ShareHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
Natural gas-powered taxicabs will be first in line for fares at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport after its board approved a measure designed to improve North Texas’ air quality and reduce dependence on foreign oil.
For nearly 80 drivers of gasoline-powered cabs who attended Thursday’s board meeting, the new rule was both "un-American" and unfair."This hurts our families — it hurts our children," said Al-fatih A. Ameen, a driver representing a group of cabdrivers who said that waits in D/FW’s taxi queue would get longer and that their ability to make a living would suffer.Ameen said taxi drivers often wait five hours or more to catch a fare at D/FW and average only two or three rides a day. With compressed natural gas cabs winning the ability to jump to the front of the line, many drivers said they feared they’d get just one fare a day at the world’s third-busiest airport.The group of drivers called the rule unjust and said it will contemplate legal action against the board."We have no other choice," Ameen said. "We’re not looking for a bailout; we just want fairness."D/FW has 2,100 taxis registered to pick up passengers, and about 700 make their primary business waiting at the airport, airport staff told the board.The airport can handle up to about 800 taxis at one time, and board members said some operators may have to make a difficult choice whether to remain at the airport."It’s a business decision," said board member Betty Culbreath, adding that she empathized with the drivers.Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, an airport board member, said the region’s air quality barely meets federal standards and if the region’s natural growth pushes North Texas over the limits, its federal highway and transportation money could be lost."The worst possible choice we could make here is to do nothing," said Leppert, who is pushing to convert Dallas’ taxicabs to compressed natural gas and who endorsed the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board’s recent decision to buy 600 buses powered by compressed natural gas.Higher oil prices also endanger the financial health of D/FW’s primary tenant, Fort Worth-based American Airlines, which flies 85 percent of the airport’s traffic, Leppert said. If just a handful of taxis at the airport use natural gas — sourced from the region’s own Barnett Shale drilling — it would cut foreign oil use, he said.The group of cabbies complained that only Yellow Cab Co. has local taxis powered by natural gas, giving the company an unfair advantage. New taxis with the technology cost $38,000 or more; most of the drivers at D/FW are independent operators and say they cannot afford a new cab.A call to Yellow Cab president Jack Bewley wasn’t returned Thursday.Airport staff said that some of the other cab companies have expressed interest in buying the new taxis but that the number that will get to the front of the line for now is fewer than 30. The board said it will review the policy in a year and determine whether hybrid cabs and other low-emission vehicles should also get the same status.
The airport’s bottom line D/FW Airport saw passenger traffic for the fiscal year drop 3.8 percent from 58.1 million passengers in fiscal 2008. However, the fiscal 2009 total of 55.9 million was 3.3 percent more than what the airport budgeted for, and passenger traffic has been outpacing its estimates this summer and fall. The airport finished its fiscal year with a surplus of $15.9 million. Airlines serving D/FW received a total of $12 million in payments over the year; the rest of the surplus went to the airport’s pension plan.The airport cut its costs by $31 million in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30 to help offset a drop in revenue.— Eric Torbenson
@Nyx.CommentBody@