Good morning, Washington. It’s Friday, and the city is still reacting to yesterday afternoon’s announcement about how our new taxi meters are going to work. We already told you about the $4 flag drop, which many people are already saying is too high, and the fact that taxi roof lights will go on and off automatically to indicate whether a cab has a passenger, which everyone seems to agree is long overdue. One more thing to mull over is that drivers will no longer be able to stop and pick up extra passengers when they already have a fare (though shared riding from Union Station will be allowed). Sharing a taxi under the zone system hardly has a lot of incentives for most people, though. In our experience, drivers currently charge an entirely separate fare for the second leg of any multi-stop trip. Under the new system, if two friends share a cab and ask for two stops, meters will keep running after the first person is dropped off. Do you think you’ll be more or less likely to share a cab with a friend on your way home once D.C. taxis switch to meters?
Cops Question ‘All Hands on Deck’: D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has scheduled a fourth ‘All Hands on Deck’ initiative for this weekend, and the Examiner talked to some police officers and found they’re not all on board. The officers told Scott McCabe that the initiatives leave the force short the week afterward because officers take days off to make up for working on the weekend. There’s also that little matter of the fact that Lanier seems to be able to read the future — this weekend’s effort was scheduled well in advance of the city’s most recent spate of murders.
Council Members Now Question Hospital Deal: The Post has the latest on the approved sale of Greater Southeast Community Hospital to Specialty Hospitals of America with the help of $79 million in public funds — and it turns out several members of the D.C. Council are no longer confident in the deal. Apparently the Council did not receive information from CFO Natwar Gandhi about the financial risks the city could incur in the deal until hours before they voted on the plan, which they say wasn’t enough time to adequately address those concerns.
Briefly Noted: D.C. police officer injured in hit and run … Turf put down at new ballbark … Beltway work to cause weekend traffic delays.
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we were giving Laura Sessions Stepp a hard time about her book, in 2005 we were wishing for a better bowling alley, and in 2004 we were playing election night drinking games.
Photo by AlbinoFlea
