Gas prices demand fare increase, Toronto cabbies say
Last Updated: Monday, April 21, 2008 | 12:17 PM ET
CBC News
Toronto's taxi drivers say it's getting harder to make a living and they're looking to city hall for a raise.
Drivers like Faisal Mushtaq point to the soaring price of gasoline. He said that when gas hovers around $1.20 per litre, he makes less than minimum wage.
"Probably if you're lucky you can take home around $70 to $80 a day right now. It's pretty hard. If you divide $70 to $80 a day, divide it by 12 hours, look at it how much we're making. Probably $6 or $7 an hour," he said.
Toronto's taxis haven't raised their fares since September 2005 when city hall raised the rate 10 per cent to cover rising gasoline costs, which then were about a dollar a litre.
Fuel surcharge needed: driver
Mushtaq said the taxi industry needs to be treated the same as other industries.
"Look at the trucking industry, the transportation industry, look at the airplane industry, everybody is charging … a fuel surcharge. They [are] increasing the fuel surcharge every year," he said.
Every time the price of gas goes up, Toronto's cab drivers say they take a pay cut.
Limousine driver Jim Trimis said that cut is starting to hurt. "But at the same time we're in a business where we can't just keep changing things on customers. But it's gotten to a point where we're probably gonna have to."
Currently it costs $3 to get into a Toronto cab. After that, it's 25 cents every 200 metres.
In a January 2008 review, city hall decided those fares would stay put, but since then the price of fuel has risen sharply.
"Eventually we're gonna have to increase prices, because we can't afford to do it," said Trimis. "People are paying the same price when gas was around 80 cents a litre and we've never changed our prices, but now it's getting to the point where we're gonna have to change our prices."
It's expected Toronto's taxi companies will ask city hall to raise rates in the next few weeks.
