The final road block to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s mandate to switch the District’s taxicabs to time and distance meters has at last been removed, reports WTOP. A judge has ruled in the city’s favor in a case brought by a group of taxi drivers who tried to argue that Fenty did not have the authority to make his decision on meters. Now that the ruling confirming the mayor has power over taxi regulation is in place, taxi cab drivers only have until May 1 to have meters installed in their cabs, or else face $1,000 penalties each time they drive without one.

All that said, after reading Acting Attorney General Peter Nickles’ comments on this issue in the Post on Saturday, we have a pretty good feeling the city is going to have to extend the meter installation deadline by at least a few weeks. Almost no taxi drivers have already installed the time and distance meters, and it appears to be almost impossible for the six licensed installers in the city to have every cab ready by the end of this month. Either we’ll hear that Fenty has extended the deadline by the end of the day today, or the District is going to be rather short on legitimate taxi cabs on May 1.

Photo by andertho