Hey y’all. Welcome back from the holiday! The big headline in this story is that taxi cabs will likely be increasing their rates from $1.50 to $2.75. But read a little further, and it turns out that there will also be fewer surcharges, so essentially more money will be going to the driver, less to the city.

And the credit card argument rages on, with drivers saying they can’t afford to upgrade their cabs to accept cards without more cash, while consumer advocates insist that upgrades must come before rate increases. It’s hard to know which side to take here: On the rare occasion that I take a cab, I don’t get the sense that drivers are exactly raking it in (unless they’re acting illegally), but short cab rides also tend to be rather expensive with all of the surcharges.

A driver recently told me that the credit card reader wouldn’t actually do much for his business—-according to him, he tends to make short trips where people prefer to pay cash, anyway.

Photo by Matt Dunn