DALLAS—The Steelers and the Packers fought to get to the Super Bowl. Now, taxi drivers here could make it hard for fans just to get from the airport to the stadium.
The drivers, outraged by a city initiative that sends natural-gas-powered cabs to the front of the queue at Dallas's Love Field airport, are organizing a boycott that would make it more difficult for visitors to get around North Texas for the big game a week from Sunday. The Association of Taxicab Operators USA, with 700 members in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is threatening to park their cars starting Thursday if the policy isn't dropped.
Drivers say they sit for hours at the back of the line. They say the promotion of cabs powered by compressed natural gas isn't just about clean air, but an effort to boost Texas's natural-gas industry. Otherwise, they ask, why didn't it include hybrid vehicles?
"We're not going to stop unless we have something in writing," said Al-Fatih Ameen, chairman of the cabbies group. Mr. Ameen said the boycott could extend through events surrounding Super Bowl XLV and even the game itself, in which Pittsburgh and Green Bay will clash at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington.
The city is talking tough, as well. Officials don't expect a boycott to be disruptive because they believe it would involve a relatively small number of cabbies, and because Dallas has an "an excess capacity" of drivers anyway, said Chris Heinbaugh, chief of staff for Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert.
On a typical day, some 3,100 people flying into the region's biggest airport, Dallas-Fort Worth International, opt to rent a car, while 1,838 grab a cab.
The natural-gas program was created to help Dallas meet federal air-quality standards it had violated for years and displace foreign oil at the same time, all without the city spending a dime, Mr. Leppert said in a recent interview. "It is almost a renewable source of energy," he said of the nation's abundant supply of natural gas, some of it trapped right under the Dallas metropolitan area.
Mr. Leppert admits that the 87 natural-gas cabs registered so far—out of the 1,840 taxis permitted by the city and the 1.9 million vehicles registered in Dallas County—won't make much of a difference at first. But he hopes to start a trend.
Or maybe he is part of a trend. San Francisco drivers howled when the city's airport sent CNG taxis to the head of the line four times a day in 2003. Officials scaled back the privileges to twice day—angering the natural-gas cabbies. Now, with many of the city's taxis powered by hybrid gasoline-electric systems, the airport said, San Francisco plans to phase out the program. In New York, cab companies defeated Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2008 plan to replace the city's ubiquitous Crown Victorias with hybrid vehicles.
Dallas officials launched their policy last year at Love Field, which the city owns. The cab drivers' association filed suit, claiming the mandate interfered with federal laws. A federal judge ruled in favor of the city, but the cabbies fought back. On New Year's Eve, 1,500 taxis stayed home, each giving up $400 to $500 worth of fares, Mr. Ameen said. Others dispute his tally.
Cabbie Gebeyhu Tesma, waiting in line last week at Love Field's taxi depot in the late afternoon, said the boycott was necessary because he can't afford a natural-gas taxi; converting a gasoline-powered car can cost up to $14,000. He said he was tired of being passed by natural-gas taxis, and that he had collected only $20 that day from just one fare.
"I'm going bankrupt," he said.
Sunny Dady, at the head of the line in a natural-gas cab he decided to lease after initially joining the protesters, said he was getting ready for his eighth trip of the day. "They have their right and I have my right," he said. "I have to pay the bills, you know."
The cab association wants Dallas to include other alternative vehicles, such as hybrids and flex-fuel taxis that run on ethanol, in the front-of-the-line policy, and phase it in so cabbies with newly purchased cars aren't penalized. The city hasn't responded to the proposal, the association's lawyer said.
The association has also sued Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport—where T. Boone Pickens's Clean Energy Fuels Corp. operates three natural-gas fueling stations—in state court, claiming the airport overstepped its authority. The airport board said it approved the front-of-the-line policy at the end of 2009 to help clean the air. The taxi drivers say the real goal was to benefit the natural-gas companies.
The airport declined to comment because the case is in litigation, but spokesman David Magaña said the program reflects "the airport's longstanding commitment to environmental stewardship." Kenneth Nicholson, Clean Energy's general manager for the central U.S., said the dispute has nothing to do with his company or Mr. Pickens.
A trial is scheduled to start Monday in county court to decide whether a temporary restraining order requested by the drivers to block the policy should be made permanent.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ameen has been handing out flyers to cabbies. "It is better to lose a few fares, for a few days," one of them read, "than to lose forever, and be driven out of business."
source: Wall Street Journal
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