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Monday, February 17, 2025

La Romaine-Barrackpore taxi drivers raise fare by $2

by

Sascha Wilson
1377 days ago
20210512
President of the La Romaine Taxi Association Reynold Dass waiting on passengers on the taxi stand at Mucurapo, San Fernando., yesterday.

President of the La Romaine Taxi Association Reynold Dass waiting on passengers on the taxi stand at Mucurapo, San Fernando., yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Two taxi as­so­ci­a­tions in south Trinidad have raised their fares as stiffer COVID-19 re­stric­tions have put the brakes on their in­come. Strug­gling with less in­come since the virus sur­faced in the coun­try 14 months ago, the taxi dri­vers said they now have no choice.

Cus­tomers trav­el­ling the La Ro­maine and Bar­rack­pore routes now have to pay $2 ex­tra.

Ini­tial­ly, the taxis were on­ly al­lowed to op­er­ate at 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, but in June the ca­pac­i­ty was el­e­vat­ed to 75 per cent.

Due to the re­cent spike in COVID-19 in­fec­tions, how­ev­er, stricter re­stric­tions were im­posed, in­clud­ing re­vert­ing the taxis to 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

La Ro­maine Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Reynold Dass said yes­ter­day that while the fee has been raised, some dri­vers are still charg­ing the orig­i­nal fare be­cause of the eco­nom­ic hard­ships in the coun­try.

“Right now, the COVID-19 re­stric­tions are af­fect­ing us very bad due to the two pas­sen­gers now in our ve­hi­cle. It tak­ing an hour, an hour and a half to full. We are keep­ing the pro­to­cols, two pas­sen­gers and we are sani­tis­ing our ve­hi­cles.”

How­ev­er, he es­ti­mat­ed that on­ly about five per cent of the trav­el­ling pub­lic utilise the taxi ser­vice.

“Is like a ghost town here. Peo­ple are keep­ing to the pro­to­cols, they are wear­ing their masks. Is on­ly in the morn­ing you get one or two peo­ple and in the evening time. Let’s say be­tween 9 am to 3 pm hard­ly peo­ple on the road.”

Dass said his as­so­ci­a­tion has 250 reg­is­tered dri­vers but just about 150 of them are ply­ing their ve­hi­cles.

“Last year, on­ly about 10 per cent of the dri­vers were work­ing, now 75 per cent work­ing. Last year, we was still mak­ing some­thing small, now we are not mak­ing any­thing at all. We just mak­ing back our gas mon­ey and some­thing small to take back to our fam­i­ly.”

Asked if he would like fi­nan­cial sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment if the re­stric­tions are ex­tend­ed fur­ther on May 23, he said, “As our Prime Min­is­ter say, this coun­try right now don’t have no mon­ey. At least we still com­ing out here, we try­ing some­thing hop­ing we still take home some­thing to our fam­i­lies. We ap­pre­ci­ate it if they give us some­thing but we still mak­ing a lit­tle.”

Lament­ing that taxi dri­vers na­tion­wide would be fac­ing a sim­i­lar predica­ment, Dass said peo­ple were on­ly trav­el­ling to go to work, the su­per­mar­ket or the drug­store.

In an at­tempt to curb the virus which is spread­ing rapid­ly, on­ly busi­ness­es and work­ers deemed es­sen­tial are al­lowed to be open.


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