By Cecilia Nasmith
Few other industries have gone without increasing their prices for 12 years, but Cobourg's taxi industry is about to leave those ranks and raise its rates.
The motion council passed Monday night calls for the pick-up charge to rise to $4.25 and the per-kilometre rate to rise to $2.25 as requested by members of the town's taxi operators. Furthermore, a March 28 report will look into the possibility of implementing a fuel surcharge.
The prices will go into effect within days – as Municipal Clerk Brent Larmer put it, as soon as the taxi companies can reset their metres.
Larmer included the town's taxi companies in the ranks of unsung COVID-19 heroes, continuing vital operations without interruption through wave after wave.
It has not come without cost, industry representative Kelly Paton (owner of Cobourg Cab) told council.
She has three cabs on the road with nine drivers and two dispatchers (plus herself) in the business she has owned since July 2018.
“I have been trying extremely hard to provide the service, but there have been many challenges – there simply is no profit in the industry to enable reinvestment and improvement to service, as we cannot even maintain the day-to-day running costs,” Paton said.
The majority of other taxi owners she spoke with agree with her, she said, citing increases in the minimum wage, rising fuel costs and the fact that insurers will only cover taxicabs on a more expensive high-risk basis.
With the taxi charges set in 2010 having remain unchanged, she said, “Cobourg taxis are in a crisis situation right now.”
Local operators did meet with the town in February 2019 and negotiate the removal of seniors' rates, though they still offer a 10% discount to seniors upon request (which is not offered anywhere else that she is aware of).
Paton could find only three other municipal comparitors where the taxi industry is similarly governed. While the current $4.75 base rate is higher than Clarington's, Peterborough's and Whitby's, the per-kilometre cost of $1.75 is at least $1 lower than any of them.
They saw a reduction in the base rate and an increase in the per-kilometre rate as the way to go to begin, at least, to close the gap on rates that have not changed in 12 years.
“I didn't start paying a wage to myself until 2021 - $100 per week,” Paton said.
“These figures prove we are not asking for these changes to make ourselves rich, to line our pockets or even to increase our profit margins, but simply to survive, to keep our heads above water and keep our employees in a job.”
For the future, Larmer said, the town has committed to the taxi industry that they will meet each October to consider fare adjustments for the following year.
