EDITORIAL: More reasons why local cab companies are struggling to compete with Uber and Lyft

Most Las Vegas locals know that trying to get a cab outside the resort corridor can be frustrating and sometimes futile. It’s amusing, then, that this seems to come as a great surprise to taxi regulators.

The Review-Journal’s Art Marroquin revealed that members of the Taxicab Authority last week were treated to recorded snippets from a job interview with one of the candidates seeking to become the authority’s administrator. During the exchange, Byron Goynes, a Las Vegas planning commissioner, recounted his experience trying to hail a ride from the Boulevard Mall to McCarran.

Mr. Goynes, who didn’t get the job, said his intent was to bone up on how the local taxi industry operates, Mr. Marroquin reported. He got a real tutorial, experiencing what has long been routine for those in residential areas throughout the valley who patronize Las Vegas taxi outfits. After waiting for more than an hour, and making several calls to Western Cab’s dispatch center, he gave up, got into his own car and drove home.

After hearing the recording, Stan Olson, chairman of the Taxicab Authority, expressed dismay. “This is absolutely unacceptable,” he said. “These types of situations in the future will be treated with a heavy hand, and I mean a fine.”

Earth to Mr. Olson: “These types of situations” won’t be solved by padding the regulatory apparatus. In fact, they’re already being “treated with a heavy hand” — the heavy hand of the marketplace.

Figures released in April reveal that ridership and revenues for Southern Nevada’s 16 cab companies have remained in a free fall since Uber and Lyft arrived on the scene in late 2015. During the first quarter of 2018, trips were down 14 percent from the same period last year. Revenues fell 15 percent to $73.6 million.

That continues a more than two-year trend of lost business and profit.

Mr. Olson and his fellow regulators have responded by asking state lawmakers to shackle ride-hailing companies with additional chains designed to protect the Las Vegas taxi cartel. To this point, the Legislature has refused to go along. A more productive approach would be to free the cab companies from the regulations that make it more difficult for them to compete in the 21st-century market.

Mr. Marroquin reports that Scott Whittemore, the authority’s incoming administrator, told the board he plans to study Mr. Goynes’ experience and seeks to ensure the Las Vegas taxi industry gets a “fair shake for survival.” A study? Maybe he can provide the results to Uber and Lyft.

If the local cab cartel hopes to survive, a good place to start would be to ensure that what happened to Mr. Goynes is a rarity rather than commonplace. But the fact that the taxi companies haven’t figured that out by now doesn’t offer much hope.