LETTER: Charlottetown cab services need to improve

Share:

On July 17th, Mr. David Dodd of Peterborough, Ont., wrote the letter “Critical of Charlottetown Cabs” in The Guardian outlining his regrettable taxi cab experience in Charlottetown while on vacation. How unfortunate is it that someone visiting the Island from 2,000 kilometres away felt he had to write a letter about their bad experience in P.E.I., where we take (or like to say we take) great pride in the service provided to our many visitors?

Is Mr. Dodd onto something? Is he showing us what we already know, or what we should know? If you take cabs in Charlottetown as I did over 50 times last year, then you already know the answer - of course he is!

The first encounter with P.E.I. that many visitors experience is their cab ride from the airport. If they are lucky, they will chance upon an available cab that is not littered with empty coffee cups, dirty floors, and reeking of cigarette smoke or perfumed smells to help disguise the odour.

They will likely climb into a very unpleasant 20 minutes to Charlottetown. For the retired couple, the family, the business person, this will be their first taste of the Island. How is this allowed to happen? Who is monitoring smoking in a cab, which is a public place? Who is overseeing a reasonable standard of hygiene and cleanliness in this important and visible public service? Obviously no one.

Even worse, every Friday and Saturday night in the school season and every night in the summer, downtown is humming with our young people, young Islanders and other young people from all over the world. It’s vibrant, fun and cool. And then, the night winds down and unlike those of us one or two generations ago, the vast majority of our young people are responsible and do not drive impaired. They cab it.

That’s where the good story ends. I believe young people in Charlottetown are consistently getting gouged by the cabs. I also believe they get overcharged. Charged double. If three get in a cab, each is charged individual fares. If you live outside town, then “it’s not worth their while.” Kids have apparently paid $50 to get to Stratford, East or West Royalty. If you know one, ask them. Chances are they have been ripped off. We teach them to make good choices, we hope and pray they do and then when they do they are taken advantage of. So, what happens? Many resort to taking the chance and driving home (just like Mr. Dodd said he would do next time!). That is a serious issue. And then, which one of us has not experienced the normal Charlottetown cab who takes three people home and charges each of them full fare? That’s been happening for decades.

To say all of these practices are unacceptable is a gross understatement. There appears to be no rules. They govern themselves. They do not reflect the values and expectations of Islanders, young and old. That’s enough. This must stop and cab companies and drivers must be held responsible and accountable for breaches in laws, bylaws and regulations. It’s not 1965. Regulate them. Inspect them. Put meters in cabs like everywhere else in Canada. And when drivers break rules and laws, then make them accountable. The rest of us are accountable!

And if they don’t want to ... then do what the rest of Canada does, let Uber fill the gap.