raise taxicab fares<\/a> by 20%, the first increase in a decade, to help cabdrivers struggling to compete with Uber and Lyft amid skyrocketing gasoline prices and increasing insurance, maintenance and vehicle replacement costs.<\/p>\nDowntown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) cast the only dissenting vote \u2014 even after acknowledging that the taxicab industry has been \u201ceviscerated\u201d by ride-hailing services \u2014 to protest what he called \u201crampant abuse\u201d by cabdrivers who fail to pull the flag to start the meter when a passenger enters the cab.<\/p>\n
The fare hike was introduced by Mayor Brandon Johnson last fall while public attention was focused on the battle over his 2026 budget. It had languished in committee ever since \u2014 until Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The mayor\u2019s plan would maintain the cost of entering a cab, known as the \u201cflag pull,\u201d at $3.25 for the first one-ninth of a mile but provide substantial relief for cabdrivers in other ways. That includes a $2.50 rush-hour fee for rides between 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., a $1 overnight fee for rides between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., and increased charges for both time and distance.<\/p>\n
Instead of 25 cents for each additional one-ninth of a mile, passengers would pay 31 cents. Another 31 cents would be tacked on to the fare for every 45 seconds instead of 20 cents for every 36 seconds.<\/p>\n
Shared rides for \u201ca minimum of two passengers\u201d would also rise \u2014 from $24 to $30 from O\u2019Hare Airport to Downtown or McCormick Place \u2014 and from $18 to $22 from Midway Airport to Downtown or the convention center. The cost of shared rides between Midway and O\u2019Hare would rise from $37 to $45. The cost of cleaning a cab after an inebriated or unruly rider would double, from $50 to $100.<\/p>\n
John Moberg, president of Checker, Yellow and American United Cab, said the 20% increase is \u201clong overdue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything has gone up. Our insurance has gone up significantly. The cost of vehicles and the cost to repair vehicles has gone up dramatically. And I don\u2019t have to tell you about gasoline. Everybody is experiencing that,\u201d Moberg said. \u201cTwenty percent will help cover some of that, but not all of it. We probably need more, but it would be worse for us if we raised it too much because it would chase the riding public away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chicago\u2019s once-thriving taxicab industry has been shrinking ever since the unregulated advent of ride-hailing services like Lyft and Uber.<\/p>\n
It took years before the city finally stepped in and regulated that industry. By that time, the value of taxicab medallions already had plummeted. A medallion that once sold for as much as $400,000 is now valued at $5,000.<\/p>\n
The pool of available drivers also is shrinking \u2014 and aging. Anyone who gets laid off or needs to supplement their income can \u201cgo to Uber and be driving tomorrow,\u201d while it takes two or three weeks of classes to be cleared to drive a cab, Moberg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe taxi industry is getting older all the time, and people are retiring or dying. We don\u2019t have an infusion of replacements. They want a quick fix. They want money now. They don\u2019t want to wait six weeks to earn money for a cab when they could walk into Uber and be driving the same day,\u201d Moberg said. \u201cIf we got that level playing field, we would have a cab industry that could sustain itself into the future, and we could keep that base. We\u2019d be able to get young people. If not, it\u2019ll dry up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City Council agreed Wednesday to throw a sorely needed lifeline to Chicago\u2019s shrinking taxicab industry \u2014 at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":731980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-731979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116414121887719894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}