Good luck hailing a taxicab today

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES Enlarge Image

Taxis could be a rare sight on city streets today.

Hailing a cab might be a hail Mary move today: Most Winnipeg cabs will be off the road as a public tussle over driver shields turns into a steely stand-off between two cab companies and the province's regulatory board.

On one side: the Taxicab Board, which passed a new regulation last year requiring all taxis to have full driver shields installed by midnight this morning, or risk being yanked off the road.

Staring back at them: the cab owners of Unicity and Duffy's Taxi, which together operate around 90 per cent of Winnipeg's cabs.

While Spring Taxi and most or all of the independent companies got the shields installed in time for this morning's deadline, Unicity Taxi and Duffy's did not. With the shield deadline and related regulatory crackdown looming, 235 Unicity cabs and 190 Duffy's cars were slated to be off the road by 11 p.m. Monday night, company reps confirmed.

Hours before the cabs parked, Taxicab Board chairman Bruce Buckley indicated the board wouldn't budge on the plan. "The board is not happy that this has got to this stage," he said. "But you can't compromise on safety. The public understands that. This has, for whatever reason, turned into some political issue between Unicity and the board."

Hours before his cabs stopped driving, Duffy's president Tejpal Dhillon said the company was ready to put a down payment on the shields on Monday. Showing a receipt for shield purchase would have kept the cabs on the road.

But he was told the company needed to make a full payment for shields in all cabs, at a cost of about $665 each, he said.

"How could you pay for it? We'd be in bankruptcy," he said. "We'd love to serve the customers, but do we have a choice? They are cancelling our insurance."

Unicity president Gurmail Mangat echoed those thoughts, stressing he worries about customers forced to walk in the January chill. "We feel sorry about the plight of the people of Winnipeg," Mangat said. "This is our living... we told our drivers, please go home and relax, we are willing to wait, we are willing to work. But the Taxicab Board chose not to (compromise). They forced us to take (our cars) out of service."

Cab shields have made many headlines in Winnipeg, especially after 2010 saw a rash of cab drivers being assaulted and often robbed by belligerent fares despite the partial shields that are already mandatory in Manitoba. Debate over the issue turned into a public wrangling before the Taxicab Board, with companies opposing the full shields.

Owners of both Duffy's and Unicity said they hope to talk to the Taxicab Board to work out an arrangement on the shields. But the matter may not be up for debate. The groups have met a number of times in recent months.

"Every time we make a concession, or make a compromise, (Mangat) doesn't comply," Buckley said. "It's all about his view that the board has no business regulating the taxi industry. That's fine, but that's not what the law says."

Some organizations that rely on taxi traffic have readied a battle plan to cope with the shortage.

On Monday night, a note on the Richardson International Airport's website alerted passengers to the possibility there may not be so many cabs waiting to lift their luggage home.

About 600 cab trips are made from the airport every day.

But the Winnipeg Airports Authority, which holds a contract with Unicity to keep a steady flow of cabs waiting outside the terminal, had a contingency plan in place on Monday night to smooth over the disruptions.

The plan includes rounding up limousines, cabs from other companies and ground shuttles to get passengers where they need to go.

"People coming back from vacation won't know this (cab shortage) has occurred," WAA spokeswoman Christine Alongi said. "We are prepared."

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 25, 2011 A7