Editorial: Chicago's taxicab regulations have fallen apart

Chicago Tribune

6 days ago

As Chicagoans and tourists spilled out of Navy Pier on Wednesday night, a crowd of taxicabs waited for the post-shows and post-fireworks crowd. Their roof-lights all were lit, indicating availability for a ride.
Chicago's taxicab regulations require those drivers to take folks without prejudice or favor wherever they want to go, to do so by the most expeditious route and to charge them a regulated price, perhaps accompanied by a nice tip for good service. The cost is determined by a meter.
But none of the cabs we tried were willing to use their meters Wednesday night.
Once we saw what was going on, we stuck our heads in and out of more than half a dozen, just to make sure this was not a rogue outlier or two. But it was ubiquitous.
Cab number 2346 wanted $40 for a ride just a few blocks west. Cab 5660 wanted $50. Others had varying prices, all of which were at least three times the official rate. Tourists and Chicagoans alike were forced into sudden negotiations in what clearly has become an unregulated Wild West, more akin to one of those international cities where cabs don't have meters and routinely prey on visitors.
The situation wasn't just outside Navy Pier, either. Even blocks away beyond Michigan Avenue, no cab would offer us a meter-regulated ride into the South Loop. And it wasn't just Wednesday night, either. As we told our story, we heard tell of many other times when cabs were ditching their meters en masse. Basically, whenever there was a special event or bad weather and Uber and Lyft had surge pricing in play.
We're not unsympathetic toward cab drivers and we've lamented before how this city's full-on embrace of ride-share companies decimated our once-thriving taxi industry. Not unlike the great parking meter scam, which loses this city tens of millions of dollars a year, City Hall was taken in by the initially low rates those companies used to get a toehold into a market where they had spread lots of money around local politics, and even hired a few of the council folks who they wanted on their side. Now, those prices have risen, and if you stick out your hand on the street, as we all used to be able to do in the city's center and many of its neighborhoods, good luck to you.
You don't have to be an economist to see the problem. Cab drivers can see the surge pricing and they want in. Of course, they don't reduce their prices when demand is low. Oh no. And in our experience Wednesday, and also following a Soldier Field concert, they are charging far above even the elevated ride-share price.
This is both illegal and predatory. Meters protect people from rip-offs. Cab drivers breaking the law with apparent impunity is damaging to visitors to the city, especially since Navy Pier, for all its success, has no light rail or other visitor-friendly transportation to get people over there. Even the trolley rides are long gone. And for many visitors, bus routes are confusing.
It's anarchy out there when you are looking for a ride during a busy period. Clearly, this city's taxi regulations are going unenforced. We've been around for a while. This did not widely happen in previous administrations.
No functional U.S. city that we know allows a total free-for-all when it comes to taxi rates; such a policy fails to protect citizens who need them and who certainly don't want to have to get into an aggressive negotiation every time they slip into the back seat. That does not make people feel safe. Chicagoans and visitors to our city deserve clarity and fairness.
Cabs, clearly, are out of control. Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration needs to wake up to the problem, crack down on the scofflaws and enforce its own regulations.