In an attempt to protect small-business taxi drivers from rideshare goliaths Uber and Lyft, state regulators said they will work to streamline the waiver process involving vehicles that are otherwise too old to operate as a cab.
The decision, which fell short of an attempt during Wednesday’s Public Utilities Commission meeting to extend or scrap the taxi-age limit, comes at a time when
Commissioner Frances Koncilja, noting that Denver International Airport has added a dedicated rideshare waiting area, said the situation is only going to get worse.
“So many of the cab drivers in the metro area that were impacted by this waiver are really small mom-and-pop businesses,” she said, noting that most own their cabs. “Many of the drivers are (Somalis), Nigerians, and English is not their first language.”
Cabs in the metro area are limited to eight years, while the statewide limit is 10 years. In contrast, Uber caps the age of its Denver cars at 16 and Lyft requires that all its Colorado cars be 13 years old or newer.
Obtaining a waiver can be confusing, she said, especially for foreign-born drivers.
“We’ve made this very complicated and when we know we have a body of business owners who are challenged financially, who are not used to the culture, who are not used to language and we throw them out to figure out rules, which take me awhile and I’m a lawyer, I don’t think thatap what we want as a commission,” Koncilja said.
Koncilja questioned what age had to do with service quality, noting that the cabs are already subjected to safety inspections. If the cab is well maintained, it’s still in good quality past the 8-year limit, she said.
The metro-area age restriction was put in place with the idea that tourists riding in a taxi from the airport expect a higher-quality cab, Koncilja said. “That’s never been my New York experience, so I don’t know where that (idea) came from.”
She also said the PUC needs to update its policies to become more friendly to drivers and the public. The other two commissioners agreed and said they’d start a broader conversation on the topic.
“What I am concerned about are internal guidelines that seem to make this a very unfriendly place for small cab drivers to do business,” she said.
