Cab contingency plan
could be a no-showTheCab's owner says
that the city gave too little
time to mobilize drivers
City contingency plans for a jitney service in which cabs would pick up passengers on bus routes seemed to hit a roadblock yesterday as the strike deadline approached.
Few cab drivers had signed up to provide the service.
The 800 drivers who work for TheCab, the largest taxi company on Oahu, were not given details about the service before going off duty late yesterday afternoon, said company owner Howard Higa. In the event of a strike, the drivers would likely not provide jitney service until after noon today.
Higa said the city gave him little time to mobilize his company's independent drivers. By the time he received final word at 4:30 p.m., it was too late to contact morning-shift drivers, he said.
The jitney service was part of the city's contingency plan to provide options to bus riders if bus drivers and other unionized employees of TheBus walked off the job after last night's midnight strike deadline.
The city had announced Friday its plan to use 50 to 100 cabs along eight bus routes from Waipahu to Waikiki.
The cabs would only provide service within the designated bus routes and travel only until the end of the line.
City spokeswoman Carol Costa said representatives from four companies picked up a total of 400 to 500 jitney service window signs yesterday. Besides TheCab, however, the other three companies have few drivers.
Cab drivers are allowed to pick up as many passengers as is allowable by law and charge each $3, Costa said.
Dale Evans, president of Charley's Taxi & Tours, Honolulu's second-largest cab company with 200 drivers, said she asked her company's drivers "not to get involved."
She said the $3-a-head rate is unfair to drivers. Evans said taxi drivers may feel obligated to take a customer to the end of the route. "Who's going to run eight miles for $3?" she asked.
Evans called the jitney service a "half-baked idea."
"We can't set up a business in just a few days just because somebody says to jump," she said. "They're raising expectations unrealistically.
"You're going to get a lot of huhu people," she said.
Cab company owners also said they cannot require their drivers to participate in the jitney service.
Tom Heung, president of City Taxi, said his company had not been approached by the city until yesterday afternoon, and does not know how many of his 60 drivers would participate.
"If they pick up one person for $3, most likely they would not do it," he said. "If they pick up four, then it's possible."
Cab companies' initial rates for regular metered fares range from about $1.50 to $2.25, and charge 30 cents to 60 cents for each additional eighth of a mile, Higa said.
Aloha State Cab Inc. President June Medeiros said her company is willing to help, but does not think any of their 20 cabs would be available since they handle overflow from Oahu Transit Service's Handivan.
Pony Taxi & Tours has 47 taxis, but no one was available to comment.
Higa said yesterday that he thought between 100 and 150 drivers would participate if the bus workers strike.
"We should help out in the community when we have a crisis like this," Higa said.
However, he criticized the city for not consulting with his company to devise a plan.
"I don't know why they think they can run a cab concession," Higa said. He sees possible problems with a "free-for-all" on the routes, since they have not being assigned to specific companies.
