‘Expect pushback!’: Maxi taxi operators unhappy with hike in fees to use PBR

OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

Pres­i­dent of the Route Two Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion, Bren­ton Knights, has warned that maxi taxi op­er­a­tors are prepar­ing for strong re­sis­tance to re­cent changes in traf­fic reg­u­la­tions and in­creas­es in bus route fees, which he says were im­ple­ment­ed with­out con­sul­ta­tion or prop­er jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the amend­ments were re­vealed, Knights said nei­ther his as­so­ci­a­tion nor oth­er key stake­hold­ers were en­gaged be­fore changes were made to the reg­u­la­tions, af­fect­ing dri­ving of­fences and the cost for maxi taxis to op­er­ate on bus routes.

“I had no con­sul­ta­tion,” Knights said. “Changes were made uni­lat­er­al­ly. You can­not func­tion that way in a re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment or a re­spon­si­ble min­istry.”

The amend­ments, which came through Le­gal No­tice No. 475, is­sued un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act, in­crease the toll for maxi taxis op­er­at­ing on the PBR from $300 to $600 per quar­ter. The toll is payable in ad­vance to the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty and re­mains non-re­fund­able.

The amend­ment ap­plies to all maxi-taxi own­ers who wish to op­er­ate along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, which runs along spe­cial roads des­ig­nat­ed for pub­lic trans­port ve­hi­cles. Per­mits must be re­newed each quar­ter, and the min­is­ter may at­tach con­di­tions to their grant.

Knights com­pared the cur­rent ap­proach with that of the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, not­ing that even con­tentious traf­fic sys­tems were sub­ject to an­nu­al re­views and broad stake­hold­er en­gage­ment.

“Un­der the last regime, when the year­ly re­view of the U-turn sys­tem took place, there were con­sul­ta­tions with all stake­hold­ers: taxi dri­vers, maxi taxi op­er­a­tors, truck dri­vers, and mem­bers of the gen­er­al pub­lic,” he said. “Some fines were re­duced, some were in­creased, but those de­ci­sions came out of con­sul­ta­tion.”

He raised con­cerns about amend­ments that re­place the term “dan­ger­ous dri­ving” with “care­less dri­ving,” de­scrib­ing the change as vague and open to wide in­ter­pre­ta­tion by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

“‘Care­less dri­ving’ can mean al­most any­thing,” Knights said. “That leaves it en­tire­ly to the dis­cre­tion of the of­fi­cer and cre­ates un­cer­tain­ty for dri­vers and the pub­lic.”

Knights al­so crit­i­cised the in­crease in fees paid by maxi taxis to op­er­ate on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, point­ing out that maxi taxis ap­pear to be the on­ly cat­e­go­ry of pub­lic trans­port re­quired to pay such fees.

“There was no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion,” he said. “We live in an in­for­ma­tion age. If you are in­creas­ing a fee, you must present the da­ta and ex­plain why. That was not done.”

He warned that the ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial bur­den comes at a time when op­er­a­tors are al­ready fac­ing sharply ris­ing costs, in­clud­ing fu­el, freight charges, ve­hi­cle parts, and for­eign ex­change con­straints.

“Our op­er­a­tional costs have in­creased tremen­dous­ly,” Knights said. “Now you’re telling op­er­a­tors that the cost to use the bus route has ef­fec­tive­ly dou­bled. How do we ex­pect them to ab­sorb that?”

Knights cau­tioned that these pres­sures could even­tu­al­ly im­pact fares, stress­ing that maxi taxi op­er­a­tors have been sub­si­dis­ing pub­lic trans­porta­tion for years.

“What we do, the Gov­ern­ment can­not do,” he said. “That is the re­al­i­ty.”

He warned that the Gov­ern­ment’s grace pe­ri­od has passed and urged re­newed en­gage­ment with stake­hold­ers.

“The hon­ey­moon phase is over,” Knights said. “Our mem­bers are not go­ing to sit back and ac­cept this. With­out con­sul­ta­tion and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, there will be se­ri­ous push­back.”