Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Taxicab Authority votes to make fuel surcharge permanent

Southern Nevada taxicab passengers will continue to pay the nation's third-highest average fares after the Taxicab Authority voted Tuesday to make permanent a fuel surcharge.

The 20-cent-per-ride surcharge added to help cab companies recoup the escalating costs of gasoline has been in place since 2003, before the average cost of regular-grade gasoline hit a record $2.11 per gallon here earlier this month.

"We don't need to belabor that gas is high. Gas is extraordinarily high," authority administrator Yvette Moore said prior to a 3-0 board vote to approve the increase. "We're sitting at a fairly drastic high with projections that this will not go away."

In February, the average fare per trip in Las Vegas, including the surcharge, was $10.33, ranking only behind San Francisco (where fares averaged $10.85) and Honolulu ($10.33) among the nation's highest cab fares, authority officials said.

Only one other city's average topped the $10 mark: Boston, with $10.08. Los Angeles averaged $9.92, officials said.

The fuel surcharge was originally intended to be triggered after average per-gallon gasoline prices topped the $1.70 mark, a threshold that was passed long ago. Prices are not expected to be that low for the foreseeable future.

That had led some observers to call the surcharge a de facto fare increase.

"I hate to see the public get stuck with it, but they really are," said Lucky Cab Co. owner Jason Awad. "I hope the prices go down, but if they don't, we need to be really, really aggressive on this issue."

The vote does not mean the authority is doing away with fuel surcharges altogether; rather, it hopes to set a new baseline for new surcharges to go into effect.