The Chicago boosters bringing you the World Cup soccer tournament next year see all sorts of pluses from hosting part of the globe’s biggest sporting event. Like a touch of foreign style, and a large infusion of tourist cash.
Before that, though, the city’s cabdrivers have something else in mind: a good old American work stoppage on the day visitors from across the Midwest flood the city to start the holiday shopping binge.
Chicago’s legion of cut-rate chauffeurs, who consider themselves the Windy City’s informal diplomats, are angry that they haven’t had a fare increase in more than three years.
They’re hoping city officials, who have promised to freeze meter rates while the World Cup visits Chicago, will get serious about mulling a fare increase. But if City Hall doesn’t, many drivers say they’re prepared to take out their frustration on customers.
Without quick progress on rate-increase talks before Friday-the busiest day of the year for many merchants-thousands could find themselves stranded on the sidewalk.
“If we stay off the streets, they’ll know they need us,” said Elon Dion, a cabbie who normally covers the South Side. “They’ll freeze their back doors off.”
Dion joined other cabdrivers in a four-hour “slowdown” Monday morning in which they didn’t pick up fares. About 150 of them also gathered in the parking lot at the Rainbo Roller Rink, 4836 N. Clark St.
“We’ve got to do something,” said Gregory Johnson, a cabbie and father of three who temporarily passed up fares outside the Omni Hotels, 230 N. Michigan Ave. “I’ve got to work 12 hours a day just to make a little bit of money to feed my family.”
At the heart of the issue is an apparent agreement the city made with the World Cup Soccer Association to freeze taxi rates from the start of the year until the tournament ends next summer.
“If we don’t get a raise before the end of the year, we’re through,” and would have to wait until the tournament leaves to push for the rate increase, said John Moberg, president of the Chicago Taxi Cab Operators Association.
Moberg said that the city held one meter increase hearing in July. However, cabbies were promised two more hearings after Labor Day and neither of those took place, he said.
All World Cup host cities, including Chicago, agreed to provide fare rates to assure World Cup officials that visiting soccer fans will not be gouged by unscrupulous cabbies, said Connie Buscemi, a spokeswoman for the city’s Consumer Services Department.
Ald. Patrick Huels (11th), chairman of the City Council Transportation and Public Ways Committee, said Monday that he’s been meeting regularly with city officials and taxicab representatives and might have a proposal to offer soon.
Huels said there is a “50-50” chance that some type of fare increase will be granted before the first of the year.
Even so, some cabbies are skeptical of his efforts. “He doesn’t give a hoot about us,” Dion said of Huels. And “we’re ambassadors to the city.”
Earlier this year, dozens of frustrated cabbies conducted noisy, horn-blowing drive-arounds City Hall to press their fare-increase demands, sometimes tying up already clogged downtown city streets. The demonstrations produced a lot of publicity, but no fare hike.
Huels has expressed reservations about an increase, saying that many cabdrivers who lease their vehicles on a daily or weekly rate from the larger cab companies fear that the companies will boost their leasing rates, in effect nixing the benefits of any fare increase.
“I believe the owners are trying to mobilize the drivers as they are getting ready to raise their leasing rates,” Huels said.
That suspicion was echoed this summer by several independent operators and lease drivers during hearings before Huels’ committee. At the time, several drivers said they thought they might lose money if fares were increased because the big companies would raise their lease rates while passenger use would go down because of higher fares.
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The city allows 5,300 cab-vehicle licenses in the city, with increases of 100 a year through 1997, under a federal court order stemming from the late Mayor Harold Washington’s fight with the city’s two biggest cab companies, Yellow Cab Co. and the Checker Taxi Association.
Of those, Yellow Cab holds 2,400 city taxicab medallions or licenses, while Checker, a group of medallion holders, claims about 950 of the licenses. The remaining number belong to other taxi associations and independent owners, according to the city.
Disagreement within the cab industry has made Huels reluctant to move ahead with the fare increase proposal, which was made in a petition signed by 2,200 cabdrivers earlier this year.
The city’s current cab fares are $1.20 for the initial “flag pull” (for just getting into a cab) and then a $1.20 per mile rate after that. Chicago passengers also pay 20 cents for each minute of “waiting” time at stoplights and in traffic jams, and an additional 50 cents for each additional passenger between the ages of 12 and 65.
Huels said that other cities charge up to $1.60 for the initial flag pull, and he indicated that the City Council and Mayor Richard Daley may be amenable to raising Chicago’s entry rate to match those of other major cities.
As for the cabbies themselves, some of whom attached white ribbons to their antennas during Monday’s rally in a show of unity, they figure the holiday shopping season is a good time to make their point.
“These guys love the city,” Moberg said. “We don’t want to have a conflict. This is a desperate response by the industry to say `help.’ “