The reason for all this is health care. The Taxicab Commission was tasked with the job of coming up with a health care plan for all of the drivers out there. The plan calls for all drivers to buy in and support the health care, but to help out, the commission is calling for tan increase in fares. Just like it was months ago before the health care plan came out.

Now, we're okay with a cup of coffee going up in cost due to health care as well as a burrito but a cab? If cabs were plentiful and easy to get, that would be one thing. But they're not. It doesn't help that Cab Commissioner Heidi Machen said that the recent twenty-five cent increase didn't hurt the taxi industry at all (considering there's not enough cabs out there, that’s not that surprising) but then added "Bay Areans are fairly cost-insensitive when choosing their preferred choice of transit." Which would be true if you believe that we here in the city are all rich. But it is true that with there being no parking and lousy public transportation, the options on getting around in this city are usually of the "pick your poison" variety and plenty of people's poison is taking super-expensive cab rides because it's their only option. Oh, Taxi Cab Commission, you do have us, don't you?

Not everyone is on the higher fares train, however, as several other members of the commission have other ideas to raise the money. Also, this train, err taxi, is barely out of the station so it's not even that close to happening so we're still a long way off from this thing being settled.