusing!)
Here’s a story about what’s going on in Ottawa:
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110307/OTT_Bandit_Taxis_110307/20110307/?hub=OttawaHome
No surprise. All the commenters want the taxi monopoly dumped and they are all on the side of the so-called “bandit taxis”.
And what does CTV do? Echoes the big government corrupt party line without even a wink toward the other side of the story.
@KevinB
Good post, but how do you figure $4 each way is cheaper than public transit? Here in Calgary it’s $2.75 per trip and I think Montreal is similarly priced.
Of course tickets and monthly passes are cheaper if one travels often.
Yes, Jeepneys *are* cool.
Piperpaul:
Richmond Hill is in York Region; YRT fares are $2.60 each, or $108 per monthly pass. Then you have to pay TTC fares. $2.25 each, and I think a Metropass goes for about $125 (haven’t checked recently). So, if you’re buying individual tickets, it’s $4.85 each way, twice a day. If you’re buying the passes, it’s at least $223 per month.
Now, there is something called a “GTA” pass, which gives you unlimited use of both the YRT and TTC. They are $52/week (no monthly option, as yet). So, $208 per month is the least expensive public alternative, which is more than the $160/month I would charge, and for that, your trip takes 50% to 100% longer than it would take with me, with far less comfort – no cup holders, no quiet atmosphere, no place to stretch your legs, uneven heat in the winter, uneven or no A/C in the summer, and if you do have to bring extra bags for any reason, no convenient place to store them.
Seriously, which option would you take?
“We should demand that Harper abolish it.”
Yes, such controls should be scrapped.
But no, not by Harper. It’s not his job.
This is a municipal problem, possibly with some provincial involvement.
In the past three months, Milwaukee had the largest year-over-year growth in local government employment of any metro area in the nation.