Cab Fare Increases Are the New MUNI Fare Increases

It's looking like there's a chance cab fares could be increased sometime this year. Why not? Everybody's doing it. The cost of even getting into the cab would go up from $2.85 to $3.05 and the rate would go from 45 cents to 50 cents every fifth of a mile. This would mean that the average cab fare would go from $15.90 to $16.65, making us the second most expensive city for cabs next to Honolulu. You go, San Francisco.

The reason for all this is due to the standard reasons: increases in gas rates and cost of living expenses. We would have a measure of sympathy about this, but as we all know, the cab situation sucks just as much ass as the public transportation system. Or have you not tried to call a cab on a weekend night somewhere in the Richmond or Sunset? Or even tried getting a cab downtown at night from anywhere that isn't a hotel?

It seems to us that the cab situation is a lot like the housing situation. In order to protect those who have, the Powers that Be limit the amount of supply out there and put all sorts of controls on everything. As a result, nobody's happy-- costs keep going up, there's never enough, and the people whom we're doing this all for still get screwed anyways. And yes, we know it's not necessarily the cabbies fault for any of this as they're getting reamed by the cab companies over the whole medallion thing and the cab companies have all the politicans bought off. If anything, somebody should just blow the whole damn cab structure up and start over again.

But that's just the coffee speaking.