Iqaluit taxi fares set to rise Jan. 1

Iqalungmiut will see taxi fares rise to $7 at the start of the new year. (FILE PHOTO)

Iqaluit residents can expect basic taxi fares to increase to $7 from $6 at the start of the new year, the city’s two major cab companies, Caribou Cabs and Pai-Pa Taxi Ltd., confirmed Dec. 29.

City council passed an amendment to the taxi by-law, Dec. 23, which set the standard fee at $7.

The change “legally and technically meant that we could have started charging the $7 on the 24th,” Craig Dunphy, the owner of Pai-Pa Taxi, told Nunatsiaq News.

Any raise on that day would have been “sort of a kick-in-the-pants kind of ‘Merry Christmas’ to our customers, so we decided to put it off until the new year,” Dunphy said.

Danny Savard, co-owner of Caribou Cabs, said both his company and Pai-pa agreed not to raise fares until the Jan. 1, “in the day.”

Fares charged to elders, aged 60 and over will remain at $5.

Up to two children under 10 years accompanied by an adult, going to the same place, “are to be carried free of charge,” and additional children will be charged half the regular fare.

The city also clarified extra charges listed in the amended bylaw.

Trips past the Road to Nowhere subdivision, and “from the Causeway to Upper Base” will cost $10 per person. The new tariff schedule does not mention fares to Apex. (See document embedded below.)

At council’s request, the municipal enforcement department also clarified in the bylaw that caged and loose animals “will be charged the full adult rate,” but service dogs –— which serve as aids for handicapped passengers — will not be charged.

Taxi fares have not increased since 2007.

“It’s very good news,” said Dunphy. “We’ve been waiting for this for seven years.”

Dunphy and Savard said the fare increase will increase their drivers’ earnings as well as cover overall increases in expenses over the past seven years.

“It’s a raise for everyone, you could say,” Savard told Nunatsiaq News.

Speaking for Caribou Cabs, Savard said his firm will increase its dispatch fees, but the fare increase “will mean more money in the taxi-driver’s pocket, that’s for sure,” he said.

At Pai-Pa, “the drivers will get the lion’s share” of the increased revenue, Dunphy said.

The city’s municipal enforcement department plans to update the entire taxi bylaw early in 2015.

Taxi Tariff Schedule 2015