[Editorial] Cab drivers’ rally

The nation’s 250,000 taxi drivers have threatened to hold a massive rally in front of the National Assembly in Yeouido of Seoul on Dec. 7 if lawmakers fail to pass a bill to designate taxis as public transportation by early next month.

Legislators of the ruling and opposition parties rushed the bill through relevant standing committees last week. But they stopped short of pushing it through a plenary session in the face of public outcry and a nationwide strike by bus drivers.

On Nov. 22, bus drivers across the nation staged a brief walkout to protest against the bill, which would increase the government’s financial support for taxi companies, thus reducing the share of subsidies for bus companies.

Bus drivers threatened to resume the walkout should the legislation pass through the Assembly. Facing the strong backlash, lawmakers halted their push for the bill. But they said they would approve it next month, urging the government to come up with measures by then to resolve the problems facing taxi companies.

The delay in the passage of the bill, however, disappointed cab drivers. Hence their walkout threat aimed at ratcheting up pressure on the political parties to deliver on their promises.

The taxi drivers’ planned rally on Dec. 7 is highly likely to take place as there is little chance that lawmakers will convene a plenary session of the Assembly before the Dec. 19 presidential election.

As such, the government needs to find ways to stop the massive protest rally, which would cause serious inconvenience to the public.

The heart of the problem is that there are too many cabs in major cities of the country. The number of cabs in operation increased from 210,000 in 1997 to 250,000 in 2010. Yet the annual number of taxi passengers dropped from 4.8 billion to 3.7 billion during the period. One reason may be the steady expansion and improvement of urban public transport.

Following the cab drivers’ announcement, the government said it would seek to reduce the nation’s taxi fleet to 200,000. But this is easier said than done as it requires huge amounts of money.

A taxi license is currently traded for 70 million won. To remove 50,000 taxis from the streets, it would take trillions of won. This means the reduction of the taxi fleet cannot be achieved overnight.

To ease cab companies’ financial squeeze, it is necessary to raise taxi fares, which have been maintained at the current levels since 2009. Yet raising taxi fares goes against the government’s policy of stabilizing prices and could further reduce the number of cab users.

All this suggests it would take time to thrash out a comprehensive plan to address the problems of taxi companies. So lawmakers need to give the government more time to tackle them. Instead of trying to cater to cab drivers by rushing the passage of the bill, they should themselves make serious efforts to find solutions.

Taxi drivers, for their part, should refrain from holding the public hostage to push for their demands.