Estimated new DC cab fares

With metered cab fares coming soon in DC, the Washington Post provides a neat little calculator to compare the current, zone based fare for a given route with the estimated metered fare.

Honestly, I don't have an intimate understanding of taxicab economics, so I don't know whether this is a bad deal for cabbies (as they claim) or a victimless boon for cab riders (as is my hope). But the cabbies' professed reason for opposing the change is counterintuitive:

[Taxi drivers' association president Nathan] Price said many of the District's 6,500 to 7,000 cabbies worry that fares based on time and distance will be higher than the current flat rates based on geographic zones and that a price increase would cause a drop in ridership and force many independent owner-operators out of business.

Basing the metering partly on time does seem to be a recipe for high fares in traffic-plagued downtown DC. But then again, the time is most likely to add up during morning and evening hours--when cabbies are already adding a rush hour surcharge under the zone system.

Whatever. The slam dunk is the confusing and easily-cheated nature of the zone system, which I have discussed before. Welcome to the rest of the world, DC. I want to see little numbers tick by in my cabs as they do in more civilized places like New York and, like, Knoxville.