Council to consider flat downtown taxi rate

City Council is expected to consider today a proposal to establish a flat fee for taxi rides within downtown, a move intended to encourage out-of-town visitors and downtown workers to use cabs to get around. The proposal is to charge $6 for any trip within the loop bounded by I-45, I-10 and Highway 59 — kind of like Washington, D.C.'s zone plan, but much, much smaller. The good thing about the idea, of course, is that no one would have to wonder how much a taxi ride would cost:

"For some trips it would be higher, for some trips it will be lower, but there is no guessing and no haggling," said Sharon Adams of the city’s Convention and Entertainment Facilities Department, which she said will help market the program.

The disadvantage is that a $6 flat rate wouldn't be that much of a discount for people taking long trips, and it could discourage short rides, because the current rates for downtown trips range from $3.50 to $6.75. And the whole thing begs the question: Why, under normal circumstances, would anyone take a cab ride around downtown in the first place, when we have such a compact CBD where many of the important buildings and hotels are connected by air-conditioned tunnels and skywalks?

And then there's the issue of actually being able to find a taxi downtown. Far as we know, it's really hard to do unless you're standing outside Chase Tower or one of the big hotels. That's why extra eight taxi stands, plus a "super cab/valet zone" in the 300 block of Main Street, are being proposed — theoretically, they would increase taxi traffic downtown.

There's no word on whether the taxi zone plan might ever be extended to Midtown and near-downtown neighborhoods, where we imagine it could do quite a bit of good. Baby steps, we suppose.