In an Uber/taxi collaboration, eliminate ancient clunker cabs

Miami-Dade this week may join an evolution in transportation to unite the ancient taxi industry and its modern foe Uber. 

Unfortunately, ancient refers to both the age of the industry and the age of many taxis on our roads. If they’re going to do things in a new way, they should junk the jalopies.

Hailing the two industries together is outgoing county Commissioner Jean Monestime, who via this week’s agenda would direct the mayor to monitor pilot New York and San Francisco efforts to hail taxis through Uber and recommend how to link those industries here too.

Considering that the two industries have been at each other’s throat for a decade, that would be a revolution rather than just evolution. 

Years ago a taxi industry delegation explained to me that Uber was the devil himself and should be forever barred from Miami-Dade. They first had to tell to me what Uber is. 

They lost. Years later, people have to be told what a taxi is.

Now the industries are forced together: Uber and Lyft have beaten up the taxis, but the ride-sharing services lost droves of drivers during the pandemic and have trouble filling calls for rides. They need the taxis.

In the New York experiment, two taxi services are on Uber’s platform and handle calls, with cab drivers paying both Uber and their own companies’ fees for each job. Like Uber, taxis announce fares in advance, include Uber’s surge prices in peak hours. 

That is not intended to be just a test. Uber is cooperating with taxis in Germany, Austria, Spain, Colombia, Turkey and more, An Uber executive told an investor conference in February that it intends to have every taxi in the world on its platform by 2025.

So what Mr. Monestime is seeking falls neatly into line with Uber’s aims while also trying to bail out the county’s taxi industry, which has long been his cause.

In helping taxis Mr. Monestime hasn’t been alone. As Uber and Lyft lured customers from unpleasant rides in overworked and undermaintained cabs, commissioners kept offering the taxis relief in numerous ways – one being allowing them to run older and older cabs to carry us all, including visitors who get their first impression of Miami when they climb into clunkers leaving the airport.

The situation was so bad a decade ago that the county voted to bar cabs after they hit eight years in use.

Don’t compare this with your family car at eight years old. Think of a car that may be driven around the clock seven days a week by shifts of drivers who aren’t headed to work and parking for eight hours but remain on the road as much as possible. And think of cars not driven by a caring owner but by a non-owner concerned mostly about how many paid miles he can possibly roll.

The average Manhattan taxi goes 180 miles a shift three shifts a day, totaling almost 200,000 miles a year carrying passengers and often luggage too. A few years ago the average taxi there was on the road 3.3 years, with a five-year maximum. Miami then allowed eight years.

But that wasn’t enough. Miami-Dade commissioners have been for years “temporarily” lengthening maximum use to nine years, then nine and a half, then 10. In 2019 they allowed 15 years – but only for the following two years. So in 2021 they again voted a 15-year life for two more years. 

That means a cab could run up a million and a half miles before it must be retired. If you’ve taken taxis here, you’ve probably felt like some had done at least that much.

It’s true that Uber also allows a vehicle to be used to age 15, but with two big differences from taxis.

First, most Uber rides are in cars the drivers own, usually cars kept in shape for family use. Second, Uber vehicles have one driver, not shifts. They can’t pile up miles like taxis do.

That’s why an Uber or Lyft trip is more pleasant than the average taxi ride: you’re in somebody’s personal car, not a fleet vehicle.

If Mayor Daniella Levine Cava does recommend a way to link taxis with Uber or Lyft or both, she should require that only taxis under a certain age may be used. Teenagers can sometime be problematic. In taxis, teens are virtually all problematic.

If the New York legislation is to be a model, include New York’s five-year maximum for taxis – at least, to be in this model for the future.

Then, when the 15-year taxi limit expires in 2023, the county should also reduce that age once and for all – especially for all of the passengers and for the future of Miami’s visitor industry.