Cab Fair

Terrified of future lawsuits, the county ignored its own studies and removed the ceiling altogether.

In two years, the number of airport drivers shot from 129 to 288, just as fear of terrorism and a weak economy thinned out the customers. Company president Erv Eltinge, whose Skyway cabs have been licensed out at the airport for 40 years, says his drivers used to be able to clear $3,200 a month -- now they're lucky to clear $600.

The public is also taking a pocketbook hit. Fares have increased by roughly 35 percent, and it now costs $32, not $24, to taxi downtown from the airport. All has unfolded exactly as the county officials predicted in court -- even though they later convinced themselves it wouldn't.

"I underestimated how many folks would continue to stream in," says Garry Earls, director of public works for St. Louis County. "I just assumed that everybody would make a rational choice." Later he realized that for a new immigrant, entering the fray at the airport for subsistence wages was a rational choice.

The county tried repeatedly to interest the airport in taking over, but with no promise of power or profit, airport officials dragged their feet. Drivers, meanwhile, begged the airport to hang signs steering them to the official cabstand and warning travelers about solicitations from unlicensed cabbies.

Nothing changed.

"There's probably not been a lot of enforcement," concedes Kinsey. "Now there will be financial incentive for us to do a good job."

Financial incentives haven't played out so well in the past, though. It's not been so long since former state Senator J.B. "Jet" Banks bought an airport-limousine service, lied to a grand jury about its purchase price, wangled exclusive contracts and left owing the city money. In the county, John Hill, a favorite of St. Louis County Executive Buzz Westfall, ran the taxicab office single-handedly for nearly four decades -- until bribes replaced rules, leading to criminal convictions for Hill, another county worker, a cab-company owner and County Councilman Robert A. Young IV.

"We don't want any of that unpleasantness," says McCarthy, promising tough enforcement of rules and standards, along with fines and tows for gypsy cabs. Drivers welcome the prospect but wonder where the money will come from to pay for it. They also worry that half of the eight commissioners are not only independent of the taxi industry but clueless about its workings.

One commission member does represent drivers, but it's not Kelly Henley, the favorite of legislators who set up the new body.

"She's kind of a lightning rod," says Earls. "She creates a great deal of enmity in a political process that requires a great deal of cooperation."

Instead of Henley, the county appointed Solomon Tadesse, a charming Ethiopian fellow who's been fired from several taxi companies but gets along well with county officials -- and has influence over potential plaintiffs.

"Solomon Tadesse was part of the original lawsuit," says Earls. "I think that shows we are holding no grudges."

Grudges aren't McCarthy's concern: "We have to get a code first, deal with the critter everybody's familiar with."

That would be the four-legged horse-cow that never did run right.