KHOU-11’s Doug Miller shines some light on how the City of Houston bends over backwards to help out big cab companies:
Houston hasn’t handed out any new taxi licenses since 2001.
Mayor Bill White’s administration figures a city ordinance will require the city to hand out another 211 permits this year.
But city officials want to delay issuing those new permits.
Big cab companies do not want new cabs on the streets of Houston.
They argue their industry has barely recovered from the terrorist attacks of 2001.
And they contend that more cabs on the streets of Houston could actually cause a recession in the taxi industry.
“The taxicab industry, the visits to the airport, is really down. Do we really want to throw a lot of permits on them now and cause them to go down more,” said Toni Lawrence who sits on Houston’s city council.
But a lot of smaller cab operators think the city just needs to change the way it distributes permits. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re trying to monopolize the business. They’re trying to run all the mom-and-pops out.”
As we’ve noted previously on the little blog, what Yellow Cab wants from the Mayor, Council, and/or the Airport Director, Yellow Cab usually gets.
Hey, at least give credit to Councilmember Lawrence for admitting that the interests of the taxicab industry are of greater concern to her than, say, the public interest. And give credit to Miller for running such an illustrative quote.
