Trail Mayor Still Wants Subsidized Taxis

February 21, 2012

The mayor of Trail is happy to see the local taxi service staying in business but that doesn't change his stance on calling for government to susidize special transit options in our area.

Champion Cabs and Castlegar Taxi have been given the provincial go-ahead for an overall 35% fare hike.

But Dieter Bogs worries about the increasing cost to passengers and the longer term viability of taxi service based on the low ridership volumes. He says there needs to be a completely different strategy on transit in smaller rural areas and questions whether the taxi company won't find itself needing to hike fares again in the next two or three years.

He says with taxpayers subsidizing BC Transit buses by $750,000 a year he believes some sort of on-demand subsidized taxi service would give residents more bang for their buck.