Charlottetown taxi fares increase by $1

Taxi fares in Charlottetown have increased by $1 in each zone — the first price increase since 2008 — but the city's police department, which oversees licensing, told CBC News it wasn't aware of any increases.

Co-op Taxi, City Taxi and GrabbaCab all told CBC News the price increase came into effect last Friday at midnight. Co-op Taxi and City Taxi said the increase was also adopted by Yellow Cab, whose dispatchers are based overseas.

"The whole industry, like all the drivers, they've been all feeling the crunch and paying more for gas, repairs and everything else," said City Taxi owner Joe Corrigan.

"Drivers pay for their own fuel, repairs and their insurance keeps going up every year."

Though it's only been a few days, Corrigan said he hasn't received any negative feedback from customers.

"There's been a few people wondering why it went up and we just explain to them," he said. "Once you tell them why, they understand because they feel the same thing at the grocery store or wherever they go, right?"

Police 'not notified' of increase

According to Charlottetown's taxi bylaw, taxi operations in the city are overseen by Charlottetown Police Services.

In a written statement, police Chief Brad MacConnell said the department was "not notified of any rate increases." 

He said police were "in discussions" with operators about proposed changes to the bylaw, including a proposed fare increase, but the changes are "under review at the committee level" and had not yet been presented to council. He said the next police and emergency services committee meeting is slated for March 22. 

But Paul MacPhail, a bookkeeper with Co-op Taxi, said he believed taxi operators were given the green light to raise prices before going to city council.

"The last that we were told was that there would be no problem, they've just had to get it through city council meetings," MacPhail said.

"If you look at the last time that our [fares] went up, minimum wage was $7.75."

Charlottetown police say they're looking into the fare increase.